Knowing how to create loyal travellers is an essential part of the travel marketing industry. It has many benefits and can help take a travel business to the next level. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what customer loyalty is, and how you can successfully create loyal travellers.
What is customer loyalty, and why do you need it?
Customer loyalty refers to the adherence of customers to a specific brand or company over time.
In the travel marketing industry, this generally takes the form of travellers repeatedly choosing the same travel provider, whether for booking flights, accommodations, or other travel-related services.
Loyal customers help to drive business, not only through their own purchases, but through advocating for the brand, which may influence others’ travel choices.
There are many different benefits to building a loyal customer base, including the following:
- Repeat business: Repeat business helps to establish a steady revenue stream and predictable demand since loyal customers are more likely to return for future bookings. This reduces the need for intensive customer acquisition and allows businesses to better forecast demand and plan their offerings accordingly.
- Increased customer lifetime value (CLV): Loyal customers typically spend more over their lifetimes and are more inclined to purchase additional services, upgrades, and premium packages, which helps contribute to a higher CLV. It also translates into greater profitability, as the cost of serving loyal customers is generally lower than acquiring new ones.
- Positive word-of-mouth marketing: Loyal customers often become brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences with friends, family, and on social media. This can attract new customers and enhance the brand’s reputation. It can also enhance the credibility of a travel brand, making it more appealing to potential customers.
- Customer retention: By retaining existing customers, you reduce churn and the associated marketing costs. Loyal customers are less likely to switch to competitors, providing stability and reducing the impact of market fluctuations. They also tend to be more engaged and responsive to marketing efforts like loyalty programs, special offers, and feedback surveys.
Customer loyalty is a vital component of a travel brand’s success. By cultivating loyalty, travel businesses can enjoy repeat business, increased CLV, positive word-of-mouth, and improved customer retention—all of which contribute to long-term growth and stability in a competitive marketplace.
How to create a loyal customer
In the travel industry, as with any other industry, customer retention is an essential goal. You need strategies and techniques that can help you retain any new customers that you get. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the key points required to create a loyal customer.
Understand your customers and their needs:
The first thing of optimal importance is that you need to understand your customers. This is one of the reasons why market research is vital in the travel and tourism industries.
Some steps that you can take to help you understand your customers better include conducting surveys and focus groups to help you gather data about what your customers want. Regularly gathering feedback from existing customers will enable you to understand the factors that make them want to use your service.
It’s also important to stay up to date with industry trends and to analyse your booking data to give you additional insight into the purchasing habits of your customers.
Always be reachable
In modern times, customers are often used to having access to information around-the-clock. For this reason, it’s important to have a system in place where people can always have their questions answered. In some cases, this may simply be a complex AI-powered bot, but you need to implement tools that allow for immediate customer service responses.
However, it’s important to provide multiple contact options, including email, phone, chat, and social media. And again, you should be using these tools to help you garner feedback from customers and give you further insight into your target market.
Go beyond selling travel
Your customers want to know that you value them, and aren’t just offering a service or product. One way to help ensure that you’re retaining customer loyalty is to provide tailored travel recommendations and tips based on individual preferences.
Another thing that you can do is to create and share interesting travel content that inspires and informs. By doing this on various platforms, you can improve your travel marketing SEO while reaching out to more prospective clients.
Always personalise your communication
No-one likes feeling like a statistic, and it’s vital that you personalise email campaigns and promotional offers based on customer data. This helps you to demonstrate that you understand and anticipate your customers' unique needs.
Be flexible and adaptable
Every customer is unique, and it’s essential that you meet their needs, even when they don’t fit the standard model. For this reason, you should aim to provide options that cater to varying customer needs and preferences.
This entails a large degree of responsiveness, being able to quickly adapt to changes and address any challenges that arise.
Listen to feedback and act on it
Accumulating feedback is only useful if you use that feedback to improve the customer experience. Try to use feedback to continuously refine and enhance your services, thereby ensuring loyalty through helping customers feel heard and valued. It will also demonstrate your dedication to delivering the best possible service.
Introduce loyalty programs and incentives
One of the best ways to create loyal customers and ensure customer retention and loyalty is to run loyalty programs and other incentives that reward customers for staying loyal to your brand.
The most obvious route is to create a loyalty program that provides rewards and benefits for repeat customers. However, you may also want to consider building a platform for loyal customers to connect and share their experiences.
Host events and create a sense of community
Another important aspect is to help your clients and customers feel like they’re part of something bigger. An excellent way to accomplice this is to host virtual or in-person events to engage with your customers and strengthen relationships.
You also want to foster connections, encouraging interaction among customers to build a sense of belonging and community.
By implementing these points, travel brands can effectively build and maintain customer loyalty in an increasingly virtual world. Personalisation, engagement, and adaptability are key to creating lasting relationships and fostering a loyal customer base.
Strategies to build brand loyalty with travellers
When you’re trying to build rapport with clients, it requires a multifaceted approach that combines cutting-edge technology with a genuine focus on customer relationships. Below, we’ll take a look at a few strategies that can help accomplish this.
Leverage data-driven insights and ai-powered personalisation
Today, the market is crowded with many different travel businesses. In order to stand out, you need to leverage all the tools at your disposal, including the power of data and artificial intelligence (AI) for personalisation.
Analysing traveller data to understand individual preferences and behaviours is essential as it enables you to tailor content and offers specifically to each traveller’s interests and needs.
From destinations and activities to travel packages, AI can help you use past behaviours and preferences to make accurate predictions, thereby creating a more relevant and engaging experience.
AI-driven tools can also help you provide personalised guidance throughout every aspect of the travel journey. By integrating AI into customer service channels, you can provide real-time, relevant recommendations and assistance, without needing to pay someone to respond to queries full-time.
Maximise engagement with omnichannel journeys
In today’s digitally-driven world, it’s essential to us omni-channel marketing. Not only are people using many more channels than before, but not all people use all channels. From websites and social media to mobile apps and email, it’s vital to provide a seamless and consistent experience across all these touchpoints.
Ensure that your brand identity (message, service quality, and user experience) are universally consistent, and that personalisation extends across these channels.
For example, if a traveller engages with your brand on social media before visiting your website, the experience should be consistent on both platforms. This helps create a smooth and integrated journey in every aspect of your omnichannel marketing strategy.
Forge real connections
If you want to successfully build brand loyalty, you need to forge genuine connections with travellers. This means going beyond transactional interactions and focusing on delivering excellent service, creating memorable experiences, and nurturing long-term relationships.
It’s worth training your staff to provide the type of service you want customers to experience, and to go above and beyond customer expectations.
You also need to focus on cultivating relationships by engaging with travellers on a personal level. This may take the form of thoughtful follow-ups, personalised thank-you messages, or exclusive offers.
When you demonstrate this level of commitment to their satisfaction and well-being, you’ll enhance their travel experience while encouraging repeat business and long-term loyalty.
Conclusion
As you can see, leveraging different tools and cornerstones is essential to building brand loyalty. In the travel industry, brand loyalty is an essential part of keeping the business running and helping to keep things running smoothly.
From using modern technologies to making the time to connect with people, there are so many ways to encourage traveller loyalty. All you need to do is put them in practice.
Take the next step with our travel and tourism marketing services, and you’ll see improved loyalty in no time.
