COVID-19 rewrites the rules of destination marketing

Like most sectors of society, the travel industry came to a screeching halt at the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Now a year and a half later, transportation and hospitality operations continue to face strict and constantly changing restrictions. Airlines, hotels and more have been forced to find alternative ways to market safe travel and new experiences when traditional travel is not possible.

Wanderlust Content Studio, a custom publishing agency for popular destinations, has had a front row seat to the ever-changing industry as a new and growing business. Founded in October of 2020 by Martha-Page Althaus and Nicole Bordges, the agency partners with cities to create print magazines to draw in tourism.

Althaus and Bordges have worked side by side for nearly 15 years now in the visitor magazine industry, and found themselves in similar predicaments when their work ceased completely at the onset of the pandemic. While travel promotion went on hiatus, the pair went to work ironing out the details of creating their own company - a concept they had discussed for years but never had the time to execute until COVID-19. Enjoying complete creative oversight as the sole full-time employees of the agency, the women were able to work with clients that matched their values and create engaging content their own way.

“Print is at the heart of what we do. In 2021 to say that we’re still an old-school print publisher is a little scary and was met with some skepticism when we started the company,” Althaus said. “But we truly believe in the create once, publish everywhere model. Everything starts and ends with the printed page.”

Having built a new business during the pandemic within one of the hardest hit industries, Althaus has a great deal of insight into how destinations and hospitality businesses are altering their communication and messaging techniques to fit the changing times.

Strategic visuals and messaging

When it comes to marketing, several key players in the travel industry face the dilemma of promoting destinations as safe without reminding potential visitors of the pandemic. Wanderlust Content Studio falls into this category. Althaus outlined several of the ways she and other marketing professionals are shifting their creative content to foster a sense of safety without referencing COVID-19.

“We’re trying not to beat the reader or the visitor over the head with COVID-19, because they all know what’s going on in the world," Althaus said. "We don’t know where we’ll be in a year from now, so we’re trying to be evergreen in how we approach the pandemic. It’s been a huge shift in messaging.”

A big part of embracing that shift is photography. Photographs have always been staples in travel marketing, but they tell a different story throughout the pandemic.

“We are super selective in the photography we choose now for the magazine,” Althaus said. “No one wants to see a crowded farmers market shot or a crowded restaurant or bar where people are side by side sitting on barstools. That’s been key, and it’s been a really big part of the travel industry as a whole and how they’re marketing themselves.”

A spread from The Petaluma 2020-2021 Visitor Guide by Wanderlust Content Studio.

Although consumers don’t want to see crowded spaces, they're still hungry for the sense of adventure and escape that often accompanies travel photography. Althaus referenced the industry-wide debate: to include or not to include masks in photos promoting travel destinations. She stated that Wanderlust Content Studio ultimately decided to shoot maskless photos, assuming that people understand that masks are a given in reality, a choice that many others have made to preserve the positive feelings photography elicits.

Ulrike Gretzel, a senior research fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations, has completed a great deal of research on travel influencers throughout the pandemic, whose careers center around photography, and provided further insight into the importance of photography in travel marketing in relation to the pandemic.

Influencer photo content is a powerful way to elicit a response from potential travelers. Photo by Asad Photo Maldives from Pexels.

“They’re giving an audience that was locked down something to dream about,” Gretzel said. “The audience is still craving that interaction, maybe even more so than before.”

Beyond shifting the scope of visual presentations, travel marketers have also employed careful wording to represent destinations and promote tourism.

The rise of the staycation

A major travel trend brought on by the pandemic is a local focus, something advertisers are frequently tapping into. Althaus said that one of their biggest marketing strategies throughout COVID-19 has been to push the travel and shop local angle and promote interstate travel.

In September of 2021, views like this one at The Piedmont Triad International Airport are still foreign to many. Photo by Ali Scheinfeld.

“A lot of people still aren’t ready to get on a plane and take that big trip like they would have in 2019, so we’re tailoring our messages in the magazine to the people who actually live in that city,” Althaus said. “That was a big twist for us this past year.”

Gretzel emphasized this point, citing travel influencers as a significant example of the narrowing travel scope. In order to continue producing travel content throughout lockdowns and restrictions, many influencers began reaching out to businesses in their own communities and adopted a regional focus, encouraging followers to do the same.

“Most of our clients are in California, and the push has been inter-California travel,” Althaus said. "So people in LA going to Santa Barbara for the weekend. People in San Francisco going to wine country. It’s very much keeping it local and not promoting to the international audience the way they used to. That will come back, I just don’t know when.”

Reimagined distribution tactics

In response to the pandemic, many businesses shifted to paperless business models to minimize contact opportunities, eliminating the traditional distribution methods of many travel marketers - especially in the magazine industry. Dogan Gursoy, a professor at Washington State University, said that some hotels and restaurants are even using robots to deliver products to guests and customers.

The age of QR codes and AI technology offers many benefits but poses significant challenges for travel businesses like Wanderlust Content Studio that rely on print advertisements landing in the hands of active travelers in airports, train stations, hotel rooms and more. Not only are there fewer opportunities to get printed products into these locations, tourists are also visiting them at significantly lower frequencies.

Check-in counters still lie vacant at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in September of 2021. Photo by Ali Scheinfeld.

To combat this, Althaus said they’ve been focusing on creating digital packages from print material for clients to share on their own channels. She said they’ve also recently been pushing to get their magazines into Airbnbs as travelers seem to feel safer in rented homes than hotel rooms. She said many travel agencies are taking similar approaches to find new ways to distribute content, with social media and creative locations being the key ways to do it.

“I think the demand for what we do is still there,” Althaus said. “We are still publishing magazines and just getting them into the hands of readers in a different way.”

Emerging industry terms and trends

Despite the trials and tribulations the travel industry has faced throughout the pandemic, Althaus shared several positive themes that have emerged, each representing new marketing veins to tap into and opportunities to permanently redefine the way we travel.

Three notable terms have taken root in the industry and redirected communications strategies: respectful travel, slow travel and revenge travel.

Althaus described respectful travel as the process of being more mindful of local businesses and their protocols, other people’s space and the environment in order to have a lesser impact. She said consumers should be asking, “How can we make better decisions when we travel? How can we lessen our footprint and take only pictures and leave everything else?”

Slow travel relates to being more thoughtful when picking travel destinations and experiences, and maybe even staying longer to dig deeper into an area. Althaus said working remotely has allowed more people to travel for longer periods of time, with the trend towards Airbnbs over hotels furthering the concept.

The last term, revenge travel, is Althaus’ favorite. It’s the idea of reclaiming the lost time from the past two years and finally planning that bucket list trip and taking it. She said that the pent up desire to travel has persuaded many consumers to be less concerned about costs and invest in their dream trip, opening up a great selling point for advertisers.