10 Tour Marketing Ideas & Strategies for Promotion in 2025

So, you have a travel business and are in dire need of tour marketing ideas. Don’t sweat it. We’ve been in the game long enough to know a thing or two about the travel and tourism industry, so you’re in good hands.

It’s not uncommon for beginners to have built a tourism marketing strategy, but have found that their marketing efforts have come to naught. In this ever-changing landscape, you need constant innovative strategies to keep up. But the creative juices might not constantly flow at their full potential, so it’s easy to get stuck.

What now? Keep reading to discover how to market your tour business to your brick-and-mortar or online community.

First Things First: The Future of Tourism Marketing

The travel industry, like the internet, is constantly changing. So, tourism marketing strategies have to keep updating their systems to keep up-to-date.

AI is Here to Stay

A few years back, many people didn’t think that artificial intelligence would have the boom it does today. But it’s safe to say that AI is here to stay. So, incorporating it into your marketing strategy can only do you good.

Here are a few ways you can add this to your strategy for your tour business:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO tools like Surfer SEO help users do SEO audits and write compelling, optimized content in real-time.
• Social Media Management: With the help of AI, businesses can now cut their time planning their social media strategy in half. Many (free) sites allow users to schedule posts, write captions, and find the best hashtags.
• Content Generation: Many sites and apps like DALL-E or ChatGPT are able to generate images, captions, blog posts, emails, and newsletters in minutes.
• Data Analysis: Working with a list of user metrics, you can now tweak your strategy to meet the business and company requirements.
• 24/7 Assistance: AI is a wonderful way to assist customers of different languages and time zones effectively and instantly through chatbots.

Mobile Users are Taking the Lead

According to this study, about 53% of web users prefer mobile devices to desktops while searching. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to see why, considering that a smartphone is more portable and convenient.

So, ensuring a smooth customer experience through a UX and UI lens is critical. Mobile sites don’t need to be complicated. They just need to be straightforward (and work).

To optimize your mobile site for prospective customers, set up mobile web analytics software, like Google Analytics, similar to what you would do for your site. Through these, you can then pinpoint user behaviors like bounce rates, conversions, and search terms and tweak them as needed.

Social Media

Social media remains one of the most effective marketing channels because it allows visibility and social proof at a very low price point. A good strategy marketing for travel and tourism encourages travelers to engage and (hopefully) click on your site.

The future of social media sees it leaning more toward:

Micro-influencers

These influencers have a low follower count of 5000 to 100,000. They typically have a slightly bigger follower count than the average user but still less than mainstream influencers. These smaller accounts are perfect for low-cost promotions. Why? They have a much higher chance of better engagement, creating a familiar environment often built on trust.

Video Marketing

Video content is big right now – especially when it comes to tourism promotions. Think virtual tours, YouTube content, vlogs, and so much more. These are a perfect way to create FOMO in potential customers encouraging them to add to cart.

10 Effective Tourism Advertising Ideas You Can Implement Today

It can be overwhelming initially to think of all the changes you’ll have to make, but we’ve broken it down so you can start implementing the plan today.

Cover the Basics First

Covering all of the basics will help you reach potential customers and retain them while you build out your marketing strategy.

Brand Identity

Tourism marketing is a saturated market. Standing out is more important than ever. With a strong brand presence, even if you don’t convert, you’re still at the forefront of your customers’ minds when they are ready to book a tour.

Define Your Potential Customers

You can’t reach your target audience if you don’t know who they are. This might take a lengthy brainstorming session, but it is worth it.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when building a customer profile:

• Age
• Location
• Goals
• Interests
• Wants
• Needs

Show your Expertise

You can show your expertise in tourism promotion in many ways through high-quality content. Be it through travel blogs, videos, podcasts, reviews, or referrals. The key element is that people find it helpful.

Not blessed with the gift of the gab? Let us help you with optimized content for your site.

Keep Up to Date With Advertising Tourism

Staying ahead of travel trends helps you stay ahead and gives you that competitive edge amongst your peers.

As an example, when COVID-19 hit, travel agencies were scrambling to try and keep money flowing consistently. However, some forward-thinking companies stayed ahead of the AI and augmented reality games and offered virtual tours and live video streams. They also invested more in mobile and social media.

As a result, they had many travelers with itchy feet flocking to their sites to make up for the travel restrictions. In this case, staying up-to-date helped them pivot swiftly and reduce cost losses.

You can stay ahead through social media, niche blog posts in your field, or even travel conferences in your area.

Read more: Hospitality Marketing in 2024 – Industry Trends & How to Jump on Them

Optimize Your Site

SEO remains in a never-ending state of flux, so there is no shame in getting a group of experts to assist you with SEO content marketing. That said, posting more isn’t the best practice if the existing content isn’t discoverable, helpful, or aligned with the E-E-A-T criteria.

So, take some time to optimize your desktop and mobile site first.

Consider Social Media Marketing Strategies

Social media statistics show that in 2025, the amount of social media users swelled to 5.2 billion. This means social media pages are a powerful tool for helping businesses reach their ideal customers at no cost. So, compiling a winning social media strategy is key in this digital age.

Which social media channels you use will depend solely on your purpose and customers. Facebook remains the Swiss army knife for many businesses as it includes various tools, from analytics tools and post scheduling to video.

That said, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok are also high-traffic social media channels. All of these thrive when brands and companies strive for authenticity and employ user-generated content. More on this later.

Email Marketing Campaigns Are Still Big

To some, emails and newsletters may seem outdated, but they remain helpful in increasing traffic to your travel website. And they help you stay connected to your audience.

To start, you’ll need an email list. One of the best ways to do this is to encourage people who visit your website or social media platforms to sign up for a regular newsletter. This campaign should include helpful information to incentivize your audience to sign up and eventually stay hooked.

Remember that your email newsletters should always include a call to action like ‘click here to book a tour’ or ‘contact us here.’

AI and Automation are Not the Enemy

Artificial Intelligence is a complex system that many of us (and Google) are still learning about, so detecting AI-generated content can be tricky. But who says that’s a bad thing?

As of 2023, Google no longer penalizes users for using AI to generate content. In fact, Google encourages using AI to help create high-quality content, as long as it’s not spammy. But how?

Generative AI uses Large Language Models (LLMs) as a tool to understand human language and prompts. Marketers can capitalize on this by creating chatbots or conversational AI to assist customers 24/7.

Amplify Authenticity with Social Proof

While AI is great, it takes away from the human experience and authenticity. It also lacks the warmth of a human that many crave during customer experiences. You should always insert a more human element into your marketing.

User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to enhance your engagement and visibility to a wider audience. This can come from reviews, social media, posts, and videos.

Hot tip: According to this report, 81% of shoppers read product reviews before purchasing. This means that reviews and referrals heavily influence a consumer’s decision-making.

Keep it Local

One of the easiest ways to optimize your tour business for search engines is to register your company on Google’s Business Profile (formerly Google My Business Listing) and TripAdvisor. These local listings ensure you’re easy to find online and help bring organic traffic to your site.

Another great way to get eyes on your business at a minimal cost is to collaborate with local businesses in your area. This works similarly to how micro-influencers work for big companies in that these niche pages attract similar audiences. Smaller sites and social media pages typically also have a more engaged audience and are more trusted, making conversion somewhat easier.

Have an Easy Booking System

Gone are the days of walking into a tour company and booking a holiday. Now, you can make direct bookings online through a tourism business, if the site allows.

After all, if your site can accept online bookings, you’ll have a higher chance of converting. That’s why you need a straightforward booking process – anything too complicated, and you risk losing a potential customer out of frustration.

Page speed, price transparency, and honesty are other elements that go hand in hand with this point. These elements are necessary for you to avoid a high bounce rate.

Read more: Using SEO to Get More Direct Bookings

Use Video

Promo videos are a fantastic way to spark excitement for upcoming events and promotions. Thankfully, in this day and age, you don’t have to hire an entire camera crew to record a short snippet. A smartphone and in-app editing are more than sufficient.

Use these videos to grip potential customers’ attention and possibly click on your website for more information. These videos can show something as simple as introducing new trips and tours, or even a way to show users behind the scenes of your tours.

Final Thoughts on Ideas Tour Marketing

To explain promotional methods used by the hospitality and tourism industry, you must know the competitive landscape. So, we always recommend staying updated with the travel industry and your brand identity first. Once you have that on pat, you can start by following the marketing strategies listed above to attract tourists best.

Our top marketing tips include keeping your site visible to search engines, be that through social media or Google Business. This way, potential customers can look up online reviews (the good and bad) and form their own opinions about your business and hopefully convert.

So, which of the following marketing strategies can be best employed for attracting tourists to you?

If you’re hoping to increase your marketing efforts but don’t have the time or skills to do so yourself, get in touch with us, and we’d be more than happy to help you.