Employee Advocacy Helps Travel Brands’ Dreams Come True

Can travel companies dream big? Sure, why not! They make dreams come true for their guests every day. Travel brands need to raise awareness, boost engagement, and increase bookings to stay competitive. The great news is that their very own employees can help them achieve these dreams with a simple social advocacy program, also known as Employee Advocacy. Let’s dig deeper and find out how.

It’s Tough Out There for Travel Brands

Every travel company is lobbying to be seen and heard by consumers in this increasingly competitive environment. Who is going to win and stay front and center in the consumer’s mind? Travel brands are undergoing digital transformation at a rapid pace and while some are further ahead than others, it’s difficult to keep up with all of the brands out there right now. Consumers have many choices. Soaring marketing costs, increased selling costs, increased ad spending, and numerous social channels are all being used right now, all to get consumers to say “YES.” Who are consumers going to trust to fulfill their travel dreams?

Employee Advocacy (A.K.A. “The Dream Maker”)

Forward thinking companies are turning to Employee Advocacy to cut through the market noise and bring back the trusted human element … and it’s working. Travel brands have picked up on this as well and are rolling out Employee Advocacy programs to leverage this gold mine.

Are You Digging for Gold on Your Own Land?

With an Employee Advocacy program, travel companies can amplify their brands and drive engagement with customers and prospects by leveraging their own employees as brand ambassadors. At some travel companies, employees are sharing brand messages across their personal social channels, winning awards and getting rewarded as a part of their Employee Advocacy program. Employees are now being called business partners and have become an integral part of the brand promotion. And this does wonders for the brand by raising awareness, boosting engagement, increasing bookings, building trust, improving employee engagement, extending the brand’s reach, and enhancing brand health. Talk about a dream come true!

The Power of the Employee, Advocating for Your Brand

All benefits are made possible by leveraging the power of the people’s voice a.k.a. your employees advocating for you (the travel company) on their own social channels. It also helps that travel companies can offer up a visual feast for the eyes, making it easy for employees to share travel destinations with beautiful and vivid photographs that truly tease the senses. This is important if we consider how much online research the average consumer performs when planning a trip.

In a study by Google on digital moments, we see just how many touch points take place before someone ends up finally purchasing a ticket. In this case, it was 419 digital moments!

[source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/travel-trends-4-mobile-moments-changing-consumer-journey/]

Now imagine adding the principles of Employee Advocacy to this equation. Do you think that it would help her to make a faster decision? A friend showing her a destination she travelled to, sharing the sights, sounds, food experiences and the emotions. Do you think Amy will start to dream about a vacation, do you think she will start looking up prices to that destination? Would she trust her friend’s experience? For sure, or at least it will get her to start looking at other destinations and travel partners she can turn to help her achieve her travel dreams.

The buying journey for today’s traveler has fundamentally changed and social media is a big part of that. A statistic from Neilson states that in a typical buyer journey, 57% of the purchase decision is made before a customer even calls a service provider or supplier. Employee advocacy creates more digital touchpoints with customers which can help a travel company stand out from the crowd.

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