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When online bookings are a big part of your business, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you need to reach far and wide to find success. But it’s always worth developing local sources of business, whether your core customer base is international travelers or regulars from your neighborhood. Local bookings are also a powerful tool to help tourism operators weather any global crisis, whether travel dries up due to pandemics, fuel crises, or fears of international instability.
And marketing locally doesn’t just mean marketing to locals. While the global staycation market has grown to a half-billion dollar industry, in-destination bookings are even bigger. A third of all travelers book same-day experiences, relying on local advertising, recommendations, and search to make their booking choices. If you’re not marketing locally, you’re missing out on a huge group of travelers, staycationers and local adventurers who are eager to book.
So how do you reach the customers who are already in your own back yard?
Make sure your activities show up on local search
When we’re looking for a fun way to spend a day, the first thing most of us do is pull out our phones. According to research from SEO firm Uberall, an incredible 91% of survey respondents find local businesses through search tools. Not a single respondent skipped out on local search.
It’s imperative that your business shows up in local search and AI recommendations. If you have a booking website, you’re already partway there—when Google’s algorithms work their magic, a well-optimized website will contribute to your rankings and recommendations. But if you want to be sure that customers will find you when they want to book something nearby, you also need to make sure you’re listed in local search resources—particularly Google Business Profile.
Business profiles increasingly drive local search results, allowing guests to find you when they search for something nearby, use map apps, or just use Google while they’re in your area . Since local search is a daily habit for nearly everyone, you don’t want to let these free hits slip away.
Invest in locally-targeted ads
Online ads can be an expensive prospect, but if you know exactly who you want to reach, you can keep to a reasonable advertising budget.
Advertising platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads work best when you are trying to reach specific groups. Constraining your ads to specific locations and user demographics doesn’t just save you money—it also makes your campaigns much more effective.
Start by looking at the customers you currently have. Where are they from? What are their demographics? What are they getting out of your products?
Target a campaign at locals who can book on a whim with compelling reasons to do just that, and you can stretch your advertising a lot further.
Build relationships with local distributors
Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are often great partners for tour and activity businesses that want to expand locally. They work hard to expand your destination’s profile globally, but many also focus efforts on local travel, and they can be quick to pivot when international travel falters. You might be surprised by how effective it can be to have your ads in local travel guides, your brochures on high-visibility racks, and your name on the lips of local travel advisors.
Activity desks and visitor information centers (VICs) may seem old-fashioned, but they’re also a big source of local bookings for many tour and activity companies. The majority of visitors to information centers are there looking for things to see and do, so you can be certain that your efforts are reaching the right audience.
And while you’re building relationships with local distributors, don’t forget about hotel concierges. Concierges have a reputation for local expertise to maintain, so working with them is a great way to reach travelers who want a truly local experience. When travel drops off, you don’t want concierge partnerships to be your only connection to in-destination bookings, but it’s another powerful channel to take advantage of when you can.
Rezgo offers a full suite of tools to support working with concierges and other local distributors, including commission price sheets, referral tracking, comprehensive reports, and more. With all that, you’re ready to start cultivating relationships with concierges.
Team up with local influencers
Social media influencers aren’t just huge, international celebrities with millions of followers. Micro-influencers, who might only have a few thousand followers online, tend to have more engaged audiences than the big names. Depending on their focus, this can make them perfect for your local marketing efforts.
If you already have a successful Instagram or TikTok account, you might not even need to look far. It’s likely you have micro-influencers who already follow you, or who’ve done business with you, and those are a natural starting point for local marketing. Otherwise, dig into local hashtags and see who’s getting attention and whose brand works well with yours. Getting your tours and activities into their photos, videos and stories can be a great way to drum up interest from engaged locals.
Don’t be afraid to look at other platforms, too. While Instagram and TikTok dominate the influencer conversation, they’re not the right platform for every demographic – maybe your guests are Facebook types, or thrive on YouTube shorts. To succeed at local marketing, you need to be wherever your ideal customers can be found.
Stay loyal to your local customers
While you’re doing all you can to reach new customers in your neighborhood, don’t forget the old ones. Your existing guests are one of the most effective resources in your marketing toolbox.
Local guests are particularly good targets for personalized campaigns. Give them the tools they need to spread positive word of mouth: links to leave reviews on your website and local search profiles, promos to share with friends and family, referral programs and loyalty programs to keep them coming back for more.
By making good use of the customer data you already have, you can increase local bookings without breaking the budget.
No matter where your bookings come from, be it close to home or around the globe, your online booking platform can help. Rezgo makes it simple to work with local distributors, to track important customer data, and most importantly, to get bookings from customers wherever they might be, near or far.
And if you’re on the other side of the local marketing equation, learn more about our booking software options for destination marketing organizations (DMOs).
Written By | Nissa Campbell
