Moving Forward with Your Travel Content
I just visited an interesting and luxuriously branded website at Velyagroup.com that you’ll instantly recognize as unique and elegant. What a great start to build a unique spot in the travel market landscape!
There’s something Velya Group may be missing though — real, authentic content experiences for their audience where they can feel their travel dream and experience their joy of travel.
Any travel website without its own unique content experiences that help visitors visualize their travel dream will suffer a lot of bounces and lost sales. Prospects want to visualize and experience their trip emotionally, because it’s this dream that they’re buying, not someone else’s dream. Without unique content and unique narrative, your value proposition is hollow, and they don’t associate your company with trip satisfaction.
Another agency I was researching borrowers or republishes supplier’s blog posts and corporate content on their website. They have virtually no free, organic traffic to their travel website. And in using borrowed content, their brand comes out as though it says, “we borrow from others.” And that says “why don’t you just head to our supplier’s websites and booking pages?” Anyone booking on Expedia, Booking.com, or Travelocity thinks to themselves, “am I missing something here?” Your special view is just dressing, it’s not the meal, but it’s so important. You deliver it via your unique additions and expressions, whether blogs, copywriting, trip and tour descriptions, photos, illustrations, videos, quotes, insights, advice, customer testimonials, or your personal travel experiences.
And as Vela Group says, “We understand the unique needs and preferences of our clients.” Unique content gives living, authentic, trustworthy evidence that you understand your customer. Without that, how can they consider your service/company special, significant and memorable? And bonus: it helps you capture unique clientele.
Your Unique Copy and Visual Narrative
Conversely, having your own unique, original, and branded content experiences creates a unique narrative that you will own. It tells customers they’ll be working closely with you, backed by you and your promise, and to encourage them to be appreciative that they’re your customer. Of course, we wouldn’t use blunt promises, but rather include words, ideas, and visuals that conjure up subtle benefits woven into a believable narrative.
The goal: Original, unique content style and assets that gets them visualizing you, your advisors and the travel adventure as the only one they’ll ever want. They connect with you emotionally, and build preference for your brand and advisors. Then suppliers fade into the background, and so do your competitors.
I’ve come across a swath of SMB travel businesses that are getting by it seems, but might be having troubles of late due to the shrinking travel market. But in any travel market, winners rarely lose. It’s always better to be number one or two because you own whatever sales and revenue are there at any time. And growth/equity investors may not invest in companies way back in the pack. They invest in the unique ones standing out with clear brand differentiation.
Unique Content Creates Relevance and Emotional Impact
Content is the medium of digital travel experiences – the core of the online, preplanning anticipation-building engagement that precedes bookings. It’s more than just the color or flavor of it too, aside from the brand rhetoric. It’s the topics, keywords, phrasing, comments, values, and spirit in it, that visitors experience. It’s the act of fulfillment such as dealing with emergencies and special requests. All of these things wrap around the essence of what they’re looking for in their perfect vacation. It’s all about them, which is what your content actually should say.
Of course, SMB travel agencies and tour operator companies may not be brimming with confidence. And the issue there, is research and visualization.
How about exploring what is possible and how you can apply unique items to your website, emails, booking pages, and even your social media posts?
- Tell Human Stories (Not Just Describe Destinations)
- “Meet the Locals” Interviews – Feature conversations with guides, chefs, or artisans travelers might meet on their trips.
- Traveler Spotlights – Share real customer stories (written or video) about transformative moments from their trips.
- Behind-the-Scenes Tours – Show how you design trips, introduce your team, or reveal hidden gems you’ve discovered.
- Create “Why You Should Book With Us” Content
- “The [Your Company] Difference” – Explain what makes your service special (e.g., personalized itineraries, crisis support, insider access).
- “What Our Competitors Don’t Tell You” – Honest insights about common pitfalls in travel planning and how you avoid them.
- “A Day in the Life of Your Trip” – Walk through a typical day on one of your tours to help travelers visualize the experience.
- Emotion-Driven Travel Guides (Beyond Generic Lists)
- “The Secret Side of [Destination]” – Curate lesser-known spots with personal anecdotes.
- “How [Destination] Changed Me” – A reflective piece from you or a traveler about a meaningful experience.
- “Why [Destination] Isn’t What You Think” – Challenge stereotypes (e.g., “Why Morocco is More Than Just Markets”).
- Interactive & Engaging Formats
- “Choose Your Own Adventure” Quiz – Help travelers pick their ideal trip with a fun interactive tool.
- Virtual Tour Snippets – Short videos teasing destinations with insider commentary.
- Packing Lists with a Twist – Instead of generic lists, tie items to experiences (e.g., “This scarf is perfect for a sunset in Santorini”).
- Leverage Your Team’s Expertise
- “Ask a Travel Advisor” Series – Answer real customer questions in blog posts or videos.
- “Mistakes We’ve Fixed for Clients” – Share real examples (without naming names) of how you’ve saved trips.
- “Our Team’s Favorite Hidden Gems” – Personal recommendations from your staff.
- Build Anticipation with Pre-Trip Content
- “What to Get Excited About” Emails – Send curated previews (e.g., a local recipe to try before their trip).
- “Countdown to Adventure” Social Series – Post fun facts or tips in the weeks leading up to a booked trip.
- Post-Trip Engagement (Keep the Magic Alive)
- “How to Bring [Destination] Home” – Share cultural practices, recipes, or decor ideas.
- “Your Photos, Our Story” – Feature customer-submitted travel photos with captions.
- “Where to Next?” Follow-Up Guides – Suggest their next adventure based on past trips.
Key Takeaway for Travel Brands
Original content isn’t just about SEO—it’s about owning your narrative and infusing it with real experience and expertise. When travelers feel an emotional pull from your stories, they’ll book with you instead of a faceless OTA.
What will your new content strategy look like?
It’s a collection of engaging experiences (places, events, tours, etc.) that features advisor personal views, traveler observations, trip insights, stories, local people, traveler comments, and more, all assembled to make your trips seem to be the glue that brings them together. In a cluster/flow chart (as I utilize), you can visualize the connections between trip features and the traveler’s dream experience. You identify the benefits and find ways to bind them to customers.
Even if your contributions are light and few, just the fact you’re doing this delivers the right message to visitors – that you sell unique and meaningful trips and tours. So even if you or your content creators don’t have the ultimate, real-life experiences to share with them, don’t fall back on your heels. Start with what you have and build out unique trip stories and descriptions. In the end, they’re buying the vision you’re creating in their minds – not your experiences.
And this is why so much travel storytelling fails to convert. The story has to create their experience.
It’s time to get started with SEO and content strategy. Contact me about helping you get started.
