Selling Vibes to Travel Customers?
Most travel salespeople would agree that the customer’s wants and pain points are the core of any selling strategy.
Travel decisions are complex and emotional, and travelers tap into emotional reasoning to simplify their decision. A basically, that means they rely on the “vibes” the get about your trips, website, brand and content.
Emotions and feelings are associated with those wants and pains. Travelers don’t buy trips based on wants and needs, but rather how they feel about a trip, destination and experience. These “vibes” that are conjured up from thinking about or remembering a destination become paramount in travel choices. Of course, travel marketers have always known this loosely, but it be time to get a little more clinical about it — it’s an opportunity.
Travel memories + invoked expectations are a powerful force in travel decisions.
With all that’s expected in content, copywriting, SEO, product info, branding, impactfulness, and persuasion, designing content experiences for “vibes” puts your content creator in the hot seat.
Great, so let’s dive into what vibes are and what creates them.
“Of particular interest is a notable shift from focusing on a trip to-do list to an emphasis on how one feels during travel.
Virtuoso’s research has identified that travelers prioritize curiosity and exploration (77 %), joy and happiness (65%) and awe and wonder of nature (57%) as the top emotional drivers for luxury travelers. The intangibles of a travel experience are more compelling than checking off bucket list items.” — Virtuoso Travel Survey.
Travelers Seeking Positive Vibes
It seems more travelers are zeroed in on the feelings or vibes they get from travel ideas. Imagination is key part of pre-travel. And that might be the impressions/ideas they get from your website, social media channels, and email campaigns. It’s a package of messages both visual and textual about the trips you sell.
Some of the vibes come from their memories of their previous trips — experiences with your actual brand. There’s a vibe in everything including online media, your travel brand, your trip packages and blogs, your staff, and the trip planning and booking experience.
What is a Vibe?
The term is short for mood vibration. Wellness people speak of energy vibrations and in fact, the hippies of the 1960’s also spoke of “good vibrations” –a popular song by the Beach Boys. When the matter comes up in conversation, we might guess that people aren’t feeling good vibes in their life circumstance, or not enough of them so when they feel good vibes it puts them in a receptive state.
They might have been deprived of emotional experiences that reflect an enjoyable, meaningful existence. Then they attribute their mood to the things around them. If we play our cards right, we can associate your company with their hopes, creating the vibes they like.
Some travel to capture those missing feelings. You’ve seen photos of people in a Yoga or Meditation activity and it does depict people trying to achieve good vibes of relaxation, relief, mindfulness and mental poise – all good things. It’s these good feelings that make them focus on destinations such as Costa Rica, Mexico, Caribbean, Rocky Mountains or Canada.
If would-be travelers are out of sync with life, or not tuned into a trip, they won’t book unless it somehow resonates with them emotionally. Of course, emotions drive attention and power action.
The task for a travel agency then, would be to identify the emotional states they desire, and then build a path back to the travel website (and bookings page). That’s paving the path to fulfillment.
Black Tomato and the Feelings Engine
The travel sector is always innovating, and of course the AI entrepreneurs are developing new AI trip planner solutions (e.g., Mindtrip.ai) to make pre-trip planning more fun and effective.
Black Tomato has created a Feelings Engine, a Chatbot powered app that asks travelers what experience they like to have, and how they’d like to feel. It suggests a perfect vacation destination and itinerary for them. I asked it for something laid back and easy going to lower my pulse and blood pressure, in a tropical setting. It suggested La Selva Maya & Ambergris Caye: Jungles, Jaguars & Private Islands in Belize which I don’t know much about.
The Feelings Engine provides a quick pre-trip view and then sends you onto the bookings page.
In this way, they’re giving us a perfect vacation based on the feelings we’d like to feel. This whole matter of pre-trip visualization might be well worth your time to study.
Black Tomato hired an Generative AI technology company called Ragu.ai, to adapt a chatbot to suit this purpose. It funnels all inquiries into a collection of 400 travel itineraries which Black Tomato offers. Very smart!
“When we started the company in 2005, we had this perspective that often we didn’t know where we wanted to go, but we knew how we wanted to feel,” he explains. “On the first iteration of our website, we actually listed experiences according to the emotional need they’d fulfill. So when we started discussing this platform 18 months ago, we knew we wanted to create something that celebrates and reinforces the power of feelings, and brings travel’s ability to move you back to the fore.” — Black Tomato cofounder Tom Marchant via Forbes.com interview.
What are the Feelings that Create Positive Vibes?
Emotions and feelings are ethereal things that few venture to understand. The topic can get deep into consumer psychology. However, for an easy introduction and helper for you as a travel agency owner, we might focus on 8 key emotions that are frequently present in travel vibes.
- Escape and Freedom → Relief
- The primary emotion here is relief, as people look for a break from stress, work pressures, or routine. Travel gives them the space to mentally and emotionally relax, away from everyday burdens.
- Adventure and Exploration → Excitement
- The core emotion tied to seeking adventure is excitement. Travel represents a thrill, whether it’s the anticipation of trying new things or the rush of exploring unfamiliar destinations (novelty) and activating unused parts of the brain.
- Connection and Belonging → Love
- The fundamental emotion is love—whether it’s bonding with family, making memories or new friends, or experiencing warmth in new cultures, travel fosters emotional connections and a sense of community.
- Relaxation and Rejuvenation → Peace
- Travel geared toward relaxation evokes the feeling of peace. People want to unwind, reset, and find tranquility, whether through nature, spa experiences, or time spent with loved ones.
- Achievement and Personal Growth → Self-Esteem/Confidence
- The emotion that arises from travel-related achievements or self-discovery is self-esteem. Traveling to destinations known, experiencing a culture, overcoming fears, completing a challenging hike or gaining new insights about oneself brings a deep sense of accomplishment and personal meaning and growth.
- Nostalgia and Emotional Connection to Places → Sentimentality
- The core feeling here is sentimentality. Revisiting cherished places or reliving past experiences brings about fond memories, emotional reflection, and a deep connection to one’s history.
- Status and Recognition → Admiration
- Travel that signals status or exclusivity often triggers the feeling of admiration. Whether it’s seeking validation through shared experiences or being recognized for achieving luxury or exclusive travel, it’s about gaining respect and admiration from others.
- Joy and Happiness → Happiness
- The simplest yet most universal emotion, happiness, is the driving force behind pleasure-seeking travel. Whether it’s through beautiful landscapes, delicious food, or joyful moments with others, the ultimate goal is to feel happy and fulfilled.
How to Deliver Good Vibes to Travelers
Before you delve into Generative AI travel planners, remember that authentic, rich pre-travel experiences are what they’re looking for. Generative AI can’t deliver that on its own. With a well-researched and crafted plan for content that stimulates positive vibes, you have the right online experience for them.
The cost to develop your own ChatGPT-based AI travel planner would be prohibitive, however, some Generative AI bots may be customizable for much less. A current Generative AI tool you can try out is ChatGPT Ultimate Travel Planner 5.0.
It’s possible that you might be able to integrate an AI-powered AI tool and map it to all of your trips just as Black Orange has done. With DeepSeek’s cheaper, easier LLM solution, many travel agencies may soon be able to utilize a Chatbot agent or travel planner to serve more good vibes for new prospects and current clients. As travel entrepreneurs know, as costs fall, a tidal wave of travel companies will integrate AI tools into their websites.
I’m exploring this major trend in online travel to help you confidently move into the Travel AI era. Bookmark this blog and return for updates!
Do you need help for your travel agency marketing? Hiring an AI-powered travel marketing specialist captures the specialized care and creativity needed to establish your brand and offer to today’s demanding travel consumers.
Title image: Designed by Freepik.
