Overcoming Travel Buyer’s Inertia or Hesitation
Is visitor/customer hesitation, doubt, inertia or some other apprehension ruining all your marketing efforts. Looks like you’ll have to tackle this yourself and it can be a tough nut to crack. Time to get serious!
If your sales/bookings are stagnating and your conversion rates are very low, it means travelers are sitting on the fence. Why? It might be exhaustion, financial worries, boredom with destinations and experiences, or perhaps other life matters are preoccupying their attention. Or it could be your product pages, branding, offers, or the content experience flow. The point is, doubts crept in somewhere and you’ve lost them.
Given that changing traveler’s minds is never easy, you’ll want to delve into the reasons why your conversion rates are low, and start improving your agent’s success rate.
Travel agents generally refer to their booking and sales conversion rates in this fashion:
- Percentage of Leads Converted
- Travel agents commonly express conversion rates as a percentage:
“We convert about 30% of inquiries into confirmed bookings.”
- Stages in the Sales Funnel
- Agents might describe conversion rates at different stages:
“Out of 100 inquiries, 60 result in consultations, and 20 become bookings.”
- Booking Volume
- Agents might use absolute numbers to highlight their success:
“We close 10-15 bookings per month from an average of 50 inquiries.”
- Sales Pipeline Metrics
- Travel agents could review sales pipeline metrics, such as:
“Our average response-to-booking ratio is 4:1.”
- Specific Campaign or Promotion Success
- Agents might focus on specific efforts:
“Our recent honeymoon package had a 25% conversion rate from email campaigns.”
- Client Type or Niche Conversion
- Agents may categorize conversions by target groups:
“We see a 40% conversion rate among repeat clients, compared to 20% for first-time inquiries.”
- Revenue-Based Metrics
- Revenue might also be a factor in describing conversion success:
“Our conversion rates result in an average sale value of $3,000 per booking.”
- Improvement Over Time
- Agents often frame their rates in terms of growth:
“Our conversion rate has improved by 10% this year due to better follow-up systems.”
That’s the end goal, improved conversion rates. And your conversion criteria above might hold clues as to what the conversion problem is.
Converting Travelers’ Hesitation into Action: A Strategic Content Approach
Each conversion attempt isn’t a failure of course, just a hiccup on the path to fulfillment. A keen sensitivity to the emotional causes of hesitation, doubt, or ailing confidence should help a lot. Persuasion is impossible until you understand the problem, so let’s explore the plausible issues.
Understanding the Psychology of Travel Hesitation
Travel decisions involve significant emotional and financial investment. Common booking objections often stem from concerns about:
- Financial commitment and value for money (image of their ideal trip/vacation)
- Safety and security in unfamiliar destinations (fear)
- Fear of making the wrong choice (confidence)
- Timing and scheduling uncertainties (acceptable/ideal itineraries)
- Trust in service providers (brand confidence)
- Group and peer pressures (for family or group travel)
By creating content that specifically targets these pain points, you may significantly improve their conversion rates. You’ll need to review how your web content/landing pages contend with all the above issues. Will you need adjustments only and some new content, or is your brand/value proposition and sales offers getting in the way?
If you’re failing on all fronts, your brand is either very weak or your offers/packages just aren’t relevant to your current audience.
Create a Spreadsheet of Booking Fails (no judgments)
It’s wise to review your traffic and failed booking stats then build a spreadsheet that explores each type of customer objection and how your content resolves these holdbacks. Using a chatbot to ask visitors directly what their hesitations or delayed decisions are all about is wise. After you get 20 to 30 responses, you might begin to see the real issues. For current customers, you can make this a main feature of your monthly newsletter with content designed to make them want to express their frustrations and doubts about travel. Reading between the lines, you’ll see what their core issues are.
You can use a flow chart of issues and how they might interact. It’s a useful technique to help you better visualize what your agency’s conversion rate problem is and how your content works or doesn’t work to convert leads.
If as an example, it’s travel customer’s expectation of receiving increasing value from their travel packages, then adding value in your packages and promoting that more might address it.
Strategic Content Types for Different Objections
Price and Value Objections
Rather than competing solely on price or standard trip features, create improved new, high-impact currently relevant content (to get attention and improve engagement) and re-engineered content that emphasizes value and return on travel spending (updating the presentation of your travel packages in current content).
Review to build:
- Detailed breakdowns of what’s included in package prices
- Comparison guides showing the value of bundled services versus booking separately
- Stories and testimonials from most relevant traveler types focusing on “worth every penny” experiences
- Seasonal pricing guides helpis travelers find the best deals
- Content highlighting unique experiences that justify premium pricing
Safety and Security Concerns
Build trust through comprehensive safety-focused content:
- Regular updates on destination safety measures
- Expert interviews with local guides and security professionals
- Real traveler experiences addressing safety concerns
- Detailed health safety protocols
- Emergency contact information and support system explanations
Decision Paralysis
Help travelers feel confident in their choices through:
- Side-by-side destination comparisons for different traveler types
- Interactive decision guides based on preferences and priorities
- Expert recommendations for specific demographics
- Seasonal guides highlighting the best times to visit
- “If you love X, you’ll love Y” style content
Timing and Planning Anxiety
Create content that makes planning feel manageable:
- Flexible booking policy explanations
- Last-minute travel guides
- Advanced planning timelines and checklists
- Weather patterns and best times to visit
- Alternative options for different scheduling scenarios
Trust Building
Develop content that establishes credibility:
- Behind-the-scenes looks at your company’s people, expertise, and operations (authenticity/transparency)
- Staff/agent profiles and expert credentials (comfort, relatability and confidence)
- Detailed booking process explanations (booking process beginning to end, with cancellation policy and agent connectivity)
- Customer service commitment statements (creating awareness of your CSR team)
- Third-party verification and certification information (business trustworthiness)
Persuasive Content Formats and Placement Strategies
Strategic Placement
Position objection-handling content at critical decision points:
- FAQ sections directly addressing common concerns
- Pop-up guides triggered by exit intent
- Sidebar content providing social proof and company staff authenticity
- Booking page reassurance messages (continuous feedback on progress)
- Follow-up emails addressing abandoned carts
Diverse Content Format Approach
Utilize multiple content formats to address objections:
- Short-form videos showing real traveler experiences
- Infographics comparing options and value propositions
- Interactive calculators for pricing and planning
- Virtual tours of accommodations and facilities
- Live chat integration with instant expert answers
Measuring and Optimizing Objection-Handling Content
Analytics and Tracking
Implement systems to measure content effectiveness:
- Track time spent on objection-handling content
- Monitor booking completion rates after content interaction and agent conversations
- Analyze heat maps showing content engagement
- Collect feedback through post-booking surveys
- Test different content approaches through A/B testing
Continuous Improvement
Use data to refine your approach:
- Regular content audits to identify gaps in objection handling
- Updates based on customer service feedback
- Seasonal adjustments for changing traveler concerns
- Competitor analysis to identify new objections
- Customer journey mapping to optimize content placement
Implementation Best Practices
Content Creation Guidelines
Follow these principles for effective objection-handling content:
- Use clear, straightforward language
- Back claims with specific evidence
- Include real customer testimonial clips that are specifically relevant to objections
- Create content that well-addresses each point of hesitation so each is clear and recognized (eases overwhelm) and makes an emotional effect
- Encourage and promote regular visits to your news/blog pages to stay top of mind become aware of your updates that address their ongoing hesitation and inertia
Integration Strategy
Ensure cohesive implementation across channels:
- Coordinate messaging across all digital marketing platforms
- Train customer service teams on content resources and what content is trying to achieve
- Create internal content libraries for quick agent responses or for chatbots
- Develop automated email sequences addressing common concerns
- Maintain consistent branding in all objection-handling materials
Your New Sales Supporting Content Strategy
Your process involves reviewing sales and web content statistics for conversion-related successes to understand why you’re successful.
Then study the failures to determine the most likely sources of bounces/dropped bookings.
Consider that a key problem might be poor quality travel content and gaps in the content experience where doubts arose. In this flow interruption, they looked elsewhere to compare competitor’s offerings and content experience. They left to review only one point/issue yet it resulted in them not returning. Unfortunately, the competitor’s content caused them to reevaluate your entire value proposition.
This is why ranking at the top of Google search results is so important. It’s a simple matter of reducing exposure to competitors who will contaminate the traveler’s trip visualization, wiping out your content’s impact.
By strategically creating and deploying enjoyable travel content that impacts, engages and persuades you can avoid gaps while addressing booking objections.
Learn more about high-impact travel content, optimizing digital marketing campaigns, travel seo services, and connecting travelers to your content.
Contact Gord at 416 998 6246 to discuss SEO and content strategies that support your sales conversion rate.
