5 Essential Tips to Create a Successful Travel Brand

The travel industry is one of the most unique business industries that exist, and selling travel and holiday products to consumers can be a very complex business and it is key to understand the wishes of the consumer and develop a brand that corresponds to the products you are trying to sell. Travel products such as package holidays or flight and hotel deals are often relatively expensive items so are infrequent consumer purchases; the purchase decision by the customer is based on a wide plethora of factors including travel brand, holiday destination, price, accommodation etc; and the planning process by the consumer may be months or years long as they research their holiday and carefully compare various factors about each of their options. It is therefore very important that your travel brand is memorable, relative to your product, and that your brand compass is consistent. Read our 5 tips to create a successful travel brand: 

• Design a Memorable Logo

In our modern world we increasingly have less patience to read text, and brand awareness and logo strength are becoming more and more popular and a fundamental requirement of any business, particularly in the online world. Global iconic brands such as Nike, Apple, Twitter, Coca-Cola and Facebook can be recognised worldwide instantly simply by their logo, so a strong logo and strong brand compass are very important to any travel brand. When designing a brand logo consider colour – bright colours may stand out more but can appear cheap, originality – ideally you want something unique but instantly memorable, simplicity – the simpler the better, and design – consider including shapes or textual ideas that relate to the products your travel brand will be selling.

• Have a Great Website

Very few businesses can exist these days without a website, particularly in the travel industry. Travel is one of those purchases that most consumers will spend time researching before committing, and this can include researching things such as destinations and accommodation, as well as researching the travel company itself. A website is the shop-front of your business, and for many will be the face of your brand, so when creating your travel brand a website is of vital importance. Your website needs to explain to customers about your brand, it needs to sell your products, and it needs to include sufficient information for consumers to carry out their research, and it needs to achieve all of this whilst being aligned with your brand compass. Make sure your website is functional, easy to use, attractive, in line with your branding, and serves as a good shop window for your products.

• Choose a Good Name

What’s in a name? Well, as it happens, quite a lot. When choosing a company name aside from the obvious pitfalls (make sure the name makes sense, is legible, and doesn’t already exist) there are a few things to factor in to convert a name into a successful travel brand.

Make sure that the name tells the customer a little bit about your business. If you are creating your brand from scratch then you need to be aware that people won’t know anything about you, so the name needs to attempt to inform potential customers about the basics of what products you sell. For example if you only specialise in a particular type of holiday, for example bird-watching holidays, or you only operate in a particular region, for example you only offer holidays to Peru, then don’t call your brand “The Holiday Company” as the name is far too vague and doesn’t tell anyone what you do. Similarly, be sure your name isn’t too specific, for example don’t call your brand “Aussie Outback Treks” if you offer more than just treks or more destinations than Australia. Also, be evocative when choosing your name as travel customers love to dream, so try and influence their travel dreams and wishes with an inspirational name that will evoke thoughts of holidays and inspire them to travel and explore.

• Create Brand Exposure

Even if you have the greatest travel brand in the world it is completely irrelevant unless your brand has exposure. There is no point in a great brand which nobody knows about. Brand exposure and advertising are vital to making people aware of the products your travel brand is representing. When researching exposure options, for example advertising, be sure to consider a range of options (social media, travel magazines, radio etc) then review your initial options to choose those that are more suitable to your brand or your target customer. If you are selling travel adventure clothing, then choose an adventure travel magazine, if you are selling beach holidays to young adults then consider online advertising which is used more frequently by your target audience. The other thing to consider is that brand exposure takes time – don’t expect to advertise once and that’s it, once advertising has started it is important you maintain it to embed your travel brand in the memories of those people you are targeting through repeat exposure.

• Build Brand Trust

Many travel purchases are big commitments to people. Building brand trust is a fundamental requirement of any business, but with travel in particular this is of key importance. Although travel products include a wide variety of items, from sun cream to travel insurance, and money belts to travel pillows, these smaller purchases all revolve around the bigger central purchase which is the travel product itself: the holiday. Holidays are often the third most expensive purchase people make (after their house and car), so it is important consumers can have trust in your brand and products before they commit to spending their hard-earned cash with you. Brand trust is something that takes time to build, but is absolutely required and worthwhile.