How to Build a Marketing Strategy for Hospitality & Travel

The hospitality and travel industry is competitive, seasonal, and increasingly digital. 83% of U.S. travelers plan their trips online, and over half use search engines to start booking (SiteMinder). Visibility across digital channels isn’t optional; it’s the gateway to direct bookings and lasting guest relationships.

These are the core principles that help hospitality brands stay competitive and consistent across every guest touchpoint:

Guests don’t just show up
Without a targeted strategy, hotels and travel brands risk relying too heavily on third-party booking sites and losing margin.

Marketing starts before the trip
Potential guests discover, compare, and decide long before hitting “Book Now.”

Good experiences start with clear messaging
Your marketing should reflect the same care you put into your guest experience, from your website to your welcome email.

Data builds loyalty
Smart, consistent marketing creates deeper guest relationships, higher retention, and better ROI.

Why Hospitality Marketing Needs a Different Playbook

Hospitality and travel marketing isn’t just about driving traffic, it’s about earning trust before the guest even books. You're not selling a product; you're selling an experience, often to people who haven't met, stayed with, or even heard of you.

That means your strategy needs to start earlier, move faster, and make every impression count.

Here’s what makes marketing in hospitality and travel different:

You’re not just selling rooms.
You're competing on experience, location, reviews, and value before the guest steps foot on your property.

Third-party platforms eat your margin.
Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) get visibility, but they take a cut. Direct bookings are where the ROI lives.

Reputation spreads fast.
One bad review or a standout user-generated post can shift perception overnight.

Every guest is a future marketer.
Delight them, and they’ll do the social media posting, referrals, and repeat visits for you.

Step 1: Define Your Target Audience

The better you know your guests, the easier it will be to meet them where they search, scroll, and book.

Not every traveler is your ideal guest. Families, solo adventurers, business travelers, and honeymooners all have different needs, and they use other channels to plan their trips.

Before launching any campaign, clarify who you want to attract. The more specific, the better.

Questions to guide your audience definition:

• Are you attracting weekenders, extended stays, or last-minute bookers?

• What locations are they searching from, and what devices are they using?

• Do they care more about price, luxury, convenience, or attraction proximity?

Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and booking engine data to spot trends in demographics, behaviors, and interests.

Match your messaging to your audience’s motivations, whether they are seeking the best deal, discovering local experiences, or escaping the everyday.

The better you understand your potential guests, the easier it will be to create marketing efforts that resonate and convert.

Step 2: Build an SEO Foundation

Travelers can’t book what they can’t find.

Most guests start their journey with a search engine. If your hotel or travel business doesn’t appear near the top, you’re losing direct bookings to OTAs or competitors.

That’s why SEO isn’t just a long-term play; it’s one of the most cost-effective tools for boosting visibility, building trust, and driving bookings.

Focus your SEO efforts on:

• Optimizing your website and landing pages for local keywords and guest intent

• Creating helpful, relevant content about your property, area, and guest experience

• Claiming and managing your Google Business Profile and other listings

• Using schema markup to enhance visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs)

• Speeding up your mobile site to improve load times and user experience

Think beyond your homepage. Guests are searching for “pet-friendly hotels near Yosemite,” “boutique stays in Charleston,” or “kid-friendly resorts in the Catskills.” Build content that speaks directly to those queries.

Strong SEO helps your brand show up first, and keeps more of your revenue from going to third-party platforms.

🔧 SEO Tools for Optimization & Tracking

These help you analyze keywords, audit your website, and improve your search engine rankings:

• Google Search Console
  Track how your site performs on Google Search and fix indexing issues.

• Google Analytics
  Understand visitor behavior, traffic sources, and which pages drive bookings.

• Semrush
  Find high-intent travel keywords, analyze competitors, and optimize content.

• Ahrefs
  Great for keyword research, backlink analysis, and SEO audits.

• Moz
  User-friendly tool for tracking rankings and improving local SEO.

📍 Local SEO Essentials

For increasing visibility in “near me” and map-based searches:

• Google Business Profile
  Claim and optimize your listing. Add photos, respond to reviews, and update business info regularly.

• Yext or BrightLocal
  Manage business listings across hundreds of directories.

✍️ Content & Site Optimization

For improving readability, speed, and structure:

• Yoast SEO (WordPress)
  If your website is on WordPress, Yoast helps optimize pages, meta descriptions, and internal linking.

• PageSpeed Insights
  Check mobile and desktop speed. Crucial for conversions on mobile devices.

• Hotjar
  See how users interact with your site to improve booking flow and reduce drop-offs.

Step 3: Leverage Social Proof & UGC

Guest content builds trust faster than brand campaigns ever could.

Travel is an emotional purchase. People want to experience real moments, not just polished brochures. That’s why social media marketing, including online reviews, social media posts, and user-generated content (UGC), is essential to your marketing strategy.

Encourage happy guests to share photos, videos, and feedback. Then, amplify that content across your channels.

Ways to integrate social proof into your marketing:

• Highlight genuine guest reviews on your website and email campaigns

• Repost tagged social media content from recent stays

• Create Instagram or TikTok guides that feature guest experiences

• Use testimonial videos in paid ads or landing pages

Travelers trust other travelers. Make it easy for potential guests to see what a stay with you is like.

Remember to respond. A thoughtful reply to a review or tagged post goes a long way toward showing that you care about guest satisfaction.

Pro-Tip: You don’t need to ask for posts, just give people something worth sharing. A scenic breakfast spot, a beautifully lit corner, or a curated welcome basket can do more than a discount ever could. Design moments that guests want to photograph.

Step 4: Use Email Marketing for Guest Loyalty

Email isn’t dead. It just needs better timing, better offers, and better storytelling.

Once a guest books or checks out, their experience with your brand is far from over. Email is your best tool for staying on top of mind and turning one-time visitors into repeat guests.

The key is relevance. Your email campaigns should speak to where someone is in their journey.

Use email to:

• Confirm and prep guests before arrival with local tips or special offers

• Follow-up post-stay to gather feedback and reviews

• Promote seasonal offers, new amenities, or nearby events

• Launch a loyalty program that rewards direct bookings

Avoid overloading your emails with hard sells. Instead, lead with value, local guides, VIP perks, or sneak peeks of upcoming upgrades.

The goal: Stay connected in a way that feels personal and helpful. Not spammy.

✉️ 3 Email Marketing Platforms We Recommend

Mailchimp
Easy to use with pre-built templates and solid automation tools. Great for small hotels sending promos, confirmations, and newsletters.

Klaviyo
Powerful segmentation and automations based on guest behavior. Ideal for loyalty programs and follow-up flows.

HubSpot
Best for properties that want email, CRM, and marketing tools all in one place. Great for personalization at scale.
 

Step 5: Optimize the Booking Journey

Every click between curiosity and confirmation is a chance to lose the guest.

If your website is clunky, your booking engine is slow, or your checkout page feels sketchy, you lose direct bookings. Travelers are quick to abandon a process that feels confusing or untrustworthy.

Your job is to make booking as smooth, fast, and reassuring as possible.

Focus on:

• Mobile-first design (most guests search and book on mobile devices)

• Clear pricing, availability, and cancellation policies

• Fast load speeds and clean navigation

• Simple, secure checkout with as few steps as possible

• Follow-up emails for abandoned bookings

Pro-Tip: To reduce friction and increase confidence, add virtual tours, FAQ sections, or a real-time chat tool.

Your marketing got them there. Don’t let your website send them to an OTA instead.

Step 6: Use AI to Work Smarter, Not Harder

Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool Might Already Be in Your Browser

You can’t scale a hospitality brand by doing everything manually. The best marketing teams use AI to move faster, personalize content, and make smarter decisions, without expanding headcount.

AI can help you generate fresh content ideas, improve guest segmentation, streamline follow-ups, and optimize booking paths. The key is knowing which tools to trust and how to use them.

Here are three worth your attention:

Averi.ai
Built specifically for marketers, Averi combines AI speed with human strategy. It helps you map out campaigns, write better content, and execute marketing plans tied directly to your business goals, so you get results, not just drafts.

ChatGPT
Perfect for early brainstorming, first drafts, or campaign ideas. Use it to write guest emails, social captions, landing page copy, or to plan your next seasonal promo.

Google Workspace + Gemini
AI is now baked into the tools you already use. Let Gmail suggest replies, use Docs to summarize guest feedback, or try Sheets for forecasting. Gemini gives you quick wins across your daily workflow.

Hospitality marketing moves fast. AI helps you keep up, without losing the human touch.

Pro-Tip: Start using AI for tasks that take too long or never finish. Then scale up from there. It’s not about replacing your team, it’s about removing roadblocks so they can move faster.

Step 7: Measure, Learn, and Improve Continuously

Ship fast. Learn faster.

Marketing isn’t one big launch. It’s a loop. The best strategies evolve through data, feedback, and ongoing refinement, not guesswork.

Set a cadence for review

Treat your marketing like product sprints. Every week or two, carve out time to look at performance across key areas:

• Conversion rates

• Booking trends

• Social engagement

• Email performance

• Cost per acquisition

Ask your team:

• What worked?

• What didn’t?

• What should we try next?

Avoid vanity metrics

Impressions, likes, and clicks look nice in a report. But if they don’t move the needle on bookings or retention, they’re just noise. Focus on metrics that reflect real progress:

• More direct bookings

• Lower acquisition costs

• Better guest lifetime value

Use feedback as a signal

Your best marketing insights come from real conversations, guest surveys, support tickets, reviews, and front desk feedback. Pay attention to what guests love, what confuses them, and what keeps them coming back.

Make small bets

You don’t need to overhaul everything. Test one subject line, try a new photo, or shift the wording on your homepage CTA. Small experiments teach you what resonates with your audience.

Pro-Tip: You don’t aim to be perfect on launch day. You aim to get smarter with every cycle. In marketing, momentum wins.

Common Hospitality Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Even with a solid strategy, it’s easy to fall into patterns that drain your time, budget, or guest trust. Here are five traps to watch out for:

Chasing buzz over bookings
Trying to go viral without a clear path to conversion leads to spikes in traffic, not revenue. Focus on long-term visibility and direct bookings over short-lived trends.

LINK: You Don’t Need to Go Viral

Skipping audience research
If you don’t know who your ideal guest is, your message won’t land, no matter how good the photo or promo.

Overcomplicating your tech stack
Too many tools and platforms create confusion. Stick to a few that streamline your booking process, email marketing, and analytics.

Ignoring guest feedback
Your guests are telling you what works. If you listen, their reviews, surveys, and social posts are marketing gold.

Measuring the wrong KPIs
Likes, views, and traffic don’t mean much on their own. Focus on metrics that reflect impact: direct bookings, email open rates, or return visit percentage.

How Averi Helps You Execute

A great strategy means nothing without execution. That’s where Averi comes in.

We combine AI tools with human support to help startups turn plans into output, fast. From building marketing campaigns to generating content marketing and managing performance insights, Averi enables you to scale without the overhead. 

You don't need a bigger team to get results. You need the right experts, at the right time, with the right AI-powered systems to support them.

It’s like having an extra marketing team, without the extra headcount.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a reasonable marketing budget for a hotel or travel brand?

Most hospitality businesses invest 5% to 10% of projected revenue into marketing. Smaller or independent properties may need to spend more upfront to build awareness and drive direct bookings.

Which marketing channels work best for hospitality and travel?

SEO, Google Ads, and email marketing are the most efficient ways to drive conversions. Instagram and TikTok work well for brand awareness, especially when showcasing guest experiences.

How do I reduce reliance on OTAs?

Focus on driving direct bookings through your website, SEO, and email. Offer exclusive perks for direct bookings and use tools like retargeting ads to bring guests back.

What should my first hospitality marketing hire be?

Look for a generalist who can manage core channels like email, SEO, and social. They should be comfortable using tools like Averi to help plan campaigns and scale content quickly.

What are the most critical KPIs for hospitality marketing?

Prioritize metrics like direct booking rate, cost per acquisition, guest return rate, and email engagement. These give better insight into revenue and guest behavior than surface-level metrics like impressions.

How can AI help hotels and travel marketers?

AI can help with content creation, campaign planning, email automation, and performance insights. Platforms like Averi are built to help small teams execute faster without adding headcount.

Ready to Stop Planning and Start Executing?

Most startups don't fail because of bad strategy. They fail because of poor execution.

While others are still perfecting slide decks and debating which hashtag to use, you could be launching campaigns, testing messaging, and driving real growth, all within days, not months.

Get Started in 3 Steps:

1. Book a 15-Minute Demo — See how Averi's AI-powered platform works specifically for your business

2. Connect with Expert Talent — Get matched with battle-tested marketers who've done it before

3. Ship Your First Campaign — Go from concept to execution in under a week

Don't waste another month on marketing that never leaves the planning phase.

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