TRAVEL & TOURISM SECTOR: Grow your market share.

With inbound visitors set to spend a record £24.1bn in 2017 and total tourism spend reaching £140bn of which over £10bn will be spent in the South West now’s very much the time to make sure your marketing plan for 2017 is going to work hard and bring trade to your attraction.

Five key tips for 2017:

1. Be Superb at Social Snaps

Instagram is famously good for engagement for tourist attractions (1). If you’re not using it consider adding to your Social Media mix. The trouble is that motivation can be low when you start and see that horrible ‘5 followers’ come up. (Three of them are your friends anyway).

So let’s grow that following quickly: hashtags are your hero here

Let’s assume you can take some nice photos. Be sure to do so regularly – each season change is a prompt but hopefully there’s lots more going on.

So when, for example, uploading a cosy picture of the living room with roaring fire, include hashtags like #realfire #livingroom #cosynightsin But what about really going for it: #escapingthecold #glassofwineinfrontofthefire #gettingawayfromitall, or #theperfectwintersnight

Imagination wins Instagram.

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2. Help Dreamers to dream

Lots of our clients in the sector struggle to know what is good content. The answer is surprisingly broad. Higher Wiscombe, last year’s Winner of Winners in the SW Tourism awards are excellent Social Media users. Alistair and Lorna Handyside are the owners and with a small team manage to make a huge impact online. Even the task of clearing the brambles is filmed and is a chance to explain their commitment to the highest possible stewardship practices. Get ideas here: http://higherwiscombe.com/

Remember: For someone stuck in an office in Birmingham yearning for a holiday, your mundane Monday may well be the stuff of dreams.

3. Get the word out

Social media is a great place to listen and find out what your visitors and prospective visitors are thinking feeling and doing. If your attraction is great for families, then tune in to Mumsnet, for example. Get involved in discussions about family holidays on there. Your comments will bring you to the attention of other visitors and it’s a chance to work out if you are offering a winning welcome.

Why not invite one or two key bloggers to your attraction? Bloggers can be very influential and will usually be happy to write you up in return for a free visit. For example see this brilliant great post from the team at Fat Lama regarding ‘Staycation’ locations. Or for family attractions suitable for young children start here: http://www.mumsnet.com/bloggers/specials

4. Leaflets still work

In this digital world it can be easy to forget the obvious wins. Leaflets are still a huge business driver for tourist attractions of all sizes. Visitors to Devon find themselves in Motorway services and attractions waiting around and will always grab some leaflets for ideas on what to do.

Places to Go leaflets (http://placestogoleaflets.co.uk/) are a great provider in this area and as a client of ours we can state that not only do they run a great business, they’re thoroughly nice folks to deal with!

5. Get Creative

Here at Logo Creative Partners, our passion is making sure that all our clients’ hard work marketing is delivered beautifully in way that marks it out clearly as their brand.

Simply making sure everything works together will add untold power to their brand and drive increased visitor numbers.

It may be as simple as providing a guide so that everyone shares a tone of voice or perhaps creating a ‘stamp’ so that all their photos and videos are branded clearly. At the other end of the scale we’ll create beautiful logo and brochures and even take control of the whole online side of their marketing from SEO to Facebook posts.