Hey, folks, it’s Tourism Tim Warren here with a special 5-part free tourism marketing training series (audio, video below and blog posts) dedicated to helping tourism leaders, attractions, lodging, travel agencies and destinations deal with something that we all face as tourism professionals – how the heck can we get more people to  visit our website, decide that we’re a good choice, make an inquiry – or better yet, make a booking, buy your service, visit or stay in our lodge, or even visit our destination, no matter where you are in the world?  

No matter how big or how small, this is a common question we all face.  For those of you who don’t know me, my brother and I have been in the tourism business now for thirty years – both as a tour operator in the soft adventure, ecotourism space in Baja, Mexico, as well as an ecolodge owner and manager.  I’m proud to say that we are the #1 TripAdvisor “Specialty Lodging” in Baja, California. It is called Las Animas Ecolodge.

So, the things that I want to share with you, not only today, but really in the start of this special series are really some of the biggest “aha moments”, and the biggest takeaways that I’ve learned that really helped us not only to become one of the top lodges, but more importantly, a profitable growing company.

So here’s a big problem that limits your bookings and profits.  

Even if you have all the web traffic in the world,  the greatest product, service or greatest lodge, if you’re not converting inquiries into bookings from your websites – because that is your storefront to the world – you’re not going to grow.  You may not even be able to stay in business. 

You will struggle.   That sucks!

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  How to Double Your Tourism Leads, Bookings, and Profits (Special Series) - Part 1 of 5
  This special series is dedicated to helping tourism leaders, attractions, launching travel agencies with destinations - deal with something that we all face as tourism professionals - how the heck can we get more people to visit our website, decide that we’re a good choice, and make an inquiry - or better yet, make a booking, or buy your service, or visit or stay in our lodge, even visit our destination no matter where you are in the world?
  
  To listen to the entire series, see more show notes and tips and get access to a free 25-point travel website success checklist, go to:
  
  https://www.travelbusinesssuccess.com/how-to-double-your-leads-bookings-and-profits-special-series/
  
  
  
  

So, what I want to share in this free training series is a special system that I developed called “Social Proof Tourism Marketing”©. It’s been the very basis of what has helped myself and many, many people just like you around the world increase their leads, and more importantly, increase their bookings from the existing web traffic they’ve got.  

We’re not talking about technology here.  We’re not talking about SEO or how to get your website working to get more traffic.  That’s important but we’re talking about psychology.  

We’re talking about the choices that travel shoppers make, often in seconds, about what tour company they may travel with, what lodge they’re going to stay with, what activity they are going to book, etc.

Even with the travel agents or destinations, it really doesn’t matter.  Do you have a lot of competition? Other people offering similar things to you, maybe in your area or even in that niche or space?  I can assure you, we are not the only cool ecotourism lodge in the world. There are many cool places that people can travel to.  

Tourism Tim Warren with Sir Richard Branson on a business retreat in the BVI’s

So a core question you should be asking yourself is, is when you’re doing research or considering a purchase of a product, maybe a tour, even a

destination, or it might even be a movie or restaurant, what influences you on which one to choose?  How do you know you’re making a good choice of your time and your money when you do it? Let’s say you go online and you do a search for “food tours in Florida”? Are you overwhelmed with a lot of choices? Of course, you are. And so are your consumers. So now, how do they know which one to go to?  How do they know which tourism, travel or destination is going to be a good choice for them? Is it by default the one that’s got the highest ranking? Not necessarily.  

Many of you who have got great tours, great offerings, great lodges, and even maybe better pricing or better service, been in the business longer, but you may not have as high ranking as your competitor.  

Does that make them better than you?  I say no, absolutely not.  

I think it’s really more about what’s in this concept and proven tourism marketing system I developed over 30 years I’m going to introduce to you in this called: “Social Proof Tourism Marketing” ©.  

Travel shoppers are really assessing their potential purchase choices on; who’s more of a quality operator, who’s more seasoned, who has what’s called the “social proof”.

When you’re looking at a choice of a purchase, who do you go to help make a decision?  Do you ask friends, family? Do you read social media reviews? How about articles? Consumer Reports magazine?  We are subscribers and we’re always looking at that for the service that has the highest rating, what has the greatest utility, which has the lowest repair rate.  Consumer Reports are an awesome resource to help make the decision in a very crowded market.  

But how different is that from people who are choosing your tours or your lodge or your travel agency?  

I mean, let’s look at a daily decision.  How about a new restaurant? Let’s say, you are  going to a new restaurant, in your town or your area.  How do you know which one to go to? What do you look at to make your decision?  Because there’s a ton of choices right?

What if you’re just driving down the street and trying to find a place to eat?  Are you going to the one where you see lots of cars in the parking lot and lots of people in the restaurant?  Or are you going to the one that has no cars and hardly any people? I’m willing to bet you’ll go to the one that has people in it as long as you can get a seat. Because even if you didn’t know that restaurant, you are curious. Why are all those people there and the other one doesn’t have any?

These are the same sort of decisions, the same sort of thought processes that your prospective travel consumers are considering.  

So, in this “Double Your Tourism Bookings” free training series, we’re going to take a little deeper dive into:

• What is “social proof tourism marketing”© ?
  
• What’s in it for you?
  
• How is this going to improve your bookings and your bottom line?
  
• How is this going to help grow your business profitably?
  

So, we’re going to look at what is it, what’s in it for you, why is this important, and what’s the science behind this.

We’re going to take it out of guesswork.  We’re going to look at science. We’re going to look at some actual numbers.  We’re going to look at how it works, and I’m going to share with you some of the top tactics and strategies that make up my “Social Proof Tourism Marketing” © system.

I’m going to share examples of actual clients and actual people who have been through my program who are just like you who are applying “Social Proof Tourism Marketing”©  to their marketing. They could be tour operators. They could be lodge owners. Let’s face it, most of us are small – to medium-sized businesses. I don’t care if you’re in Timbuktu or Toledo,  if you’re in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia or La Paz, Bolivia. The issues that you face as a small business in the tourism, travel or hospitality sector or attractions, are all the same issues. How do we get more people to choose you and not your competitor and give you money? And how can you make your tourism marketing easier, how can you make it flow?  

So I’m really interested about giving you actual, proven principles that you can apply to your tourism marketing easily and that will have quantifiable and profitable results for you over time. Not only in the short run, but that are also scalable into the future.  

So, this is Tourism Tim Warren with Travel Business Success Radio Podcast and Tourism Marketing TV signing off on this special free tourism marketing training series. I look forward to more short episodes where we get a little deeper dive into this.  I am going to give you more specific information so that you can start having your own “aha moments” and apply this to your marketing and have more success too. Thanks for listening. Thanks for sharing this. If you have questions, if you have comments, wherever you’re seeing this video or reading this, if it’s on YouTube or it’s on Travel Business Success or maybe you see it on social media group, on Facebook, please ask me questions.  Please share it.  

We’re all in this together. I promise you I will address your questions and I hope to be your guide on this journey together or one of your guides.  Thank you so much.