Marketing for Hotels and Tour Travel Companies in Kenya
Kenya is home to beautiful Lakelands, mountain highlands, Great Rift Valley, the coastline, the Indian ocean, mountains, and wildlife. This makes it East Africa’s number one travel destination.
More than 2 million international visitors visited Kenya in 2019. Although these numbers declined sharply in 2020, the hotel and travel industry in the country is still booming. For instance, the travel and hotel industry accounts for more than 8.5% of the total employment in Kenya
If you own a tour or hotel business in Kenya, you must look for ways to increase sales, especially during these difficult times. As governments worldwide continue to ease restrictions, now is the perfect time to focus on your marketing strategies.
In this guide, we will be discussing various strategies to helps increase sales for your hotel or tour travel company.
Work With Local Businesses
Even if you have all the resources to run your hotel or tour travel company, you still need to partner with local businesses to increase sales. This will help you to consistently deliver a unique experience to your visitors by offering an entire experience.
Another reason you should partner with local businesses is that it will save your clients time and money. For instance, you can partner with a local hotel in Naivasha to provide accommodation if you run a tour company. Similarly, hotels can work with local tour travel companies to provide unique tours to their clients.
Create a Functional Website
Kenya has more than 22.86 million internet users. This represents a 16% increase from the previous years. With internet penetration in the country set to increase drastically over the coming years, you should reconsider your marketing strategy.
Creating a functional and optimized website is the best way of widening your reach. With a functional website, you can sell your services and products to local and international clients. The good thing is that it costs almost nothing to run a website compared to the enormous benefits you will enjoy.
You also need to optimize it for the mobile experience. This will allow you to connect with millions of mobile users all over the world.
Once you optimize your website, you should also accept online bookings. This will save you time and money. Above all, your clients can book your tour packages from the comfort of their homes.
Utilize the Power of Social Media
Social media allows billions of people globally to share information with anyone on our planet. Users flock social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram daily to discover real-time events, obtain information, and get in touch with their loved ones daily.
Social media is probably the most popular internet activity in the world. As a savvy business owner, you probably know that these numbers mean business. If you what to increase sales and connect with potential clients in this day and age, you should turn to social media.
You can utilize the power of social media to enhance brand awareness, engage customers, establish yourself as an industry leader, and increase sales. The good this is that social media marketing is among the cheapest marketing strategies out there.
Take Advantage of Content Marketing
Bill Gates was right when he said that content is king back in 1996. Fast forward to 2021, content marketing has become a powerful tool to create brand awareness and increase sales. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, content marketing should be one of your marketing strategies.
When done right, it allows you to attract, engage, and retain your clients. This form of marketing involves various techniques, including e-books, informative articles, videos, webinars, and entertainment. For instance, you can create an informative article on the top things to do in Kenya to establish yourself as an industry leader.
Keep the following in mind to get the best out of content marketing:
- Understand your audience.
- Provide solutions in your content by creating informative content.
- Always create engaging and unique content.
- Use Analytics to track success.
- Create content regularly.
Email Marketing is Still the King
Email marketing campaigns can go a long way towards helping you to reach new clients, keep existing clients happy, and increase sales. With an effective email marketing campaign in place, you will maintain consistent communication with all your subscribers.
For example, a client might not purchase a package when they visit your website for the first time. Luckily, you might be able to convince them to purchase a package if you keep sending newsletters to alert them of affordable packages and discounts. You can even attach videos and testimonials to convince them.
Below are various types of emails you should be sending to your potential clients:
- Send welcome emails to new clients.
- Send email newsletters to grab the attention of your clients.
- Create dedicated emails to let clients know about your discounts and offers.
- Send promotional nurturing emails to generate more leads.
- Partner with other businesses to send sponsorship emails to reach a different audience.
- Always send transactional emails to thank your clients after performing a specific action.
- Take advantage of brand story emails to tell your story.
Leverage the Power of SEO
More than 84% of consumers search for products or services on search engines before considering a purchase. Out of the 84%, 79% only click on organic results. If you want to build an online presence, reach more clients and increase sales, you should take advantage of SEO.
Search Engine Optimization, popularly known as SEO, is the science of adjusting your website’s code, structure, and content to make it visible on a search engine result page for specific keywords or a combination of keywords. Here are various SEO tips you can use to promote your tour company or hotel:
- Research and use the right keywords.
- Offer unique offerings.
- Do not overstuff keywords.
- Build links.
- Publish unique and engaging content.
- Optimize your website.
- Measure results.
Wrapping Up
Investing in all these strategies will be counterproductive if you fail to offer quality services. Offering quality services will create trust and enhance customer retention.
To get the best from these strategies, it is best to work with an award-winning SEO company. These experts will design digital strategies and solutions focused on helping your tour travel company or hotel stand out from the competition.