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Unlock This CourseBefore the internet changed everything, travel and tourism businesses relied almost entirely on traditional promotional methods to reach their customers. These include direct marketing, TV adverts, radio spots and newspaper or magazine ads. While digital promotion has grown massively, traditional methods are still widely used especially by national tourism organisations, airlines and hotel chains with big budgets.
Understanding these methods is essential for your iGCSE exam. You need to know what they are, how they work and when they are the right choice for a tourism business.
Key Definitions:
Even in the age of TikTok and Instagram, a well-placed TV advert during a popular show can reach millions of viewers in one go. The 2012 "Great Britain" campaign by VisitBritain used TV advertising across multiple countries and contributed to a significant boost in inbound tourism. Traditional methods offer reach, credibility and emotional impact that digital methods sometimes struggle to match.
Direct marketing means sending a promotional message directly to a specific person, rather than broadcasting it to everyone. In tourism, this could mean a holiday company posting a brochure to your home, sending you a personalised email about a deal, or texting you about a last-minute flight offer.
The key idea is that the message is targeted it's aimed at someone who has already shown interest, or who fits a particular customer profile. This makes it more efficient than mass advertising.
Physical letters, postcards, or brochures sent to customers' home addresses. Travel companies like TUI and Saga Holidays have traditionally used direct mail to send holiday catalogues to past customers. It feels personal and tangible customers can flick through a brochure at home. However, it is expensive to print and post and many people throw it away without reading it.
The digital version of direct mail. Tourism businesses collect customer email addresses and send targeted offers, newsletters and booking reminders. Budget airlines like easyJet and Ryanair are famous for sending fare alerts and promotional emails. Email is cheap, fast and easy to personalise but customers can unsubscribe or mark messages as spam.
Direct marketing in tourism goes beyond just mail and email. Businesses use a range of personalised approaches to stay in touch with customers and encourage repeat bookings.
Short, punchy messages sent directly to a customer's mobile phone. Airlines use texts to confirm bookings, remind passengers of check-in times, or alert them to special deals. Very high open rates most people read a text within minutes.
Calling customers directly by phone to promote holidays or travel services. Cruise companies and luxury travel agents sometimes use this approach with high-value clients. It allows for two-way conversation but can feel intrusive if customers haven't asked to be contacted.
Schemes like British Airways Executive Club or Marriott Bonvoy reward repeat customers with points and exclusive offers. These are a form of direct marketing because they keep the brand in regular contact with loyal customers through personalised communications.
easyJet has been praised for its clever use of direct email marketing. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the airline sent customers a personalised email showing them a summary of their own travel history where they'd flown, how many trips they'd taken and their most visited destinations. This emotional, data-driven approach made customers feel valued and encouraged them to book again. The campaign achieved open rates 100% higher than average marketing emails. It's a perfect example of how direct marketing can be both personal and powerful.
Television advertising is one of the most powerful and most expensive forms of promotion available. A well-made TV advert can create a strong emotional connection with viewers, inspire wanderlust and reach millions of people at once. Tourism organisations and large travel companies use TV adverts to build brand awareness and create a positive image of a destination or product.
TV adverts in tourism often focus on beautiful imagery stunning beaches, exciting cities, happy families combined with uplifting music and a memorable slogan. The goal is to make viewers feel something and want to experience it for themselves.
The UK government's "GREAT Britain" campaign launched in 2012 around the London Olympics and Paralympics. It used TV advertising in key overseas markets including the USA, China, India and Australia to showcase Britain as a world-class tourism destination. The campaign featured stunning visuals of British landscapes, culture and food, with the simple message that Britain is "GREAT." By 2019, the campaign had generated an estimated £4.5 billion in economic benefit to the UK. TV was central to its success because it could deliver a powerful, emotional message to mass audiences in multiple countries simultaneously.
Not all TV adverts are equal. The best tourism TV campaigns share several key features that make them memorable and effective.
The best adverts tell a story that viewers connect with emotionally. Rather than just listing features of a destination, they show people having meaningful experiences adventure, relaxation, family time, romance.
Tourism is a visual product people buy the dream before they buy the ticket. High-quality cinematography of landscapes, cities and attractions is essential. Think sweeping drone shots of coastlines or time-lapse footage of a busy city at night.
The right soundtrack can make an advert unforgettable. Tourism Australia's "Where the Bloody Hell Are You?" campaign (2006) and many others have used music to create a mood that stays with viewers long after the advert ends.
Radio advertising is a more affordable alternative to TV. It uses sound only voice, music and sound effects to create a message that listeners can picture in their minds. Radio is particularly effective for reaching people during their daily commute, when they might be thinking about their next holiday or weekend break.
In travel and tourism, radio adverts are often used by regional tourism boards, local attractions and budget travel companies to promote specific offers or events. A radio advert for a seaside resort, for example, might air on local stations in nearby cities during the spring, just as people start thinking about summer holidays.
Center Parcs, the UK's popular short-break holiday village operator, has made effective use of radio advertising to promote seasonal deals and new facilities. Their radio campaigns typically air on national stations like Heart FM and Capital FM, targeting family audiences during the school holiday booking season. The adverts use the sound of nature birdsong, running water to evoke the peaceful forest setting of their resorts. Radio allows Center Parcs to reach millions of potential customers at a fraction of the cost of TV advertising, making it a smart choice for a brand with a clear, well-known identity.
Newspapers and magazines have been used to advertise travel for well over a century. From full-page spreads in national newspapers to glossy adverts in specialist travel magazines, print advertising remains a significant part of the tourism promotional mix though its importance has declined as readership has shifted online.
There are two main types of print advertising in tourism:
Papers like The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Mail reach millions of readers and often have dedicated travel supplements especially on Saturdays and Sundays. Tourism organisations and airlines use these supplements to reach readers who are actively interested in travel. A full-page advert in a national newspaper's travel section can be very effective, though it is expensive and the advert only appears once.
Specialist publications like Condé Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet Magazine and National Geographic Traveller are read by people who are passionate about travel. Advertising in these magazines puts a destination or product in front of a highly relevant, engaged audience. The high-quality photography and printing also make adverts look stunning far better than a newspaper.
Tourism Ireland regularly uses full-page and half-page display adverts in the travel supplements of major UK newspapers particularly around key booking seasons such as January (when people plan summer holidays) and September (when autumn breaks are popular). Their adverts feature dramatic photography of the Irish landscape rugged coastlines, green valleys, ancient castles alongside a clear call to action directing readers to their website. By targeting newspaper travel supplements, Tourism Ireland reaches readers who are already in a "holiday planning" mindset, making the advertising particularly effective. The campaign is carefully timed to coincide with periods when consumers are most likely to make a booking decision.
For your exam, you need to be able to compare and evaluate different promotional methods. The table below summarises the key features of each method covered in this lesson.
Cost: Low–Medium
Reach: Targeted individuals
Best for: Repeat customers, personalised offers
Key weakness: Needs good customer data; can feel intrusive
Cost: Very High
Reach: Mass audience
Best for: Building brand awareness, emotional impact
Key weakness: Expensive; viewers can skip adverts
Cost: Medium
Reach: Local or national
Best for: Regional promotions, commuters
Key weakness: No visuals; declining audiences
Cost: Medium–High
Reach: Targeted readership
Best for: Travel supplements, specialist audiences
Key weakness: Declining print readership; hard to measure
In the exam, you may be asked to recommend a promotional method for a specific tourism business. Always consider: Who is the target audience? What is the budget? What is the message? A small local attraction should not spend its entire budget on a national TV campaign targeted direct marketing or local radio would be far more cost-effective.
Most successful tourism marketing campaigns don't rely on just one method they use an integrated promotional mix, combining several methods to reach different audiences at different stages of the buying process. For example, a national tourism organisation might use TV advertising to build awareness, newspaper adverts to provide more detail and direct email marketing to convert interested people into actual bookings. Each method plays a different role in the customer journey.