Travel and Tourism Marketers Miss the Boat on Anticipation

Image source: Timeanddate.com

A vacation can last days or maybe weeks. But the anticipation of travel can last months or even years — making it the antidote to routine and in many ways more satisfying than the actual experience of the vacation itself.

Studies have born this out, including a notable one conducted by researchers in the Netherlands. Actually planning a vacation, and anticipating one, has a more durable impact on happiness than the pleasure derived during and after.

Which begs the question: why don’t travel and tourism marketers do more to tap into this powerful emotion?

Absent a few, such as Disney with their MagicBand and Carnival Corporation with their Ocean Medallion (not surprisingly, Carnival’s CRM exec is a Disney alum), most destination marketers do little to give their prospects and customers ways to not just plan their trip … but also anticipate it with traditional or non-traditional CRM strategies and tactics.

They could give me an app to help gather and organize my possibilities, facilitate a virtual meetup with a local to discover “hidden gems,” give me an arsenal of screensavers to plaster my phone or laptop on as the days countdown, email me a weekly recipe, promote a sweeps tied to Pinterest or Instagram, send me a “can of sun” or a native flower, feed me bite-sized morsels of local history, culture, or wildlife, send me something I can hang on my wall saying “hang in there, you’ll be in [xx] soon — the opportunities are endless. And, by the way, many can also be monetized.

Who will leverage the anticipation insight for competitive advantage? Let the countdown begin …