Brand Marketing travel tips

Airbnb executives have talked a lot about how they have reduced their spending on performance marketing (think: buying ads in Google search results) to focus on brand marketing (think: subway posters advertising the company’s new “OMG” category of properties). So how much do they spend on brand and how much on performance?

Trivago’s first AI-infused TV ad didn’t play well in Latin America so the Germany-based hotel price comparison site curtailed marketing investments in the region.

About five months after debuting a global ad campaign that used AI to enable its pitchman to speak in multiple languages for different markets, Trivago is testing new commercials in the U.S.

Tim Williams, the Texas-born actor who played the Trivago Guy didn’t know he’d been replaced until he saw a new Trivago commercial last December.

Indian online travel company Cleartrip has signed former captain of the Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, as its latest brand ambassador.

Hyatt’s luxury lifestyle brand, Andaz, launched a brand awareness campaign in November called Be Like No One’s Watching. The campaign illustrates the many challenges and opportunities that hotel groups face as they market brands in today’s noisy media ecosystem. So Skift checked in to see how it’s been going.

Hilton is continuing a more than three-decade tradition of running TV ads during the Grammy Awards: On Sunday, it released spots touting why music lovers and concert-goers should pick its brands when booking hotels.

Outgoing Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern said a technology platform migration completed late last year hurt Vrbo’s ability to convert lookers into bookers, but that now the company’s vacation rental unit is ready to get back on offense.

The retailer Tommy Bahama is best known for its Hawaiian shirts and board shorts. But the yacht-owning multi-millionaires who like the brand’s easy breezy clothes have wanted a similarly ultra-chill hotel to slip into.

In a fitting consensus for the first Condé Nast Traveler Points of View summit to be held in-person since 2019, travel editors and specialists alike came away with a relieving, reinvigorating declaration: that we are so back. It’s a grand “we,” one that encompasses the travel industry at large—those in attendance in our offices and online as well as everyone in the wider industry is basking in the knowledge that business is booming. But that does not mean it is time to get complacent—there is always work to be done to improve, to implement thoughtful changes that will better not only travelers, but the places they visit.

In the perennial quest to turn bargaining-hunting travelers with little brand loyalty into customers making bookings and generating revenue through paid advertising, Airbnb widened its already substantial advantage in 2022 over rivals Booking Holdings and Expedia Group.

When Ad Age announced its “2023 Creativity Awards” on Monday, it handed one to Hilton for having the year’s “best rebrand.” The hotel giant’s brand platform, “It Matters Where You Stay,” helped the U.S.-based hotel giant differentiate itself from competitors, the trade publication said.

For a brand around since 1907, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts has suddenly had a lot of activity. In January, parent company Accor installed new Fairmont CEO Mark Willis, who has been leading a rethink of the brand’s strategy. Some of the details about strategy changes will be revealed later this month at a conference with the general managers at the brand’s 86 hotels.

This summer, Palazzo Avino – a 12th century villa turned five star hotel – has partnered with Maison Valentino on a ‘Summer Beach Takeover’. 

Hilton Worldwide debuted a major international marketing effort a year ago – July 25, 2022 – that focused on reliable lodging experiences as its differentiator. It also debuted its first “platform” for the Hilton “masterbrand” — which essentially means it added the tagline “for the stay” to all of its Hilton messaging.