International Luxury Travel Market is releasing The Luxury Traveller & Social Media: The Americas, a special report commissioned to analyze the online activities and opinions of luxury travellers across North and Latin America.
The report analyses nearly two million online reviews posted by luxury travellers from the Americas region about more than 2,000 luxury hotels worldwide, researched between January 2012 and June 2014. Building on new industry standards of creativity, key findings include impressive data about new micro-targeting technology, which is showing promising results among luxury travel brands, with ROIs reaching 50:1 in some cases. The study was produced by Brand Karma and Mario Jobbe, Brand Karma’s COO and co-founder, will present the full report at the ILTM Americas conference on September 22 at the Fairmont Mayakoba in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
Personal Facebook accounts are confirmed as credible sources of new business for luxury travel buyers and agents are advised that the key to success is winning customers ‘one by one’. Becoming ‘community leaders’ in forums on any destination or travel topic is known to deliver significant levels of new business, and the report suggests some digital platforms remain a largely untapped opportunity for travel advisors to showcase their expertise and meet new potential clients. The report also advises that luxury travel buyers should focus on marketing the 3-5 most buzzworthy elements of the hotels they are selling and use ‘micro-messaging’ techniques to communicate concisely and effectively.
‘Instagram-mable’ experiences continue to drive luxury traveller decisions – as of March 2014, over 200 million monthly active users share 60 million photos a day on Instagram. In addition, Tripadvisor still accounts for just under half of all luxury hotel reviews worldwide at 46.2%, with 50.8% of all luxury reviews in the Americas. Latin American luxury travellers care most about bedrooms and breakfasts while North American luxury travellers concentrate on service concepts such as attitude and cleanliness. In 2013, Latin America increased its appeal to luxury travellers, generating 5% more luxury travel reviews than in 2012, but as the world gets smaller, luxury travel brands across Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will need to be creative in 2014 to stay competitive in the luxury travel market.