Ahh, August. The quiet month for travel marketers? The final push to promote your late deals for summer is over, and peaks is still far enough away to still feel like tomorrow’s problem.
Perhaps it’s time for all those travel trade marketers out there to finally sample for themselves the very thing they’ve spent the previous year working so hard to sell – a well-earned holiday.
Well, yes. And no.
August may traditionally have been a lull in the annual travel marketing cycle – after all, your customers are likely to either be preparing for, going on, or having just returned from the holiday you’ve successfully sold them. But it isn’t necessarily the same for travel marketers themselves. Output and activity may slow down or change emphasis, but August is a critical month for getting your marketing right to ensure your team and your brand are at optimum performance ahead of the autumn and winter peak selling periods.
So, before you set your sights on the sun loungers, there are two key areas of focus during what remains of the month – strategy and planning, and the team.
As the dust settles on the first six months of the financial year, take the time now to step back from the day-to-day. Think back to what you set out to achieve at the beginning of the year – what was the strategy or the plan – and assess how you have performed against the tasks and targets agreed with your stakeholders and agencies.
Based on that – and considering any unforeseen events that could have knocked your plan off course, such as the threat of airport strike action or the recent wildfires in Greece and Italy – do you need to change your activity, budget or targets for the next five months? Do any new opportunities that have arisen during the year need incorporating? How are any one-off projects or partnerships tracking?
August is also the perfect time for you to take a breath with your team and reflect with each of them on their contributions and levels of personal satisfaction. Are their development goals being exceeded, and is everyone across the team aligned for optimal performance for the rest of the year?
Have enough resources been allocated to the months ahead? Has your team, collectively and individually, had a chance to reflect on the first six months of the year to see how their contribution has made a difference? And how were their efforts celebrated or rewarded?
Spend time reviewing strategy as a team to make sure everyone understands where you’re heading, and to give them an opportunity to input their thoughts. The best ideas don’t just come from the top.
Likewise, if you’re using an agency, take this time to review their performance – both in terms of activity and results delivered, and processes and ways of working. What needs a tweak?
September isn’t far away, and the turn of the year is already looming on the horizon. Whether you’re a travel agent who juggles marketing your agency with selling holidays, or you’re part of the in-house team at a big brand operating across multiple territories, if you do nothing else this August (other than relaxing with a good book by the pool or beneath a palm tree), make sure you’re ready for when the travel marketing machine needs to crank back into action in September.
You and your customers will be back from their holidays, and beginning to think about the next one.
Andrew Shelton has nearly 30 years’ travel industry experience with the likes of British Airways, Virgin Holidays, Cheapflights and Netflights. He is a founding member of the Llama collective of travel marketing specialists, helping brands all over the world to sharpen their marketing.
