Today’s travelers find inspiration across multiple channels. With over 70% of travel-related searches now happening on mobile, and AI-generated itineraries reshaping how consumers plan their trips, marketers need to show up early in the decision journey.
DOOH provides the real-world influence necessary to kickstart intent. It primes consumers to take actions like searching online or visiting a website. As part of an omnichannel strategy, it’s one of the only mediums that deliver both scale and recall.
According to OAAA, 83% of U.S. adults and nearly 9 in 10 Gen Z adults are planning leisure trips in the months ahead. So how can travel brands, like hotels and airlines, as well as tourism boards reach consumers during the course of their everyday routines? Let’s explore what makes digital out-of-home (DOOH) an essential marketing channel for your travel and tourism marketing campaigns.
Strategies for a successful travel & tourism marketing campaign
Travel and tourism encompasses a broad variety of businesses – including regional to international airlines, major hotel groups to boutique resorts and city visitor groups to country tourism boards. However, there are a number of strategies that can be effectively applied across them all:
- Co-op & regional marketing: Take advantage of your partnerships, such as tourism boards and airlines or local attractions. Boost awareness of both the destination and business in one fell swoop.
- Weather triggers: Leverage weather conditions in your favor. Snowing in New York? Sunny Aruba sounds even more appealing!
- Seasonal promotions: Create custom messaging based on the time of year, whether that be winter holidays, spring break or summer family vacations.
- Local & domestic travel: Encourage staycations or roadtrips by spotlighting regional attractions, historical landmarks or hidden gems.
CLIENT SUCCESS STORY: American Airlines used DOOH to promote its Mastercard-linked AAdvantage Loyalty Program, encouraging new sign-ups and card usage among members, driving a 300:1 return on metrics of new Advantage joins, spend and flight purchase.
Reach travelers at the right place & time
More and more, DOOH is being used by travel and tourism brands because of its unique power to reach audiences as they move from the awareness to decision-making stage. The most effective campaigns are aligned to how travelers actually plan. From early inspiration to last-minute bookings, DOOH can be activated across every stage of the travel journey.
Build awareness early
Travelers start dreaming and researching well before they book. This is the time to establish brand presence and spark inspiration.
Influence consideration
As travelers compare destinations, plan itineraries or look for deals, DOOH becomes a powerful tool to reinforce destination appeal.
Drive intent
With trips on the horizon, travelers are moving from planning to booking — the ideal moment to influence those decisions with targeted messaging.
Capture last-minute travelers
Many decisions, such as hotels and excursions, are made in the final days. This is your chance to capture attention with timely, location-based DOOH that drives immediate action.
The flexibility of programmatic DOOHallows marketers to tailor campaigns across the funnel, leveraging tailored creative, strategic venues and precise targeting strategies to move travelers from awareness to action.
The value of first & third-party data
From frequent flyers to beach lovers, consumers on the move leave behind valuable signals that can be harnessed to fuel smarter DOOH campaigns. By activating the right data, travel brands can reach high-intent audiences.
First party data allows brands to re-engage known customers with personalized messaging. CRM lists, loyalty programs and past purchases can all be securely activated in DOOH.
Third-party data, available through trusted data partners, offers access to a broader universe of high-intent traveler audiences. Marketers can activate audiences based on demographics, transactions, psychographics, online behaviors and even location patterns. Some examples audiences you could explore include:
- Frequent Business Travelers
- Leisure and Family Travelers
- Travelers highly likely to take a cruise
- International Travelers
- Budget Hotel Visitors
- Outdoor Enthusiasts
- Food and Cultural Aficionados
- Business Decision Makers
CLIENT SUCCESS STORY: Learn more about how a Travel Texas leveraged advanced audience targeting, cross-channel retargeting and hyper-local creatives to increase visitation intent (78%), website traffic (94%) and travel to Texas (176%).
Leveraging contextual relevance for travel promotions
Much like traveling, DOOH is all about location! Once you settle on an audience targeting strategy, think about the locations that best fit your travel or tourism campaign. With access to a broad mix of indoor and outdoor venues — from transit hubs and airports to office buildings and rideshares — marketers are expanding their DOOH footprint beyond traditional billboards to make a greater impact. With programmatic technology, brands can easily activate their creatives across multiple screens and networks in a single and streamlined plan.
CLIENT SUCCESS STORY: Determined to find new brand loyalists, Hyatt Andaz turned to DOOH to capture the attention of experience-driven, affluent travelers across key urban markets. Adapting their bold creative across airports, billboards, bus shelters and urban panels they saw a significant lift in awareness (37%), consideration (37%) and intent to stay (26%).
Utilizing advanced data activations
In addition to data-driven audience targeting, there are a variety of advanced targeting tactics that marketers are using to maximize their DOOH campaigns.
- Proximity targeting: Does your travel brand want to drive engagement at specific locations, such as airports, hotels or travel agencies? Activate DOOH and mobile screens near these key places of interest to stay top-of-mind at opportune moments.
- Time-parting & day-parting: Forget always-on outdoor advertising. Utilize time- or day-parting when it makes sense for your messaging to run only during certain times of the day or days of the week.
- Mobile extension: Activating on DOOH? Re-engage consumers exposed to your outdoor campaign on their mobile devices to amplify the impact.
- Device ID Passback: Take your cross-screen campaigns a step further. Safely receive the device IDs of travel consumers exposed to your DOOH campaign, and then re-target across additional advertising channels using your preferred DSP.
Make your metrics matter with DOOH measurement
With the availability of today’s sophisticated measurement solutions, brands are not only able to measure the impact of their DOOH campaigns but can also gain valuable consumer insights for their future marketing initiatives. Vistar's exposure-based brand studies can report on a variety of metrics, such as:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Purchase/Booking Intent
- Preferred Brand Attributes
- Customer Loyalty
- Creative Effectiveness
- Message Association
- Competitive Awareness
- Destination Preference
Additionally, Vistar's partnership with Arrivalist allows brands to gain a deeper understanding of campaign performance with a detailed view of the entire consumer travel journey — including to, within and back from a travel or tourism destination. These insights enable marketers to measure the performance and ROI of their programmatic DOOH campaigns, including:
- Arrival Rate (campaign efficiency)
- Arrival Lift (incremental visitation)
- Stay Lift (incremental duration)
- Days to Arrival (time between exposure & arrival)
- Origin Markets (location of media exposure)
- Distance to Arrival (travel time to visit)
Scaling DOOH for a world in motion
For travel and tourism brands, audiences are constantly in motion — crossing borders, hopping timezones and exploring new destinations. A global demand-side platform (DSP) enables travel marketers to plan, activate and measure DOOH campaigns across multiple regions, countries and markets. Whether you’re a tourism board promoting long-haul destinations, an airline looking to drive bookings from specific origins or a hospitality brand with properties around the world, a global DSP gives you a way to reach the right people wherever they are.
Ready to take your travel marketing strategy further?
As travelers move through seasons, cities and decision stages, DOOH offers the ability to reach them with precision and relevance. From strategic targeting to cross-market activation, the opportunities for travel and tourism brands to connect with consumers through DOOH have never been greater.
Want to dive deeper into how brands are activating DOOH? Download the Travel & Tourism Marketer’s Guide to Global DOOH Advertising to explore real campaign examples, best practices for targeting tactics, measurement strategies and more.
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