Digital Marketing or "online marketing" for tourism has now become the key marketing focus at all stages of a traveller's interaction with your business.

If you think about this customer journey in marketing terms, and more specifically for tourism marketing, we talk about The 5 Stages of Travel which include: Dream, Plan/Research, Book, Experience and Share.

The 5 Stages of Travel

There's a lot of information about digital marketing and plenty of sources of advice - it can actually seem a bit over-whelming to try and figure out your own digital marketing strategy! This guide is aimed at providing an "overview" of all the different components that might make up your digital marketing plan, with links to information on topics you may want to delve into further.

Digital...

For many years the primary focus for building reviews for tourism businesses has been with Tripadvisor listings. However the ways in which travellers now access information and reviews about your tourism business has evolved.

Travellers no longer solely use Tripadvisor - now they will make judgement calls from a variety of review sources including Facebook (pages and friend referrals), Instagram, OTA review listings, and most prominently, from your Google Business Profile.

Why Google Reviews are important for your tourism business

Your business reviews are part of the Google local search results.

For travellers, local search is a vital tool for both travel research and as a guide when on the road. Your Google Business Profile will appear in results along with your...

We all talk about the weather on a daily basis and for tourism businesses the weather often has quite a significant impact on your bookings and visitation numbers. Whether it be for seasonal or simply short-term weather conditions, the weather can dictate who turns up. 

What if you could be a bit more clever about the weather and integrate it into your digital marketing plan to attract bookings? This brings us to what we call “Weather Ads.” 

What are Weather Ads? 

As the name suggests, “Weather Ads” is an ad campaign tactic based around the weather forecast to match an activity or location with upcoming weather conditions.  

Will it be snowing next weekend? Then ski packages are a timely ad to use. Will it be hot and sunny on the coast? Then let people know they can...

If you’ve ever wondered how marketing experts (like the good people here at Tomahawk) know all about who’s visiting your website, the pages they’re viewing and how they’re finding you in the first place, the answer usually lies within one powerful tool… Google Analytics.

Since its original release in 2005, Google Analytics has helped millions of people improve their websites, better understand their audiences and get great results from their marketing campaigns.

And in October 2020, Google released a new version of its analytics tool and the most powerful version yet – GA4.

What is GA4 and how is it different from the previous version?

Most businesses are currently using Universal Google Analytics (UGA.) which was released in 2012. UGA served us well for almost a...

As of 2022 "Google My Business" has been renamed "Google Business Profile". Before you get reading, download our free Google Business Profile setup guide that will give you step by step instructions to create or claim your business listing!

Download Setup Guide

One of the most effective ways to get your tourism business noticed is by utilising a fantastic free tool from the good people at Google: ‘Google My Business’. Google My Business is what we call your ‘digital storefront’. It can appear when customers search for your business specifically or for business like yours on Google or Google Maps.

You’ve probably seen Google My Business listings plenty of times before. If you search for a specific business on Google, it’s the listing that appears to the right side of Google...

If you’ve got a website, you might’ve heard the term ‘SSL certificate’ being tossed around. But what is it, exactly? And you haven’t already got one, do you need one? This simple guide to SSL certificates lays out everything you need to know in black and white, with any mysterious technical jargon translated into plain English.

What is SSL?

The SSL acronym stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It enables a type of sophisticated encryption that means information transferred from a user to a website is impossible to read by hackers.

An SSL certificate is particularly important if the user is submitting sensitive information such as credit card numbers or personal details that could make them a victim of identify theft. It makes your website ‘secure’.

How do you know if an SSL...