People start looking for travel inspiration when the holidays are near. They may not plan to travel this season. But the festivities put them in the mood to start looking for future trips.

With Thanksgiving coming up next week, now’s the time to be showing off your hotel, travel company, or restaurant as a choice for a vacation stop. Create unique holiday marketing campaigns to reach out travelers and show your holiday spirit.

There’s plenty of ways to show off your property during a holiday. Marketing pieces include blog posts, videos, and pictures.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Create a Holiday Blog Post

If your company does something special for the holidays, share the story in a blog post. If you give volunteer hours or match donations for a particular non-profit, share it with your readers.

Give details on the company, what they do, and how your readers can donate or contribute if they wish. These stories allow your prospects to get to know your company better and why they should choose you when traveling.

It’s a fun way to celebrate the spirit of the holiday. Marketing doesn’t have to be limited to what your company is doing.

Take this time of year to introduce people to the employees of the company, too.

Do spotlight blog posts on different employees and they’re favorite part of the holiday. Marketing doesn’t have to be strictly sales material.

“Meeting” the people they might speak with during their stay helps them know, like, and trust your company. Let them see what the stay might be like with photos.

Share Your Holiday Photos

Do you decorate your property or front office for the holidays? Share the pictures with potential guests.

Post your favorite holiday decorations to your company’s Instagram page. Spark traveler’s curiosity for a future trip.

Pictures aren’t just for Instagram, though. Consider sharing photos of your holiday decorations on your website or Facebook pages too! Posts with images tend to perform better on social media. Your decorations make your property a unique option.

Highlight the staff in your holiday marketing as well. If they like the idea, share pictures from the holiday parties or your individual staff in their best holiday-themed outfits. Potential guests might also be interested in videos of what to do in your vacation destination.

Holiday Themed Videos

Holiday marketing can highlight your destination for a future trip. Instead of the short, tourist-attractions-only videos, let potential travelers get to know the local side of your destination.

Take a video of a regular holiday event, like caroling or a local market for holiday shopping. Make sure to capture the unique parts of your destination in the video as well, like unique trees or local cafés.

You can share the video on your social media accounts. If you have a YouTube channel, post it there with information about each of the events in the video. But don’t stop there.

Share the video more than once. Use it on your website to showcase things to do in your destination or while staying at your hotel. If any of the attractions are open year-round, keep the footage for other videos about your destination.

If you have live events at your property, like holiday meals or show, record it on Facebook Live.  Then save the video to use later on social media or in future holiday marketing campaigns.

You can even share the video to your email list, with a message to former guests about the holiday’s festivities at your property and upcoming sales.

The holidays are a great time to reach out to former guests and let them know what’s new at your property. Share what makes your property or destination unique at the holidays in blog posts and social media updates to help inspire future travelers.

And to all of my American readers, Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Need ideas for holiday-themed marketing or new blog posts? Contact me to get started on a marketing plan today.