The world is moving fast and so is travel marketing. If you’re still using the same playbook from a few years ago – tweaking your PPC bids, churning out destination listicles, and relying on Google’s algorithm to be kind – you’re already behind. In 2025, the key isn’t just getting noticed but getting picked. With travel brands competing for attention, standing out means digital marketing must innovate, not just perform. Here’s what travel marketers need to focus on.
Marketing to a German traveller isn’t the same as marketing to an American, Chinese, or Brazilian one – yet many brands still take a templated approach, adjusting only the language. This is a fundamental misstep.
Localisation goes beyond translation – it requires cultural intelligence. A British traveller may seek curated, lesser-known experiences, while a South Korean audience may respond more to influencer endorsements and social proof. In Japan, precision and detail signal credibility, whereas in Spain, evocative storytelling drives engagement.
This is where Oban’s Local In-Market Experts (LIMEs) add value. They ensure messaging, creative, and user experience match the unspoken cultural expectations of each market.
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Today’s travellers crave unique, tailored experiences, making personalised messaging and offers crucial for capturing attention and driving conversions. Recent data highlights a 65% increase in spending on experiences from 2019 to 2023. Travellers are willing to invest significantly in personalised trips, as evidenced by soaring demand during events like Taylor Swift concerts and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
At the heart of exceptional experiences lies data. Clean, accurate data fuels successful marketing efforts, enabling you to understand and cater to traveller needs. Using AI-driven tools allows you to analyse search histories, intent signals, and past behaviours to dynamically generate ads that resonate – boosting engagement and conversion rates.
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With online privacy concerns on the rise, data-driven advertising is facing a reckoning. While Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome has been repeatedly delayed, the need for privacy-first targeting solutions hasn’t gone away. In 2025, curation is emerging as a key alternative.
Curation enables brands and advertisers to work with supply-side platforms (SSPs) to refine audience data, match it with premium inventory, and ensure ad placements are both privacy-compliant and highly effective. Unlike third-party cookies, curation uses first-party data, making it a more precise and privacy-safe way to deliver personalised advertising.
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For years, travel marketers have relied heavily on Google – whether through SEO, PPC, or Google Hotel Ads. But the landscape is evolving. Rising CPCs, shrinking organic reach, and AI-driven search results are making it harder to gain visibility.
In 2025, brands that diversify their media spend will have the competitive edge. Investing in platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, niche travel sites, and regional search engines (such as Baidu in China or Naver in South Korea) can open up new audiences. Meanwhile, voice search, visual search, and AI-powered trip planning tools are reshaping how travellers discover destinations. A multi-platform approach ensures you’re visible wherever your audience is searching.
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AI-driven automation is powerful, but it’s not the ultimate solution to every marketing challenge. If your 2025 strategy is over-reliant on AI, you risk producing generic, formulaic content and frustrating chatbot experiences that fail to connect.
What works best is blending AI’s efficiency with human creativity – which is a theme we explore in detail in our new book, Beyond Borders. Use AI to analyse data trends, predict seasonal shifts, and fine-tune marketing efforts like email campaigns. However, allow human insights and specifically local experts to lead the charge when it comes to storytelling, relationship-building, and adding emotional intelligence.
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Sustainability has been a key focus in travel for a while, with 83% of travellers saying it affects their decisions (Booking.com). But responsibility in travel isn’t just about carbon offsets and eco-hotels – it also includes how travel is marketed and the digital operations behind it.
This year, digital advertising is expected to generate 1.7% of global carbon emissions (The Shift Project), a figure likely to rise as AI-driven tools become more widespread. In response, companies like Google and Microsoft are investing in net-zero data centres, and more brands are assessing the carbon impact of their digital campaigns. At the same time, more travellers are rejecting high-impact, checklist-style tourism in favour of ‘slow travel’ – longer stays, deeper cultural engagement, and an emphasis on lesser-known destinations to ease the strain of overtourism.
For travel marketers, this shift is both a challenge and an opportunity: meeting changing consumer expectations while lowering their own environmental impact.
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User Generated Content and reviews are not merely trust signals – they’re often a traveller’s first impression. A bad review or no reviews at all can stop engagement before it starts. Your online reputation drives conversions, impacting SEO and direct bookings.
To stay competitive, brands must go beyond collecting reviews and actively integrate them into their marketing. Social proof – video testimonials, influencer content, real-time feedback – now shapes booking decisions. Travellers turn to Google Maps, TripAdvisor, and Reddit to validate their choices, making an authentic, engaged presence essential.
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Ensuring your Google Business Profile is fully optimised is one of the easiest and most effective ways to boost your online presence. With a Google Business Profile, you can add posts and visuals to engage potential customers. Be sure to include brand-level graphics – like logos, photos, and illustrations – alongside content that highlights your services. These visuals should be appealing to first-time visitors from Google, giving them an immediate sense of who you are and what you offer.
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It’s 2025, yet many travel brands still struggle with poor mobile experiences. Clunky booking processes, slow-loading pages, and forms designed for desktops are costing businesses customers every day.
A smooth mobile experience is essential, not optional. Travellers expect quick, easy, and hassle-free interactions. If an influencer recommends your experience on Instagram, your website should ideally make booking possible in under 60 seconds. Focusing on mobile-first design, simplifying the booking process, and adding one-click payments can make a big difference. The easier it is to book, the more likely users are to follow through.
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Strong content marketing drives engagement and builds brand authority. In travel, success comes from varied, high-quality content that informs and inspires – such as well-researched guides, e-books, travel diaries, and video testimonials. SEO best practices ensure your content ranks, but with shrinking attention spans, video is now essential. While blogs still drive traffic, short, visually compelling videos on TikTok and Instagram expand reach, especially as Gen Z increasingly uses TikTok as a discovery engine.
Micro-influencers – whether on YouTube, TikTok, or blogs – offer authenticity and a deep understanding of travel. Individually, they have smaller audiences, but collectively, they form a powerful network that drives engagement.
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If you’re still pouring budget into the same old tactics, hoping for different results, it’s time for a rethink. The brands winning in 2025 aren’t necessarily spending more but they are spending smarter. That means understanding travellers better, making personalisation actually personal, and embracing platforms beyond Google. If that sounds like the kind of marketing you want to do, Oban can help. Get in touch to find out more.
