How travel is marketed and sold

During the pandemic, travel advisors relied far less on email than they did in the past. In 2019, 74% cited email as an important way to market to clients, while this year only 68% did. Advisors also relied more on free social media content and less on paid online ads. In 2019, 26% said they marketed using paid ads, a number that dropped to 18% this year, while free social media content jumped six points this year, from 73% to 79%. 

The largest agencies, which naturally have larger marketing budgets, depend less on free social media and are more likely to pay for ads. 

A new category this year, videoconferencing, took the No. 7 spot, with 20% calling it an effective marketing approach, higher than paid social media ads and on par with mobile/texting. 

The top social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn — all gained as platforms to sell travel, in line with the increase in free social media as a marketing tool. Instagram made the biggest jump, from 52% in 2019 to 68%, with home-base agents seeing especially large increases.

Videoconferencing was added to the survey for the first time as a means of communicating with clients and entered the survey in the No. 5 spot. The only major swings that occurred were a decline in "chat" — it decreased from 21% in 2019 to 12% — and phone usage, down from 94% to 87%, likely replaced by video calls.