Written August 2021 – 4-min read
Copywriting for travel presents an unusual challenge, largely because much of the experience you’re selling is intangible and unknowable. Sure, you can explain the features and benefits of a hotel room fairly easily, but of an entire holiday? That’s a different matter.
Whether you’re offering a simple package deal, a day-trip or a complicated multi-stop itinerary, there are a huge number of elements which can make or break the holiday, many of which a travel company have no real control over.
Over almost 10 years in the travel industry, I’ve seen customers with perfect holidays “ruined” by a rainy day or a late transfer, as well as those who come back beaming about their adventure, even though pretty much everything went wrong. Context is a curious thing.
As anyone who has worked in travel knows, if a customer doesn’t like their holiday then the hassle and damage can far outweigh the initial profit you made. Copywriting for travel shouldn’t just be about getting customers, it should be about getting the right customers (and not ones like these).
Here’s a few common mistakes to avoid, from someone who has made them before…..
1. Overselling your product
As with any product, exaggerating the features and benefits of a holiday, tour or hotel is simply bad for business. The short term sales boost may be nice, but a complaint can be expensive, time-consuming and damaging to the company’s reputation. This is especially true with travel, where customers are spending significant money and are more inclined to complain if the service isn’t up to scratch.
Make a list of the true benefits of your product or company and write about them well, but be honest.
2. Overselling your destination
There are some wonderful places in the world, but no country is perfect. Unless they’re staying locked up in a 5-star hotel room for the whole time, there’s a good chance that your customer might come across a run-down area, some litter on a beach, traffic, mosquitoes, persistent street-sellers etc…..
Whilst it doesn’t help to dwell on the potential negatives in your copy, your customer should know that they’re heading to a real place rather than into a Disney movie. Don’t go over the top. In most cases, the customer has already researched and decided the destination they want to go to, so painting an unrealistic picture of it is only going to put them off going there with you.
Keep your descriptions realistic and build that trust from the beginning. If there’s something slightly imperfect you can touch on without risking sales, then that can turn into a positive for how they view your company.
3. Excessive adjectives
Mountains are magnificent. Sunsets are beautiful. People know this already, that’s why they want to see them. Not everything needs a flowery adjective attached, and too many of them in your descriptions can make for a difficult read. Control yourself!
4. Forgetting the customer
“We have 500 years of experience, we have been to 700 countries, we are 300% carbon-positive, we have won this award, and that award…….”.
That’s great, but what about my holiday?
I’ve seen countless travel websites that fall into this trap, leaving their audience to figure out how any of this is going to result in a decent holiday. Do the work for them. Turn your achievements into their benefits.
5. Losing your brand voice
Most travel customers spend a lot of time researching before they decide on a holiday, and I mean a lot. It’s highly likely that they’ll have seen your marketing materials and browsed multiple pages on your website or in your brochure before they’ll even think about getting in touch.
This provides a great chance to show your brand’s personality, but if your tone of voice isn’t consistent then it loses momentum pretty quickly. I’ve seen plenty of travel brands who have clearly used a skilled copywriter for their marketing and main web pages, but seem to have copied and pasted their product descriptions from Google Translate. It kind of ruins the illusion, just at the point you’re asking them to spend their money.
Whatever your brand’s voice is, make sure it’s everywhere.
6. Glossing over the details (or focusing on them too much)
There’s a fine balance to be struck here, and it’s not always easy. Too much detail can make your copy feel bloated and unnatural, not enough detail can have your reader looking elsewhere for more clarity.
It’s a common problem in copywriting, and travel copywriting is no different.
All travel customers have intangible ‘wants’ (e.g. to relax, or to experience a new culture) and practical ‘needs’ (e.g. a hotel with a pool, a good hire car or activities to keep their kids happy).
Essentially, the main body of your copy should paint a picture and appeal to your reader’s ‘wants’, without getting too bogged down with the ‘needs’ unless they are viewed as deal-breakers or significant benefits.
This is where your destination and product knowledge comes in, alongside an understanding of your target customer and what’s important to them. This should help you decide which features and benefits are important enough to mention in your main sales copy.
For everything else, just keep it simple. I’ve always found a separate info section with a list of the more mundane and practical features to be effective. There’s no point gift-wrapping a brick.
7. Choice of language
At my previous workplace a few years ago, my manager took issue with the term “friendly locals”, which was littered throughout our website. It may seem like a minor thing, but this kind of terminology is regularly used by western travel companies and it’s kind of patronising when you think about it.
Whilst some destinations can have a more relaxing or welcoming feel to them than others, and that’s a good selling point, the people who live there are as complicated as anyone else, and they’re not all friendly.
Frankly, some of them are arseholes.
It’s easy to fall into this trap and create some utopian vision of simple, happy village folk going about their simple, happy village lives, but it’s unrealistic and demonstrates a lack of understanding that readers will pick up on.
Take care when describing local people and communities. Remember the arseholes.
“Remember the arseholes” feels like a good way to end this.
Hope it’s been helpful, and feel free to comment or get in touch for more copywriting goodness.