Who doesn’t love the excitement and adventure of exploring new places?

And as far as content marketing for the travel industry goes, there are so many opportunities to be imaginative and create innovative content. Here are 10 travel content marketing campaigns that we love.

10 Travel Marketing Campaigns That Stand Out

1. JetBlue Reach Across the Aisle Campaign: If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that 2016’s political climate was brutally dividing. Politics usually are, which is why it’s the number one topic that is requested to be excluded from content marketing. But JetBlue went in the opposite direction and embraced the divisiveness.  The company created an advertisement where a plane of real customers were told everyone would receive round-trip airfare to any one of 20 international and national JetBlue routes, with one condition: all the passengers, no matter if they were Democrats or Republicans, had to agree on a single destination. All 300 chose Costa Rica, and JetBlue ended up with a feel-good ad while the rest of the country was having a tough time finding universal common ground.
2.  AirBnB Guidebooks: In a move of truly classic content marketing, AirBnB began offering guidebooks that were part of a campaign called “Live there.” The guidebooks were semi-crowdsourced by the agency’s hosts, with curated guidebooks offering highlights. This allowed for a truly insider look at the places that AirBnB customers visit, and set up some competition for TimeOut and TripAdvisor. It also could not be more relevant and integrated with the service that AirBnB provides to its customers.
3. Delta Dating Wall: Oh-so-hip Williamsburg has become a travel destination in its own right. But Delta chose it as the perfect place to create a social media centered campaign that expressed around-the-world wanderlust. They created a huge mural in Williamsburg depicting exotic locales that everyone dreams of visiting, and then they added another twist: a partnership with Tinder, encouraging singles to visit the wall to snap a picture and hashtag it #DeltaDatingWall. The wall combined a hip location, an Instagram-worthy background, travel to exotic destinations, and singles looking for love–all in a single campaign. What more could you ask for?
4. KLM’s Surprise, Surprise: Like just about everyone else, I love seeing new parts of the world. What I don’t love? Getting there. Especially when it involves air travel. It’s not a fear of flying, but the hassle of going through airports and sitting on an airline becomes more complicated every year. Well KLM found the perfect campaign to remedy the airline blues. They went through passengers’ social media accounts and chose personalized surprises to present them with before boarding. That would certainly make the lines for security worth the wait!
5. Virginia Is for Lovers:  Just because we live in a digital age where content marketing tends to exist online, doesn’t mean that content marketing has not been around for a long time. So, how can we not pay tribute to this vintage campaign that is going strong to this very day? The original 1969 campaign was supposed to characterize Virginia as a place for history buffs, but the marketing firm decided that ‘Virginia is for History Lovers’ limited the slogan too much, so they dropped a word.
6. Queensland Tourism Best Job in the World: Packaging a tourism campaign as a job advertisement? And marketing it as the best job in the world? Very clever, indeed. When Queensland Tourism ran a contest for a 6-month job as the island’s caretaker, they were able to demonstrate the best parts about visiting Queensland, while also creating massive organic interest on social media and in the press.
7. Westin Hotels and Resorts Out-of-Office Generator: Westin Hotels hardly brings to mind a hip hotel chain, but partnering with McSweeny’s brought a great deal of cool cache to the brand. They set up a website to generate out-of-office messages, and since they were penned by McSweeny’s writers, they were clever and fun.
8. Travelocity’s Where the Gnomes Roam: Another oldie, but a goodie. The Travelocity gnome has been a brand mascot since early in 2004. It actually wasn’t an original idea, but based on a prank that had been popular in the 80’s and was immortalized in the 2001 movie Amelie. But it goes to show that capitalizing on something that has already gone viral can pay off.
9. Stella Artois Le Bar Guide: Stella’s advertising has been successful enough that it can sometimes be easier to get a Stella in a U. S. bar than a Budweiser. But rather than go after being a person’s home beer, this useful app sought to keep a certain international flavor with the beer. It also capitalized on the fact that it is a beer you can order just about anywhere you might ever go.
10. Virgin Airlines Blah Airlines: Virgin airlines might be the master of using creative content marketing. It’s hard to pick just one of its campaigns, which range from in-flight texting to safety videos. But the creme de la creme has to be the 6-hour long Blah Airlines movie, if only for the pure commitment it represents. If there’s one thing that Virgin is not, it’s blah.

About the author

A freelance writer and content strategist for the last eight years, Alexandra M is a highly skilled writer, editor, proofreader and researcher. From an educational background based in English literature and poetry, she brings a deep understanding of the artistic use of language at its most basic level. Experience in overcoming research obstacles such as language, censorship and bureaucracies, has prepared her to tackle any inquiry with creativity and depth. Drawing on a breadth of personal and professional experience, she uses original thinking to apply these skills to produce and write creative, corporate and technical materials. When editing, her attention to detail combined with a quick grasp of overall coherency allows her to respect the author’s voice and intention while steering a work toward its best possible form.