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You’re a marketer in one of the most competitive industries.
You may be tired of trying, over and over, to use the same marketing strategies that you read about online or learned about in school - but is that really going to move the needle?
We all know the big brands - Booking.com, American Airlines, The Points Guy, Royal Caribbean, Marriott, VRBO, and Hertz... but what about the emerging brands that have found their path to scale?
The Travel Marketing Podcast is about sitting down with successful marketing professionals in the travel, transportation, and tourism industry to learn what has worked for them, what they’ve learned along the way, and what new trends they’re noticing.
We are Propellic, and we’re on a mission to create more diversity in thought for the planet. We’re doing that by helping brands - specifically travel, transportation, and tourism brands - increase their reach through intelligent marketing that travels further.
Transformative Travel: Emotional Appeal in Tourism Marketing
Sahara Rose De Vore
This is the Travel Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Propellic, bringing you the news and insights and what's working and not working in today's competitive transportation and tourism landscape. From emerging brands to the most established professionals, these lessons of intelligent marketing will help your marketing plan travel further.
Brennen Bliss (BB): Hey everybody. Thanks so much for joining me today for a new episode of the travel marketing compass podcast. We're Propellic, we're a travel and tourism SEO agency, and I'm Brennan, I'm the founder and principal here at Propellic. I'm really excited to host Sahara Rose DeVore.
She's a renowned wellness travel coach and consultant and the founder of the Travel Coach Network. She's actually been to over 84 countries, which we're going to talk about today, and she uses her experiences in those countries to encourage companies to integrate travel into their wellness programs.
And we're going to be talking specifically about how that applies to marketing today. Sahara's unique approach to tourism marketing emphasizes emotional appeal, taps into the emotional reasons people travel from self discovery to connecting with others. Finally, she advocates for emerging travel trends rooted in personal wellness.
Promoting a holistic view of wellness and tourism. Her innovative approach aligns with our vision of diversity in the travel industry and diversity of thought for the world, which is why we do what we do. It's why we work with the travel industry. She's a perfect guest for that reason. So I'm excited to delve into her insights.
Let's welcome Sahara to the show.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm super excited to have you here. You have an impressive background in wellness travel coaching, and consulting. So I'm excited to dive into that today and learn a little bit more from you.
So can you tell us a bit more about your journey and how you came to found the travel coach network?
SAHARA ROSE DE VORE (SRDV): Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having me today. I'm really excited to chat with you. Yeah, I graduated university in 2010 and I was at a place where, you know, I felt all of society's pressures to climb the corporate ladder, get a good job and you know, figure out my life. And at 22 years old, I didn't know what I wanted out of my life. I didn't know who I wanted to be or what kind of career path I wanted.
I studied hospitality and tourism management, but I was not satisfied with the job opportunities that there were. I didn't want to be a travel agent or work in hotels or work for a company that, quote unquote, paid me to travel for business.
I didn't really know and I was also struggling with a lot of depression and anxiety at the time. I've always had an anxiety disorder and it really kind of elevated during my last couple years of university. And so I knew that I needed something that would be more healing and fulfilling to my soul, so I decided to book a one way ticket to ireland.
I packed a backpack, bought a yule rail pass for a month and a half and I set off to go travel western europe. And I thought that I said, okay i'm gonna get this out of my system I'm gonna go travel and then i'm gonna come back to Chicago, find a job figure out my life, settle down, and all of that stuff that people expect of you, and I guess I got bit by the travel bug, and I said, you know what I really like this feeling that travel is giving me.
So I came home for the holidays, repacked the bag and bought a ticket to Costa Rica, and set off to Central America for two and a half months, and it didn't really stop from then. I just kept on... Hopping around the globe for the next decade, 84 countries on my own and within that journey. I had a really unique perspective on why people were traveling, what traveling was doing for people, why people were wishing that they could travel more and why people were quitting their corporate job to travel and all of that information, inspiration as well as the evolution of the corporate world and technology and social media really inspired me into what I do now as a wellness travel coach, but also the founder of the Travel Coach Network.
BB: One of the things, that the great things about travel. And one of the most fun questions I could ask is where have you been? And I already know that you've been to 84 countries by yourself, which is incredible. And I'm sure there's some transformative experiences in there.
What would be something that you can think of that influences your perspective on emotional travel from those 84 countries that you've been to?
SRDV: Oh, gosh. Honestly, it's the people and the places that I've been to. It's really easy to have an opinion about places or culture or people that you have not interacted with but honestly, I've been to a lot of off the beaten paths places or destinations that many people don't travel to very much like Myanmar or the Philippines. And, It's within those types of places that I have experienced just human connection and kindness and generosity, unlike any other, that really built my compassion and understanding and empathy and awareness of just how kind people are and, you know, built my gratitude for what I have in my life and, opened my eyes to other ways of living and how happiness means something differently and happiness doesn't necessarily mean how much money we have or how many material things we have either.
BB: Yeah, that's certainly true. And then the emotional appeal and, you know, travel is a transformative experience for everybody.
I think that, the reason that we're in this business, the reason that we work with travel is because it's the most diversity creating industry. It's the only industry where you can take someone, put them in a different place for a week, and have them come back as a more well rounded, diverse person. Nobody's ever been able to challenge me that there's another industry that does that the same way that travel does.
And when we talk about the emotional appeal, the experiences that you've had, how do you say the emotional appeal works in marketing? Do you have a way of thinking about this, how does it fit into the travel and tourism marketing landscape?
SRDV: Yeah. I mean, I think it has everything to do with the tourism and hospitality marketing landscape solely because travel is emotional like you said, travel is emotional. And also purchasing decisions are emotional as well, how people spend their money, what they spend their money on, and the outcomes that we're looking for, all is based on emotions. I always say that we don't sell travel. There's no such thing as selling a trip.
People aren't opting into you know, handing over their credit card for an airline for a flight, for a night in a hotel room. What they're looking for in exchange is a certain transformation, a certain outcome, a certain feeling and that's all based on emotions. So when it comes to marketing and tourism and hospitality it's so essential that you touch on that emotional aspect to why people want to travel.
What are they looking to get out of this? How do they want to feel during and after their trip? Because travel is transformative, like you said, it really can make such a big impact on us. Even one trip can make that big transformation for us. But if we don't set intentions, and as professionals in the tourism and hospitality industry, if you don't incorporate that into your marketing the client's not going to see the possible outcomes because not everyone's an avid traveler. Not everyone has had these types of experiences, but we know the power that travel has as experts in the industry. So it's up to us to relate that through our emotional marketing.
BB: Yeah. And then, specific to the travel that is really emotional, I mean the slow, meaningful, intentional, the transformative travel, the purposeful travel. I try to figure out like, do you see a benefit to making that the center of a marketing message, that type of travel? Do you think people will buy into that?
SRDV: Oh, absolutely. It's speaking to their pain points. It's same thing no matter what product, service or offer is out there.
I always give an example like the diet industry. People aren't buying a bottle of pills because they want to take pills every day to lose weight. They're seeing these transformation photos in the advertisements and they want this outcome. They want this transformation. That one just happens to be a physical transformation.
But they want this feeling of feeling like themselves again, or they want to feel better about themselves. It's a change that they're looking for. So that also relates to every industry, every offer, service, product out there. It's just like travel does, and especially because travel's already an emotional industry, there has been such a gap in tapping into that.
So of course, and I think that's the future of where travel marketing is going anyways, because we've done all this stuff in the past by highlighting the features of a hotel and talking about the size of the suite rooms on the cruise ship.
BB: It's no longer attribute based shopping. It's experience based shopping, right?
SRDV: Exactly, exactly. And, you know, that experience looks different to everyone in the industry, in my opinion, still has missed the mark completely on describing what that experience looks like because the traveler journey or traveler experience from what I've absorbed in the industry based on what is put out there is still strictly based on the logistics of the trip itself and not on the actual experience and the actual internal journey of the traveler.
BB: Well, I think the one industry in travel, because we've got all these different segments of travel, it's a huge value chain and a huge, huge group of companies. So if we were to break it down, I'd say the one industry that probably does the emotional marketing best by accident, I think, is tours and activities.
Generally like the tours and activities brands compared to hotel chains, compared to airlines. They don't have the budgets, they don't have, I mean, it's so funny because what you do in destination is really what you're looking for in that transformative experience. Not, not the hotel that you stay in.
Not, I mean, I, one caveat there's a company called Vacayu that's doing some really cool stuff right now with wellness travel. But beyond that I would say the experience you're there with, what you do when you're there, that's the part of travel that does it well and communicates that well.
I mean, airlines, I don't think they buy into that at all. They're like going to get away or go on a holiday. And it's just really interesting to think about.
So I guess personal wellness drives most of this. How could a travel business possibly change their messaging such that it promotes that type of messaging showing that it's really a transformative personal experience.
What can a travel company do to speak that way to a consumer?
SRDV: Well, the number one thing is to understand their ideal client. Who is your ideal client? Who are you trying to target? It's really easy to say well my business is for anyone because everyone wants to travel and everyone loves travel. Everyone's going to travel to some degree so I can market to everybody, but from a business standpoint, that's not strategic from a marketing standpoint.
That's not strategic so you have to identify who are you speaking to and taking a look at if you're a destination or even if you are a travel agency or travel professional and you focus on a certain destination or maybe a certain type of resorts or hotel or whatever it might be, you have to understand and do your research on what does that destination have to offer on an emotional level and how can that be tied to the needs and desires and pain points of your ideal clients.
BB: Yeah, it's helpful. It always comes back to knowing your customer, right?
SRDV: Yeah.
BB: And in our initial conversations, I remember you speaking about the wellness aspect, that aspect of tourism being just not completely understood. What do you think companies are missing? What are the common misconceptions?
SRDV: A lot. I think that there's still a really big…it's focused and I get it, it's focused on the bottom line and revenue, I get it. They're companies, corporations who need to make a dollar so they're gonna focus on what they can sell. So the services they can sell, the sessions they can sell, the products they can sell.
But wellness travel is so much more than just, like I say all the time, yoga retreats, wellness centers, and gyms and spas. There's such a more holistic approach to wellness travel that's not really being tapped into by hospitality and tourism companies because they don't see where the revenue can be in that.
The revenues in how much can we add to the menu of our spa? How much can we put into our facilities within the four walls of our establishments? And you can only differentiate yourself so much in that degree. And If everyone is doing the same thing, if every wellness resort or hotel or anything that is checking the wellness box off on their website, if they're doing the same thing, you're now getting yourself back into the same box as you were before.
So you have to think outside the box. Especially when it comes to, like, what's going to make a dollar, because people do seek all of these things that are more of a holistic way, a natural way of wellness, than how much money they can spend within the four walls of the establishment, but companies aren't seeing that yet.
BB: Yeah, and that brings up an interesting point, because most of the conversations in business need to come back to revenue, and for travel that comes from bookings, whether you're an OTA, whether you're a hotel, unless you're a business travel agency, your bookings is what you need, not leads, not interest, you need bookings. So I guess the common question is like, how can packaging play into this? How can a hotel maybe get in aligned with a local sustainable company to bring healthy food into their hotel? Do you see Meridian doing something like that? Like a packaging hotel offerings with a local experience that's more wellness oriented.
So a hotel like an Embassy Suites, an Embassy Suites can't be a wellness resort easily by nature, and wellness resorts just checking that box doesn't do quite enough, as you were just saying. So what can a hotel do to appeal to that, to actually have a product offering that also might lead to revenue?
SRDV: Yeah, I mean, there's a variety of different things that they can do. It's based on what their destination has to offer. I mean, obviously you can only do so much in the sense of keeping an experience within the four walls of your property, but taking a look at what your local community has to offer.
And like you said, bringing in maybe local food, local healthy food. Maybe providing tours within the hotel that it's going to be able to bring in some revenue and those tours are going to get people out in nature. They're going to get them into the local community. It's going to get them the experience within the culture that they are seeking.
It's just that I've seen so many hotels. Just focus on their gyms and spas when it comes to it and I know like the Kenya Ranches that have all of these different services and Nutritionists and Coaches that come in and then there's the scenery of course, but how can we get people immersed into it? All of that that's offered in the surroundings versus just acknowledging that it's there or cherry picking what comes into your property.
You can only offer so many morning yoga sessions or spiritual rituals…
BB: You don't leave the four walls of the property, you might as well just put it anywhere and have a projector that shows the nature outside the room that isn't actually there. Right? So it's important to get out and see the destination.
Well, since we're talking marketing, and since that's, who's listening to this as people who are interested in that area of business, do you have any campaigns that you think have been particularly successful, anybody that's done this really well that you could talk about a little bit?
SRDV: I don't think there's anyone in particular that's been doing it really well that I have come across. I think that there are companies that are on the right track if they stay in the lane of creativity and innovation that they had in mind and not try to fit into what, you know, fall back into the ways of what others are doing.
An example would be Explorer Journeys, which is a cruise line, I think a sister to the MSC or it's within the MSC cruise line, but their whole concept is transformative and wellness experiences focused on ocean wellness, which I think is really a unique take in the cruise industry because again with cruises, what else can you be doing other than putting pelotons in the gym facility or offering yoga mats in the state rooms.
But really immersing people into the destinations that they go and visit and what wellness looks like in that degree as well too. So there's a lot of talk of different companies doing different things, but there's one thing to talk of what you're going to do versus the action that they take and the implementation that they have.
Are two separate things. So I haven't seen too much implementation. I've heard a lot of talk, but it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to wellness travel, just because I just see the same company, or companies doing the same things, offering the same things.
BB: That sounds eerily similar to companies with DEI initiatives and companies with sustainability initiatives. Oh, goodness.
Actually there's only one real, real travel company. There's two that I know of that are doing a really good job with DEI and the rest are just on track. They're trying to, right? So what would be an indicator of progress? Let's take a type of company. Let's say, American Airlines. How could American Airlines move to, or is it worth it? Does it make sense for them? Should they even be trying to move towards messaging and providing an experience that has anything to do with wellness or just an air carrier?
SRDV: I think it would be really smart for them to move towards a direction of wellness because travel itself on airplanes, on flights, being in airports could be a big detriment to people's well being, their mental health, their stress levels, the anxiety that they have as well. So what are they doing to help with that?
Whether it's airlines partnering with airports and seeing what airports are offering in terms of wellness. I know some airports do things like meditation sessions. I know Singapore airport, I love it because they bring a lot of nature and greenery into it so you don't feel like you're in an airport, you feel like you're outdoors in nature, so you can go and listen to the waterfalls, you can go and listen to birds chirping. So it gives you a different sense and it eases you and prepares you better for this flight. So I think there's a lot of creativity that is yet to be done, especially in the world of airlines, because I don't think they necessarily see that connection.
In the sense of wellness for airlines, I think they take a look at, well, what can we offer? And they look at their food and they're like, okay, we offer more vegetarian options, or we partner with a certain company food purveyor that has organic food or something like that, which is a step, but how can we think outside of the box?
But also wellness looks different to every different industry and there's a difference between health and wellness as well, too.
BB: Yeah, huh. That makes a lot of sense. It's hard for me personally to even think outside of food what an airline could do but that argument that you make of an airline contributing to the airport experience because generally that's taxpayer funded there is a room for a unique experience at the gate, right?
And I also had no idea that airports had meditation sessions. That's super cool.
SRDV: Yeah, I don't remember them in particular, but I remember seeing a few and being like, oh, that's really interesting that they would have that. But yeah, I think that airlines, though they've been focusing because of COVID, they have been focusing a lot on health.
And it's really easy for companies to check the wellness box if they cover the health box and there's a big difference.
BB: We'll call it health and wellness, right? That's, it's always a grouped category, health and wellness. If you were to define the difference between the two, how would you define that?
SRDV: Well, health is more like your physical health. So when you think of sanitation and the social distancing that people have, so that's for our personal health. Our well being is very multifaceted and covers things like our mental well being, our spiritual well being, our emotional well being, our physical well being, of course.
There's so many different avenues of well being that need to be addressed as well. And I think grouping it with health and well being. Allows you to check the box if you've checked health.
BB: Yeah, I think it does. I really do think it does. I agree, so in terms of marketing what are some lessons that you've learned or things that you've seen go incredibly wrong or poor messaging from companies or failed initiatives or anything really interesting or knowledge that you would like to share with our listeners about travel and tourism and wellness.
SRDV: Well, I think that a trend that's happening in the travel industry space, a couple things to do with like travel influencers or travel content creators. And I think that that could go incredibly wrong and it has in many sense because the creativity isn't really there.
So if we're seeing a content creator or a travel influencer who's at a hotel and they're showcasing the hotel and they showcase the beautiful blue waters, we're really just mimicking what we did in the past, which showing the pictures of the palm trees and the beautiful white sand beaches, the blue waters and we're just now putting it into a digital form. And it's really just someone who has been paid to go and and be there it has no emotional connection to this destination And so again going back on emotion that emotional connection is not there I don't know how much longer the influencer industry in general is really going to hold credit.
I don't know if you’ve heard, from TikTok, the whole makeup and mascara controversy…I can see that rolling over into the travel industry.
BB: What's the makeup and mascara controversy?
SRDV: There was a very, very popular TikToker who first did an unpaid ad of a mascara and said that she didn't really like it. But then like a years later, got paid from the brand to put it on and then kind of did an edit clip where went from one scene to full lashes and then people are like well did you really use it that looks like fake lashes on you and she absolutely loves it now so it's because she's being paid to say that so how can we buy into what we're seeing if we know that you're getting paid to give a certain response.
It's the same thing with the travel industry. I've seen it over the past in Instagram before it became video on TikTok or Instagram Reels, where it was these fake photos and not fake, they're real, but very edited, but also still not fake in the sense of the reality of what to expect when you get there.
So there's false advertisements. And I think that's what travel influencing can do as well as these false impression of what a destination or experience is going to look like. When the customer goes to this destination because they were highly influenced from this brand or this company, what do you do from there? How do you pick up the pieces? How do you fix that when you weren't fully truthful in the first place? It was highly edited.
I remember seeing a picture of the Taj Mahal, many influencers going to the Taj Mahal, and when I went to the Taj Mahal, it was nothing like that, we stood in line for hours to get a picture on a certain bench, I couldn't get people out of the way because there's 5 million people there. It was just not the same experience and it didn't only have to do with the photo, but it had to do with just everything because we're in India. So you're just fed these different thoughts, which now how are you adding to the traveler's experience when they now have these different questions and motions and experiences as well. So I think there's a lot that could go wrong in that travel influencer world.
BB: Yeah. Sets up the traveler for failure, right?
SRDV: Yeah. It doesn't show the reality of what travel's like and it doesn't have to be a bad thing that the trip's not perfect. We don't expect travel to be perfect because those imperfections, those experiences leave us with room to grow and realization and going off the beaten path and have spontaneity.
And that's what some of the most memorable experiences and most impact we can be made. But that's all completely missing in the world of this is exactly what your experience is going to look like. Book now. Work with us.
BB: Yeah, it's a nice thought to think how people book the destination they're going to, not the heavily edited depiction of what that destination is supposed to be like.
SRDV: Yeah.
BB: If you had one piece of advice for travel marketers as it relates to wellness travel, what would you say is the most important thing for people to take away?
SRDV: They need to define what wellness travel means to them. Wellness travel looks differently for everyone and if you're trying to just fit yourself into the mold of what research shows that people are looking for because research varies from study to study and find what your brand wants to be known for and what kind of wellness experience do you want your customers to have that sets you apart from others too.
BB: Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it and the last question I've got for you is where are you going next?
SRDV: Actually, it's not a very fancy place. I'm heading to Dallas for the Global Business Travel Association's conference, I'm speaking on wellness travel there for business travelers.
BB: That'll be right in my neighborhood, If you make it to Austin, shoot me a message.
SRDV: Oh yeah.
BB: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining. I really appreciate it. And super glad to know you and hope you have safe travels to my home state of Texas.
SRDV: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me today. It was a joy.
For more empowering ideas, visit Propellic. com. We're on a mission to create more diversity in thought for the planet, and dedicated to helping brands, both large and small, increase their reach through intelligent travel, transportation, and tourism marketing. P R O P E L L I C. com