After two years of relaunches and pauses, suppliers and the trade are ramping up marketing again
Convinced that the time is right to engage a (mostly) vaccinated and (definitely) pandemic-weary public. Part 1 of a two part report.
The fits and starts of the Covid-19 pandemic have given whiplash to travel marketers who have more than once launched advertising campaigns, only to have them run right into yet another Covid wave.
Now, with the passing of the pandemic’s second anniversary, a surge in travel advertising indicates that hotels, tour operators and cruise lines appear confident that, with travel restrictions falling worldwide and a world population that is often both vaccinated and very pandemic-fatigued, the time to market to a public bursting with pent-up demand to travel has arrived.
From Expedia’s 30 seconds of Super Bowl air time, Carnival Cruise Line’s massive “Funderstruck” campaign and Marriott’s presence at the return of live festivals like Coachella, travel marketing, like travel itself, appears to finally be on the rebound.
As Helen McCabe-Young, senior vice president of marketing for Virtuoso, put it, “Travel is roaring back, and no one wants to miss the opportunity ahead.”
