Improve bookings with personalization: 3 strategies to try

Bookings are the lifeblood of any travel business. Every year, 60% of Americans take one to two domestic trips, and nearly 10% travel more than five times. This represents a vast pool of potential customers for travel businesses like yours.

In particular, you should be focused on return bookings — these are even more precious than first-time reservations because they’re a testament to your business’ ability to meet and exceed customer expectations. Not only do repeat bookings lead to increased revenue, but they’re also much cheaper than acquiring new customers. 

If you’ve ever wondered how you can turn your summer vacationers into year-round travelers or convert one-time customers into repeat bookers, you’re in the right place. We have three strategies you have to try if you want to improve rebookings. 

Use customer feedback to generate special offers

The most successful travel businesses are the ones that know their customers. To stay visible in this competitive industry, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Tapping into customer feedback can help you accomplish this. 

Client feedback is rich with zero-party data, or data that your customer intentionally shares with you. Zero-party data can be used to power recommendation engines, suggesting trips and specials that are likely to appeal to customers based on their previous travel history.

When your customers complete their trip, consider reaching out to them to collect their opinions on their experience and inquire about any upcoming travel plans. There are a few ways you can accomplish this:

Send out surveys and feedback forms - Send follow-up surveys via email and ask questions about the reservation process, accommodations, transportation, activities and overall satisfaction. Sweeten the deal by providing an incentive for participation, like a discount on a future booking.

Conduct a personal check-in - Following a booking, reach out to your customer personally. Direct contact fosters a sense of connection and encourages open dialogue. Plus, directly asking for feedback gives you the opportunity to ask specific questions, address particular concerns and thank your client for their business. 

Practice social listening - Who hasn't posted about their vacation online? It's a common practice for people to share their travel experiences, good and bad, with their social networks. Monitoring relevant mentions, comments and hashtags is a good way to keep tabs on what people say about your business, so you can learn where you excel and where you need to improve. 

Once you’ve collected this data, you can reactivate customers who have just finished their trips with personalized deals on “first-minute” trips. This helps you stay top of mind for clients and encourages future business.

Reward loyal customers with freebies

Did you know that customer acquisition costs jumped from $9 per customer in 2014 to $29 in 2022? Retaining customers is one of your best bets to ensure profitability.

Loyal customers keep your business in the black, so why not surprise them with a special reward upon their next booking? 

Free upgrades and add-ons are always welcome in the travel industry. After all, the average week-long vacation costs almost $2,000 for one person traveling within the United States.

Use the information you have about customers’ previous purchases to inform free offers for their next booking. For example, a customer who books a wellness trip may enjoy a free spa voucher during their next trip. Free hotel stays, complimentary travel insurance coverage or a rental car at no extra cost are other enticing offer options. Use your customer data to inspire offers that will drive additional bookings.

You can also encourage upsells and first-minute bookings with the right incentives. If your customer books an expensive trip, throw in a complimentary flight upgrade. If they book a trip far in advance, offer an immediate discount on their grand total. 

The benefits of loyalty rewards extend beyond free offers. More than half of global consumers say that a loyalty program encourages them to keep shopping with a brand, above good customer service (37%) and positive online search experiences (35%). To master rebookings, don’t overlook loyalty programs. 

Predict future behavior by analyzing engagement

For travel businesses, anticipating your customers' future bookings is crucial for success. By leveraging analytics and personalization, your business can create multiple content variants and track customer engagement to accurately predict future behavior.

One effective method for generating personalized offers involves creating multiple content variants and observing how your customers interact with them. For instance, you could show your customers a variety of destinations, accommodations and travel dates on a landing page. As your customers interact with the landing page, track their selections. This data can then be used to generate personalized offers that are more likely to appeal to each individual customer.

Let’s say that one of your customers routinely selects beach getaways and culinary experiences. To increase the likelihood of a repeat booking, your business could suggest a cruise to a tropical island and a private cooking class. The data suggests that these types of offers are likely to be more appealing to this particular customer.

You can also use a custom prediction model to analyze historical data. These models use advanced algorithms to identify patterns in customer engagement. Over time, you’ll be able to automatically predict who is most likely to book a trip and when, so you can center your outreach around that.

It’s a win-win: Your clients receive offers for travel that they’re likely to book, and your company scores repeat reservations. 

Personalize on an individual level

Each traveler is different, so if you’re able to cater to their preferences, you’re that much more likely to secure another booking. For example, instead of simply A/B testing your campaigns, use artificial intelligence-driven contextual personalization to automatically show the best variant to inspire action in each customer. 

Or use AI to determine the optimal time to send your message. Instead of sending an email or SMS blast at once to your entire audience, you can use historical data to automatically send your content when they’re most likely to engage. 

Data and automation set the stage for rebookings

Rebookings are essential for travel businesses, but they can be difficult to achieve. By understanding your customers and their needs, you can encourage them to book with you again and again.

Travel businesses need to leverage automation and data in order to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and their travel preferences. This information can then be used to create personalized offers and recommendations that ensure your brand is always top of mind for customers so that you can secure repeat bookings.