A Twist on the Putting a Trip Under the Tree Marketing Campaign

A popular marketing theme this time of year is “Put a trip under the tree.” Or the “Give the gift of memories!” Most people will not stop and read what you have to say about “giving the gift of travel.” It is too generic.

Let’s look at how we can use this theme in a way that inspires someone to deposit a trip and have it all booked before the holidays.

I always tell travel agents in my programs when they are writing marketing copy to start with thinking of who your ideal client is. People are busy. There are group texts going and notifications everywhere. If you want to grab someone’s attention, you need to be more specific with your messaging to that ideal client.

A Honeymoon or Anniversary Trip

Let’s take an example from romance travel and honeymoons. 

Start your marketing message with, “Instead of stressing over what to give each other for the holidays, book your honeymoon now and that can be your gift to each other.”  

You can also go into all the reasons rooms are selling out and how depositing now will be an advantage for them. If your audience is not honeymooners, this messaging works well for anniversaries too.

Putting a Family Trip “Under the Tree”

For family travel, of course the little ones should have something to open on Christmas morning. How about inspiring parents to make it a theme — let’s take a kid who LOVES Harry Potter as an example.

First, give the parents the visual of what life is like right now: There is no room to walk in the playroom or their kid’s room is so full of stuff, there’s nowhere to walk.  

Show how depositing their 2025 Universal package now for $50 per person gets their vacation planned and can inspire gift ideas for others too.

Offer them tips for putting the trip under the tree. Some examples are:

• When people ask what to get for the kids, have them get something in the theme of their vacation, for example: something they can use in the theme parks.
• For smaller kids, they can get clues to where they’re going such as little story books or stuffed animals or travel items that they will open, forget about and then you can store until the trip.

In these kinds of posts, you’re doing two things — showing them that they don’t need to pay for the whole trip now and how they can use the trip for gift ideas for the kids.

The key to this marketing concept is to avoid the generic and give specific ideas for copy that could turn into holiday sales for you.