Travel Corporation CEO Sees Better Storytelling as Key to Millennial Travelers

The Travel Corporation, which operates a portfolio of more than 25 branded packaged travel operators, faces a challenge in marketing to its next generation of potential customers.

Brett Tollman, CEO of The Travel Corporation, admits that millennial consumers require a deeper level of connection outside of traditional marketing channels in order to engage with the packaged tour sector.

To build that relationship with young travelers, The Travel Corporation is turning to deeper narrative storytelling in its marketing and consumer outreach.

Tollman said at the Skift Global Forum in New York City that he is placing a higher value on narrative, influencer outreach in this year's marketing campaign, pulling in a spectrum of social media influencers with a combined reach of 16.2 million followers.

Contiki Travel, a brand focused on younger travelers within Travel Corp.'s portfolio, introduced the Roadtrip 2016 YouTube campaign in May, while Contiki's global YouTube site is seeing multiple updates each week.

Contiki's other social channels including Instagram and Twitter have seen a similar uptick in activity.

Tollman also expects to see more consumers filing preferences and expectations though branded mobile channels, giving younger generations more relevant tools with which to engage with tour operators.

The hope is that these mobile and narrative tools help build the fabric of a better relationship between his tour operators and the highly dynamic millennial generation. Tollman says the strategy seems to be working, based on the momentum behind several of the brand's social channels,.