What Airbnb Trips Means for Airlines — Digital Marketing News This Week

While plenty of travel industry observers are already speculating about how the new service might impact businesses operating in the tours and activities sector, one topic that hasn’t been discussed is the impact on airlines.

While it’s true that Airbnb has made no public plans about its move into flight booking, Trips is the first step in a larger strategy to own a bigger share of consumers’ entire digital travel experience. That’s not good news for airlines, many of which have long struggled to build ongoing relationships with travelers that last beyond any single flight.

Will Airbnb evolve into the industry’s newest online travel agency? What should airlines do to counter this impending, if still murky, threat? Read on for more thoughts, plus the rest of this week’s marketing news.

What Airbnb Trips Means for the Airlines
The recent launch of Airbnb’s Trips product might not seem like it has much to do with the airline industry. After all, the accommodations-sharing company is essentially selling tours, not flights. But as it matures, Trips will end up being part of a broader strategy by Airbnb to own more of the relationship with travel customers for everything from restaurants to flights. Read more

Expedia Tests New Documentary-Style Ad Campaign
Expedia, like many of its peers in the travel industry, has long focused its advertising on very functional product benefits like price and service. But as competition for customers continues to increase (and budgets stay the same), Expedia is rethinking this approach. The online travel agency is testing a new series of documentary-style short films it plans to adapt for TV campaigns in Europe starting next year. Read more

What’s the Future of Location-Based Marketing?
Location-based marketing, as Skift noted earlier this year, appears to be having a moment. Not only do more consumers have powerful location-aware smartphones with them at all times, more powerful sensors embedded in the physical world are making it easier for travel marketers to track and target customers. How might technologies like augmented reality and the “Internet of Things” impact the field in the years to come? Read more

Connecticut Tourism Partners with Netflix
Connecticut Tourism is teaming with Netflix on the streaming service’s reboot of the popular TV show Gilmore Girls. The state, which played a prominent role in the original series, is launching a website and film locations map on its website in hopes of encouraging show fans to book trips. Read more