Smaller Tour Operators and Hotels Get New Tools to Drive Direct Bookings

For years, the travel industry's largest players have urged travelers to book directly. But smaller players have often lacked the know-how to do the same. Recently, tech vendors have debuted tools that strive to level the playing field for tours-and-activities operators and for smaller hotel companies. Look at the tours and activities sector first. For years, well-capitalized tours and attractions operators have bought display and video ads programmatically. "Programmatic" is a wonky term that means they use software to target consumers based on internet-browsing behavior. Programmatic is a foreign notion for many local sightseeing and experience operators. While anyone can buy ads on Facebook and Instagram, few mom-and-pop operators know how to coordinate campaigns across different digital channels to build brand awareness cost-effectively. Sojern, a travel-focused ad tech firm, will debut this week a subscription-based direct marketing service. The tool can help smaller operators run coordinated digital ad campaigns "A lot of small operators are super-passionate about the experience they deliver, but they're not experts at digital marketing or technology," said Noreen Henry, Sojern's chief revenue officer. "We can help them with creative, for example. If they provide us the visuals, we can help optimize the marketing message by testing different messages over a few months using A.I. [artificial intelligence]." Sojern pinpoints travelers who have booked travel