How Tripadvisor reaped the rewards from helping brands tap into more travel opportunities

And through our unparalleled experience, we know that travelers think about and engage with all types of brands along their journey, not just travel brands.

There is real value for advertisers in reaching and connecting with travelers during prime moments throughout the travel experience.

From clothing, to personal hygiene, to food, and to those crucial goods you need to make your magical holiday memories, there are numerous considerations for people going on vacation.

The problem is, brands in these spaces don’t always know or understand this.

And if they do, they aren’t always aware how or when to reach them.

Given the fact that 84% of global travelers engage with non-travel categories in their journey (Tripadvisor, 2024), our challenge was to open up a whole new world to non-endemic brands and educate them on their value on the travel journey through innovative thought leadership.

Until now, Tripadvisor for Business – the platform’s B2B arm – lacked comprehensive data to effectively link travel with non-endemic categories and brands.

Existing thought leadership platforms were time-limited and did not provide sufficient proof of travelers considering various vertical markets and brands in every stage of their holiday – from dreaming, to planning, to booking, and even in the experience phase.

In short, we needed something bigger. And better.

Our thought leadership objective was therefore:

• To conduct the most holistic piece of research in the travel industry to highlight the specific stages that endemic and non-endemic brands had in the minds of travelers along their travel journey.
• Bring our research to market in an exciting and dynamic way, showing brands the immense value in working with Tripadvisor to reach this segment and even allow advertisers to market themselves more effectively to travelers.

This piece of thought leadership would include the most important data we needed to convince brands to see the travel industry in a new way:

• Overall level of engagement by travelers with non-endemic categories over the course of their trip, broken down by demographic.
• Role of non-endemics in the travel journey, such as financial services during the planning phase, and personal care brands during the preparing stage
• Subcategory engagement, for example the different timings around travel insurance and digital payment providers.
• Category engagement by trip, where we compared the different categories explored by those going on a beach holiday versus those with long travel times.
• And brand rankings by market, because each differs depending on the market of origin.

What’s more, we would highlight how Tripadvisor, as a travel expert across all categories, can help brands achieve their various KPIs from awareness to consideration to conversion.

Achieving this would also deliver unique benefits for Tripadvisor, including elevating its position as a B2B travel thought leader, as well as providing helpful and actionable insights for its existing brand partners to use in their own marketing programs.

Our groundbreaking survey, in partnership with leading experience management company Qualtrics, took in participants from the US, UK, Australia, Italy, France, India and Japan – with everyone aged between 18-75 and each having a role in decision making or booking travel.

Introducing Brands We Travel With – a first-of-its-kind interactive piece of thought leadership that breaks down the traveler journey at every stage to give businesses a more holistic view of when and why travelers need them the most.

The eye-catching research highlights every part of the travel experience. From travel inspiration, to researching, to planning, to booking, to traveling and post trip reflecting, the platform provides unique insights into what considerations travelers are going through, and how Tripadvisor can help connect brands to them at the right stage. Crucially, users can choose their own journey…exploring the themes and categories that are most appropriate for them.

It covers every key category – including accommodation, airlines, alcohol, car services, cruises, electronics, fast food, financial services, mobile networks, personal care, retail and streaming media.

And it delves into categories to provide unique and unrivaled insights for brands. For example, for ‘streaming media’, we highlight how this category affects how travelers plan their journeys and when these platforms are used, elaborating on how different traveling segments (Gen Z vs Millennials vs Gen X vs Boomers) are most likely to use them and what kind of trips see the highest usage.

For ‘financial services’, we look at every possible element of the category, including traditional banks, online banking platforms, ATMs, credit cards, travel insurance and digital wallets.

We explore when travelers are most likely to consider financial services in their journey, and the key stages at which planning for financial services change within that specific sector – for example, during the ‘booking’ stage, the focus shifts to the transactions themselves.

We even share what brands are most popular by market – with Visa and PayPal top of the tree for the US, whereas Paytm and Google Pay are the biggest for Indian travelers.

The design was at the heart of the campaign process, with a seamless and stunning customer experience at the forefront of the idea.

While intended for a B2B audience, it has the look and feel of a stunning consumer facing website with the kind of energy, movement and engaging design that people love to interact with.

The primary color scheme is based around Tripadvisor’s iconic green, but is not limited to it – which leads to a stunning, non-corporate experience.

The website sees users scrolling throughout and able to engage with interactive elements, so any visitor can seamlessly navigate between category or market, depending on their primary focus.

To promote the research and get eyeballs on our innovative site, we rain paid content across LinkedIn, featuring video and carousel ads to drive traffic to our website.

We primarily targeted enterprise-level US-based advertisers with a focus on the Food & Beverage, Financial Services and Travel Arrangements industries.

Additionally, we ran sponsored editorial in two leading advertising industry trade publications: Campaign US and The Drum.

On Campaign’s website, we discussed how brands can take advantage of the shift in consumer priorities – from material possessions to enriching experiences.

Across both platforms, we discussed how brands can take advantage of the shift in consumer priorities – from material possessions to enriching experiences.

PR outreach further spread the word, with coverage appearing in New Digital Age, MediaShotz, Inc.Com, The Drum, and Campaign US.

We even created customized assets for Sales, like bespoke webinar backgrounds and email signatures, so everyone at Tripadvisor speaking to brands would be promoting our remarkable research.

The anecdotes of our website speak for themselves:

“I think I’m slightly obsessed with the Brands We Travel With report and microsite.”

“Everything is so dynamic and interactive – I absolutely love it”

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen from a travel brand”

Already, our B2B arm is reaping the benefits of this programme, with the likes of L’Oréal, Pernod Ricard and PayPal organically reaching out to discuss future collaboration opportunities.

Most importantly, we’ve kickstarted a movement in the travel industry with our thought leadership – and opened the borders to brands that had never previously considered it an opportunity.

Ready to get your work recognized on a global stage? Enter The Drum Awards today. Need more inspiration, read our Award Winning Case Studies.