Four ways to inspire with custom, dynamic itineraries

When it comes to travel, inspiration is everywhere.

How we arrive at our destination can often involve the unexpected. And that includes the planning stages, too. Well-designed online itineraries are one of the best ways to help visitors find their way to you.

Our team spends a lot of time improving DMO itineraries. We’ve learned some surprising insights along the way.

Here are 4 ways you can turn dull itineraries into quality leads for your members.

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1. Ditch the app

For your itineraries to be useful they need to be seen where travelers are dreaming up their next trip. Tourists are scouring Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Google. Your itineraries need to be embedded there. Not hidden away in an app. A long list of niche apps are collecting dust in the App Store because tourists don’t use them. That’s why we created Tripper, an online trip planner form DMOs that gets 78% more engagement than traditional brochure pages.

DMO websites are the perfect place to store all types of itineraries for all types of travelers. That’s why we designed our trip planner so itineraries are embedded directly into your website, social media posts, partner sites—anywhere.

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2. Weave a Story

Emotions shape travel plans. When travellers search for a hotel, they are often doing something more meaningful, such as reconnecting with a friend, exploring a new culture, realizing a bucket list dream, or escaping from the strain of daily life for a while.

Itineraries are no place to talk about price points. They’re perfect for featuring a traveler's higher-order needs by telling a story about the destination. Like a good story*, itineraries need characters, a setting, plot, and theme.

Here are some of our favourite examples:

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Heart of Canada Touring Route

Riding the Loyalist Loop

Toronto to Cochrane — Three Nights in the North

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DMOs already know which audience needs correspond with their destination’s strengths.

*A story is different from a list. Listicles are a proven way to increase SEO results on your site. But great itineraries are not lists on top of lists. They’re a narrative connecting one stop to the next. By crafting an itinerary for specific travel needs, you can weave a story together that entices them to visit.

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3. Curate the Experience

The best itineraries are ruthlessly scaled down. Our research shows that five stops is the sweet spot. Anything more than that decreases engagement. It’s better to create shorter itineraries for more audiences than to include too much information.

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4. Provide Direction

Easy wayfinding—both online and IRL makes trip planning a breeze. There are three ways to map an itinerary.

1. Loop. With a loop you never go backward, you hop from discovery to discovery.
2. Hub and Spoke. Start with your hotel or city and plan day trips accordingly.
3. Through Line. Perfect when you want to sample the best spots along the way. Snowbirds driving from Ontario to Florida pass through six states!

Our trip-planning tools mix digital maps with animated lists. No unreadable pdfs. No zoom required. If you have itineraries on your website, or if you're building some for future campaigns, include interactive maps with these best practices.

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Take Away

Interactive itineraries get 78% more engagement than traditional brochure pages.

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WHAT'S NEW AT TNB

It's conference season! After an incredible time at the Ontario Tourism Summit last month, members of our team are heading to the Northern Ontario Tourism Summit next week.

Our CEO Mike Jacobs is facilitating an interactive workshop on digital trends in the tourism sector. Our CSO, Matthew Thomas is presenting a new booking platform that we’re hard at work on 😏. Plus, we're revealing a new video from our team to launch a Northern Ontario tourism careers campaign.

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THINGS WE LIKED ONLINE AND OFF

• 👩🏽‍💻 Our dev team has been digging into the latest web framework and enjoying how the hottest thing in web tech now is awfully reminiscent of the early 2000s
• 🚗 On a North American road trip, our Content Strategist Jennifer was inspired by La Posada—the last great railroad hotel constructed in the U.S, built by legendary architect Mary Colter
• 🍗 Who didn't enjoy learning about the Philadelphia Chicken Man? He ate 40 rotisserie chickens in 40 days and rose to Internet fame. We especially love his DIY poster, which answers all the important questions, except “Why?”

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