IND-TRV · Tourism & travel
Digital marketing and lead systems for travel and tourism businesses
Travel enquiries do not convert on the ad. They convert in a WhatsApp conversation three days later. We run the Meta and Google campaigns that create the enquiry, and we build the system that handles those three days.
The short answer
What does a travel business actually need?
A travel business needs four things working together: campaigns that reach people while they are still choosing a destination, a landing page per package rather than a homepage, instant capture of enquiries from WhatsApp and Meta lead forms into one list, and automated follow-up across the days between enquiry and booking. Most operators have the first and none of the other three.
That imbalance is why cost per lead looks acceptable while bookings do not move. The advertising is working. Everything after the click is where the money is being lost, and it is a systems problem rather than a marketing one.
The problem
Three failures we see in almost every travel account.
Enquiries arrive everywhere and nowhere. WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, the website form, phone calls and Meta lead ads. There is no single list, so nobody knows how many enquiries came in last week, which are unanswered, or which produced the bookings. Real buyers go cold while the ad account keeps buying more of them.
Seasonality wrecks the ad account. Spend spikes for a season, stops, and restarts three months later. Meta's delivery system needs roughly fifty conversions per ad set per week to leave the learning phase, so an account that restarts every season never stabilises. Cost per lead climbs each year and it looks like the market got harder.
The gap between enquiry and booking is unmanaged. A hundred enquiries produce eight bookings, and nobody can say where the other ninety-two went — because the conversation happened on a personal phone and was never recorded anywhere.
What we run
The demand side, operated continuously.
Meta Ads by destination and season
Campaigns structured around destinations, packages and departure windows, with budget consolidated so ad sets accumulate enough events to leave the learning phase.
Google Ads for high-intent search
People searching for a specific destination, package or dates are already deciding. Search and Performance Max capture that intent.
Creative at testing volume
Destination video, package statics and UGC-style content produced in variant sets, because travel creative fatigues quickly.
Retargeting across the decision window
Travel decisions take weeks. Retargeting keeps you present across that window instead of paying once for the first click.
Off-season audience building
Cheap reach and content when nobody is bidding, so the retargeting pools are full when the season opens.
Reporting with attribution stated
Every figure carries its window, source and attribution model, and enquiries are reported alongside bookings rather than instead of them.
What we build
Everything that happens after the click.
Landing pages per destination
A page per package or destination, not the homepage. It loads fast, answers the price question, and captures the enquiry.
WhatsApp capture and instant reply
Enquiries answered within seconds at any hour, then routed to a person with the conversation history attached.
One lead list, with source attached
Website, WhatsApp, Instagram, phone and Meta lead ads into a single pipeline, with the source recorded automatically.
CRM built for a travel sales cycle
Stages that match how a booking actually progresses — enquiry, itinerary sent, quote, deposit, booked — not a generic B2B pipeline.
Automated follow-up sequences
The three to fourteen days between enquiry and decision, handled without a person remembering to chase.
Booking and payment flows
Deposit collection, itinerary delivery and confirmation, connected to the CRM rather than run from an inbox.
How we work
How a travel operator's system gets built.
Research
We map how enquiries arrive today and where they die. This usually takes a week and frequently identifies the fix before any campaign changes.
Build the catch
Landing pages, WhatsApp capture and the lead list first. Spending more on ads before the catch exists just increases the leak.
Launch and test
Campaigns go live with a creative testing plan and correct conversion tracking, so early spend buys information.
Operate
Weekly iteration on creative, audiences, follow-up and conversion, through the season and into the next one.
What it connects to
The systems behind a travel lead.
Tourism is the clearest case for building and running under one team, because the handover point is exactly where the bookings are lost.
Evidence
What we will and will not claim.
Tourism is the sector we have run Meta campaigns in longest. We are not publishing lead volumes, cost-per-booking figures or revenue numbers until they can be sourced from a named account with the window and attribution model stated — because a cost-per-lead figure without those three things cannot be checked, and you should not accept one from any agency.
Result — [ insert verified result ]
Questions
Common questions.
How do I stop losing travel enquiries that come in on WhatsApp?
Capture them into one list automatically and reply instantly, then route to a person with the history attached.
The practical steps are: move to WhatsApp Business API so messages can be handled by a system rather than one person's phone, set up automated first response so no enquiry waits overnight, and connect it to a CRM so the conversation is recorded against the lead. The instant reply matters more than the eventual reply — a travel buyer messaging at midnight is usually messaging three operators.
Why does cost per lead go up every season?
Usually because the ad account restarts from scratch each season and never stabilises.
Meta's delivery system needs roughly fifty conversion events per ad set per week to exit the learning phase. An account that runs for eight weeks, stops for twelve, and restarts is permanently in learning, which is the most expensive state to be in. Running lower-budget continuous campaigns through the off season usually costs less overall than seasonal bursts.
Should a travel business send ads to the homepage?
No. Send them to a page about the specific destination or package in the ad.
A homepage covering nine destinations makes the visitor start their search again. A destination page that answers the price question, shows the itinerary and captures the enquiry converts substantially better, and it also improves ad relevance and cost.
What is a realistic budget to start Meta Ads for a travel agency?
There is no universal figure, and any agency quoting one before seeing your numbers is guessing.
The honest calculation is: what does one enquiry cost in your destinations, how many enquiries convert to a booking, and can the budget produce enough weekly conversions for the campaign to stabilise. We work that out with you before proposing anything.
Do we need a CRM, or is a spreadsheet enough?
A spreadsheet is genuinely fine below roughly thirty enquiries a month with one person handling them.
It stops working when more than one person is following up, when the cycle is long enough that people forget, or when you need to know which campaign produced which booking. At that point the spreadsheet is not the record — someone's phone is.
Can you work with our existing website?
Often yes, if it loads reasonably fast and we can add landing pages to it. Where the platform makes fast, campaign-specific pages genuinely difficult, we will say so rather than charge you monthly to work around it.
Which tourism businesses do you work with?
Tour operators, travel agencies, destination specialists and package operators. [CONTENT TO VERIFY — confirm whether hotels, homestays and DMCs should be named here.]
Where are your enquiries actually going?
Most travel operators cannot answer that with a number. Tell us how enquiries arrive today and we will show you where the leak is.