The tourism and leisure sector continues to evolve at pace. Changing traveller expectations, the rise of AI, shifting social media algorithms and increasing pressure on budgets mean many businesses are asking the same question:
What marketing activity is worth focusing on in 2026?
The UK government recently announced a temporary reduction on VAT for family-friendly attractions between 25 June – 01 September 2026, meaning that it will be even more accessible for families to get out and about this summer. With this comes an important opportunity for visitor attractions to raise their visibility amongst their target audiences. The key question is where to start with this?
The good news is that effective marketing strategies don’t necessarily mean doing more work but working smarter and focusing on doing things well that will move the needle. Tourism businesses seeing the strongest results are often the ones that are already consistently communicating with their audience, who have a clear strategy, defined proposition, an understanding of their audience and who create a meaningful customer experience. We regularly share ideas on effective marketing strategies that work but we wanted to bring some of these together all in one place.
1. Focus on the Entire Customer Journey
One of the biggest shifts we are seeing in tourism marketing is a move away from simply focusing on bookings. Today’s visitor journey is much longer and more experience-led. The know, like trust model has been spoken about at length and we now know we need to touch someone over nine times before there is enough trust and awareness created for them to buy from us.
Potential visitors engage with you in many different ways before making a decision to visit or stay, including reading a social media post, email or article combined with checking out your social proof through reviews and recommendations. We are seeing some of the most effective brands thinking strategically about every stage of the customer journey, including:
- Discovery and inspiration phase.
- Research and planning stage.
- Booking and pre-arrival communication.
- How to make the most of the visitor experience itself.
- Post-visit engagement, creating loyalty and asking for reviews.
Marketing should not stop once someone books. For example, a boutique hotel might send local recommendations on restaurants or what to see before arrival, whilst a visitor attraction could follow up with seasonal event updates or return-visit offers after the experience. The businesses creating consistent touchpoints throughout the journey are building stronger relationships and increasing repeat visits.
2. Prioritise Owned Audiences
Social media remains an important visibility tool, but many tourism businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on platforms they do not control. Algorithms continue to change, making it harder to guarantee reach and engagement.
That is why one of the smartest marketing investments businesses can make in 2026 is building their owned audience particularly through email marketing. Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I am a massive fan of email marketing because this channel not only allows you to send a message directly to your audience’s inbox, but it also gives you ownership of the data. An engaged email database allows you to:
- Communicate directly with visitors.
- Share personalised recommendations and offers.
- Promote events and seasonal campaigns.
- Encourage repeat bookings.
- Nurture long-term customer relationships.
- Segment your audiences.
Unlike social media, your email audience is something you own. For tourism businesses dealing with seasonality and repeat visitor potential, this can become one of the most valuable assets in your marketing toolkit.
3. Create Experience-Led Content
Traveller behaviour continues to shift towards experience-driven decision making. With sustainability and community at the heart of this ongoing shift. People are not simply booking a room, attraction or activity, they are investing in how they want to feel. They want to create memories with friends and family.
This means your marketing content needs to go beyond features and facilities. Instead of only showing rooms, food, sharing open times or ticket prices; think about focusing on how you will feel, the atmosphere and storytelling. This is particularly important across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, where audiences increasingly expect visual and immersive content.
Short-form video continues to perform strongly, especially when it feels authentic and relatable. Some of the most effective content tourism businesses are currently creating includes: behind-the-scenes footage, local recommendations, meet the team and a “Day in the life” style content.
Often, the less polished and more human the content feels, the more engaging it becomes.
4. Use AI to Work Smarter, not harder
AI is undoubtedly reshaping marketing and the way we work for all businesses, not just in the tourism sector. Those that embrace the potential are going to be able to move forward quickly. For travel businesses with limited time and resources, this tool can be incredibly valuable, but it should support not replace the strategy.
I often liken it to bookends, using AI at the beginning and the end of the process. At the beginning of any content creation AI can be useful to help with planning, idea generation or customer insight. At the end of the process it can be used to refine subject lines, social media captions or articles.
The businesses standing out in 2026 are those using AI thoughtfully whilst still retaining their personality, brand voice and human connection. People still buy from businesses they trust, which is created through authenticity, consistency and genuine customer understanding.
5. Build Strategic Partnerships
In our blog last month we focused on partnership marketing and collaboration, we are seeing this approach becoming increasingly important with tourism businesses. Partnership marketing allows businesses to extend their reach, improve the visitor experience and share audiences in a cost-effective way. The key to doing this well is to not just look at the reach but also the audience alignment. Things to consider, might include:
- Hotels partnering with local attractions to enhance their guest experience.
- Restaurants collaborating with theatres or venues.
- Wellness providers creating retreat packages.
- Visitor attractions promoting other nearby experiences to extend their guest stays.
These partnerships not only strengthen visibility but can also create more compelling visitor experiences. In a competitive market, collaboration often creates stronger results than working in isolation.
6. Measure What Matters
Finally, one of the most important effective marketing strategies in 2026 is tracking how things are working and simply focus on the things that are driving the desired results. Many businesses still focus heavily on vanity metrics such as likes and followers. Whilst these can indicate visibility, they do not always reflect business impact.
Other metrics to consider include: website traffic, email open and click-through rates, enquires and bookings, revenue generated (ROI), repeat visits, conversion rates, customer retention and reviews. Marketing works best when it is reviewed, refined and continuously improved.
A Final Thought
The most effective marketing strategies for tourism businesses in 2026 are not always the most complex, but the ones that deliver results. The businesses thriving are those building genuine audience connections, creating experience-led content, communicating consistently, using data strategically and whilst staying agile in response to change.
Technology and AI will continue to evolve, but the fundamentals remain the same: understand your audience, have a clear proposition, share meaningful stories and focus on nurturing your existing audiences. Because ultimately, the travel and leisure sector are still fundamentally all about people and creating experiences their clients want to be part of.
Get in touch if you would like some help reviewing your marketing approach for 2026.
