Travel videos are indispensable to your brand because tourism is one of the first expenses to get cut when the economy is rough and often doesn't make it to the average consumers' weekly savings budget. When people spend money on travel, it's because they have invested emotionally in your hotel, travel destination, or tourism hot spot. A little disposable income never hurt either, but we have plenty of data to suggest a strong emotional connection to a vacation spot or hotel might even trump that weekly budget's bottom line when consumers are planning their next family vacation.

Because women account for 60% of all major tourism bookings and they are more inclined to respond to emotional marketing campaigns, travel videos are a perfect medium for your target audience. Travel, in and of itself, is almost exclusively an emotional, rather than pragmatic, purchase, so travel videos should always be one of your most trusted marketing tools. Here are the top three reasons your company needs travel videos to keep your brand healthy and your customers engaged.

1. Travel videos show rather than tell:

To create an emotional connection that will entice and inspire prospective travelers to choose your destination or property over the many other options they have (including staying at home), you can't simply say you have a beach front property in the Caribbean. Instead, show off your infinity pool suites overlooking the teal waters and white sand beaches of the Caribbean Sea in a fun, flirty video featuring real-life guests enjoying your swim-up bar and sensuous spa facilities. Let your travel videos tell your brand's story rather than trying to describe it. As your prospective guests watch, they will project themselves into your brand and be more likely to want to visit.

2. Travel videos boost engagement:

Seasoned travel pros AirBnB and Mexican-based restore chain Karisma Hotels & Resorts use video as the main image of their homepage background because studies have found that dreamy, silent videos running in the background boost time spent on site and customer engagement with your content by up to 25-percent. Travel videos are alluring, and they have the unbeatable power to drop your prospects into life in your travel destination. Even short, silent clips play a subliminal role in creating this emotional bond. Short of visiting your property, travel videos beat photos and written text hand over fist every time.

3. Travel videos give your brand credibility:

Although videos can be edited and photoshopped, it's a little more difficult to fake the look and feel of a tourism destination in a travel video compared to a print advertisement or digital banner. While many photo-based campaigns blend stock photography with proprietary content, most videos can't risk using stock reel in a property tour video for risk of false advertisement. Users are more inclined to believe the size of your rooms or quality of your property is what you tell them if they have seen it in a video. It's time to put your money - er, we mean camera - where your mouth is.

Travel videos can be more inspiring than almost any other form of media. When an entire vacation is condensed into a 30 second commercial or social media video, you immediately take your brand to the next level. Since our team of marketing specialists live where many people vacation, we're primed to help you craft the perfect video for your brand. Give us a call today.