We’ve worked with dozens of adventure tourism brands who all experience very similar challenges when it comes to marketing to their target audiences:
- Adventure travelers are more cost-conscious.
- Adventure tourism seekers are quite good at and comfortable with planning their own trips.
- Adventure travelers aren’t chronically online.
- Adventure travel is a very niche subset of the travel industry and it can be hard to know where to spend your marketing $$ to reach the right people at the right time.
A lot of brands will try their hand at low-cost, low-risk marketing channels like organic social media marketing, email marketing, and creating their own website, but with so much saturation in people’s feeds, inboxes, and Google searches, it’s hard to know how to break through and actually reach your audience in a way that leads to conversions.
That’s why we created this blog post.
For people like you in the adventure tourism industry to take a step back and think through unique ways to make an impact. You will still need things like social, email, and website content marketing, but there are creative ways to use these platforms and many more that you might not have considered yet.
Let’s take a look at some of our favorites.
1. Create Custom Packages for Digital Nomads
We mentioned above that adventure travelers are more likely to be cost-conscious than travelers who save up for one big fancy trip every few years. But there’s a whole group of travelers out there who make a living on the road (and some even from showing off their adventurous outings online.)
Data shows that of the 40 million digital nomads worldwide, almost half are in their 30’s, and 79% of them make anywhere from $50k-$250k per year.
(insert photo)
Based on these stats, it’s safe to say this digital nomad demographic certainly has the funds to spare on adventure travel, and given their chosen lifestyle, it’s likely one of their main financial priorities.
So how can you create an adventure tourism experience that caters to digital nomads?
- Coworking Space Partnerships: Team up with local coworking spaces to create packages that include day passes or discounted memberships.
- Wi-Fi-Equipped Basecamps: Make sure your accommodations or meeting points have reliable internet for pre- or post-tour productivity.
- Adventure + Workspace Bundles: Offer half-day adventures paired with coworking sessions for remote workers who need to split their day.
- Content Packages: Include add-ons like drone footage and professional photography to help them document their trip. The price of professionally shot content can go a long way in justifying the overall price of the trip for the content creators in the group.
Once you feel like you’ve crafted a package deal that works well for these digital travelers, you can partner with local events or meetups like coworking socials to introduce your tours to the community and create a dedicated page on your website with tailored messaging and a booking process that’s built out specifically for this crew.
2. Paid Digital Marketing Campaigns on Reddit
We work with lots of brands who throw endless marketing dollars to Meta and TikTok (which can be effective if you know how), but Reddit is the too-often-overlooked social media cousin that can be an extremely effective way to market your adventure tourism experiences. Here are just a few stats that support that claim:
**Disclaimer, this will be a stat-heavy section, but there’s just so much we want to share with you about this underutilized platform. If you don’t care about the numbers and just want to take our word for it.. scroll on through 🙂
- 61% of U.S. Reddit users who plan to travel this year say they trust redditors more than users of other platforms to give them relevant information.
- 91% of U.S. redditors who browse travel content have made a booking decision based on information they found on Reddit.
- 54% of U.S Reddit users planning to travel this year say they’re more likely to trust a travel brand they can engage with on Reddit.
Reddit Expands Your Marketing Territory
Reddit’s audience tends to skew younger and higher earning which overlaps a lot with the adventure traveler demographics brands are trying to target. Plus, the platform allows you to get in front of a lot of social media users who aren’t active on other platforms.
So if you’re feeling like your Meta or TikTok strats aren’t working OR if you’re just looking to expand your reach to new audiences, Reddit should definitely be a contender. You���ll find relevant potential customers here and Reddit usually ranks really high in search results which can offer you even greater visibility with the adventure tourism crowd.
3. Location-Based Digital Marketing Strategies
If you’re an adventure tourism brand and you’re not currently using either geofencing or geotargeting strategies, you’re missing out, my friend.
Geofencing creates a digital boundary around a specific destination like an airport, train station, or other popular tourist spot. When anyone with a smartphone crosses that boundary, they’re sent a notification, ad, or promotion.
Example: A rafting company sets up a geofence around a nearby national park’s visitor center. When travelers cross this boundary, they’re sent ads about same-day rafting trips with a discount code.
Geotargeting, on the other hand, is a bit more involved. This strategy does essentially the same thing as a geofence, but instead of sending promotions to every traveler who crosses the boundary, it layers in demographics, behaviors, and interests.
Example: A kayaking tour operator sets up a geotargeting campaign that sends promotions to travelers within their designated geofence who have recently searched for things like “kayaking tours” or have visited competitor websites.
Regardless of which location-based strategy you choose, you’ll want to target high-traffic areas like airports, visitor centers, hotels, and even areas around your direct competitors. You should also work with an ad agency to create high-converting copy that doesn’t feel like an ad, but instead feels like a bonus to those who get your notification. And finally, you should take a look at your website and make sure it’s completely optimized for mobile screen sizes and that the booking process is super easy and secure.
4. Local Partnerships with Hotels
Hotels are often the first stop for tourists and many of them look to hotel staff for recommendations on activities and excursions. If your brand is part of their go-to list or better, yet, if you can secure an actual partnership with these hotels, you’re automatically ahead of your competition.
If your tourism experience is a bit more rugged and adventure-heavy like full-day hikes, white water rafting, or off-piste skiing, you might target partnerships with boutique hotels, local stays, and hostels where you’ll likely find more adventurous travelers.
On the flip side, if your offering is a bit more leisure-focused like whale-watching tours, catamaran cruises, or snorkeling excursions, partnerships with larger resorts might be more lucrative.
How to Structure a Hotel Partnership
Special Deals for Hotel Guests
Create packages or discounts specifically for guests staying at the hotel. This provides added value for the hotel while incentivizing travelers to choose your excursions.
- Example: “Book a room and get 15% off our sunrise hot air balloon tour.”
Bundle Experiences with Room Bookings
Work with the hotel to bundle your adventure packages directly into their room bookings so guests can book their stay and excursion all at once.
- Example: A boutique hotel includes your zipline tour as part of a weekend getaway package.
Cross-Promotion
Cross-promote your brands by including each other’s logos and details in marketing materials.
- Example: Display brochures or digital ads for your tours in the hotel lobby and feature the hotel’s logo on your website under “Preferred Partners.”
Host Joint Events or Promotions
Organize co-branded events or promotions to draw attention to your partnership.
- Example: A luxury resort and your snorkeling tour company could host an “Adventure Weekend” where guests get discounted rates on both accommodations and activities.
Commission-based Incentives
You can sweeten the deal for hotels by offering them a small commission (~10%) for every guest referral.
- Example: A snorkeling tour costs the guest $100. For every person the hotel refers to your tour, they’ll make $10. For a family of 6, that adds up pretty quickly!
5. Partner With Other Tour Groups/Retreats as an Add-on Service
In that same vein, you can also build out your network with other tour operators and retreat hosts to pitch your excursion or experience as an add-on to their events.
For example, a company called The Viomati Co. specializes in designing workations for digital nomads and entrepreneurs in amazing destinations all over the world. These retreats are sold as a sort of networking opportunity for entrepreneurs who also want to add in a bit of travel and adventure to the tax write-off.
On these retreats, The Viomati Co. takes the retreat-goers on all kinds of fun adventures. We actually attended one in Madeira a few years back. On this trip, we did lots of networking, workshopping, brainstorming, and also just straight-up coworking. But we also visited natural pools, went on a jeep safari tour across the island, dined at local restaurants, and had a private chef cook for us at the villa.
All of those touristy experiences were made possible by local tourism brands partnering with The Viomati Co. team to offer add-ons to the workation experience.
If you can become a preferred partner with companies like The Viomati Co. who aren’t direct competitors, but who might find it beneficial to share audiences with you, you’ll have a steady stream of business that requires no extra ad spend or marketing budget. (And with the massive rise of companies catering to this “workation” style retreat, the options are truly endless.)
6. Head Back to the Corporate World
Ah, the corporate world. Many of you probably left that world to start your own company in adventure tourism. Many of you probably hate that this is on the list.. but hear us out, this can be a huge money tree that keeps you out of the 9-5 grind if you can leverage it effectively. Here’s what you need to consider:
- Two-thirds of corporate travelers extended a business trip for leisure in 2023. Work events and expos as well as nearby hotels would be excellent spots for a geofence.
- You can work directly with a business travel management company or partner with travel agents in the corporate world to offer group rates and corporate discounts for a “team-building” adventure experience.
- Market directly to corporations by dedicating a page on your website to business travel.
- Provide transportation. A travel management company’s biggest headache is transportation. If you can bundle that into your experience and price, they will love you forever.
7. Advertise on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)
OTAs definitely have their pros and cons. On one hand, the reach and credibility they provide to your adventure tourism brand are incredible. On the other.. you have to share a piece of the pie once those bookings come through.
Let’s take a look at who these platforms work best for and why you might consider adding them to your marketing plan.
The Pros of Listing with OTAs
- Massive Reach
OTAs like Viator and Airbnb Experiences give you access to a global audience actively searching for unique activities. Viator, for example, boasts over 35 million monthly visits, while Airbnb Experiences connects you with an audience spread across 93 countries. - Built-In Credibility
Being featured on well-known platforms immediately positions your brand as trustworthy. Travelers tend to feel more comfortable booking through OTAs due to their reputation and customer service guarantees. - Increased Visibility Without Extra Marketing Spend
OTAs invest heavily in marketing which means your listing benefits from their efforts. This can reduce the need for a hefty in-house marketing budget. - Ease of Booking for Customers
OTAs offer easy and familiar booking experience which is a major selling point for customers looking to make quick decisions.
The Cons of Listing with OTAs
- Commission Fees
These platforms take a substantial cut—usually between 20% and 30% of each booking. While this fee may be worth it for high-volume, short-duration experiences, it can quickly eat into your profits for more expensive or niche offerings. - Pricing Constraints
Many OTAs require that you offer your lowest available price on their platform, which limits your ability to upsell or create value-added packages. - Customer Relationship Management
Bookings made through OTAs mean you’re often one step removed from the customer which makes it harder to build long-term relationships, upsell future tours, or collect direct feedback. - Not Ideal for Multi-Day or Complex Experiences
OTAs are better for shorter, simpler experiences that are easy to describe and book online. Multi-day adventures or those with custom itineraries can be challenging if not impossible to communicate effectively through these platforms.
Who Do OTAs Work Best For?
- Single-Day or Short Experiences
Activities like snorkeling tours, wine tastings, sunset cruises, and walking tours are perfect for OTAs. These experiences are straightforward, easy to describe, and easy to sell to spontaneous travelers. - Popular Destinations and High-Traffic Areas
OTAs are most effective in tourist-heavy locations where visitors are actively looking for activities to fill their itineraries. - New Businesses Looking to Build Credibility
If you’re a newer operator, listing on an OTA can help you gain visibility and trust as you establish your brand. - Additional Revenue Streams
OTAs can complement your direct bookings, especially during low seasons or for last-minute availability.
When OTAs Might Not Be the Right Fit
- Multi-Day Adventures
If you offer complex, multi-day experiences like guided treks, safaris, or wellness retreats, OTAs may not be ideal. These types of trips often require extensive communication, customization, and higher margins to cover costs. - High-End or Niche Experiences
Luxury or niche offerings may lose their exclusivity when listed alongside thousands of other activities. For these, building a strong direct brand presence is going to be more effective. - Highly Seasonal Activities
OTAs may not justify their fees if your business operates for only a short part of the year and you already fill most of your capacity through direct bookings. - Established Brands with Strong Direct Bookings
If your business has a well-established customer base and strong marketing channels, relying on OTAs may dilute your brand and reduce your profit margins unnecessarily.
8. Carve Out a Space in the Wedding Budget
Let’s get into some of the specific ways to reach audiences who are actively looking for adventure tourism experiences to accompany their wedding day festivities. This includes engagements, destination weddings, honeymooners, and bach parties. This audience can be a great one to target because a. they’re looking for unique ways to mark a once-in-a-lifetime experience and b. they’re already in the mindset of spending money.
Tailor Your Content
If you’re a newlywed planning your honeymoon are you really going to book a ski excursion when all you see is dirtbags taking face shots on the Instagram page? Maybe… but you’re probably far more likely to consider it if you see a fun video of a bride and groom in their wedding dress and tux flying down the mountain hand in hand. An apres ski package designed specifically for honeymooners. Or a couple with a ‘Just Married’ sign hanging off the back of their kayak.
Add Wedding Info to Your Website
Similar to corporate travel, you’ll want to dedicate a separate page on your website to wedding-related offerings with clear packages and pricing. You might also consider creating a new blog segment all about wedding planning to capture some organic traffic to your site from this demographic.
Collaborate with Wedding Planners and Venues
Local wedding planners and venues can be excellent partners for referrals. Work with wedding venues to include your activities in their recommended options for couples and provide planners with detailed brochures or special deals for their clients.
PPC Works Well for Weddings
People planning a wedding usually spend a lot of time searching on Google and social platforms for inspiration, vendors, and honeymoon activities. PPC platforms like Google Ads, Pinterest, and Instagram allow you to zero in on users searching for wedding-related keywords like “destination wedding activities,” “honeymoon adventures,” or “bachelorette party ideas.” If you have a wedding-specific package or a honeymoon landing page on your site, a well-placed ad can drive highly qualified traffic directly to it while you sleep.
Plus, you can set your budget and refine your ads based on performance to make sure your marketing dollars are spent effectively.
9. Email Marketing
Email campaigns are a cost-effective form of marketing famous for their high retention and conversion rates, especially for the travel and tourism industry. In fact, Statista reports that for every $1 invested in email marketing, brands earn an average of $36 back.
The reason it’s so effective? Well for starters, according to that same Statista report, 79% of millennials and 57% of Gen Z members reportedly like being contacted by brands via email.
Plus, think about it… it’s basically an entire list of warm leads that you get to interact with on a frequent basis AND each person that’s there has literally opted in to hearing from you. Does marketing get any more perfect than that?
Email Marketing vs. Other Channels
Here’s why email often outperforms other marketing strategies:
Better Open Rates
Emails sent to a carefully curated list have much higher engagement rates than ads. Average email open rates for the travel and tourism industry hover around 30% compared to much lower click-through rates for social media ads.
Personalization
Unlike social media or PPC campaigns, email lets you create hyper-targeted messages. Want to send honeymoon package offers to couples? Easy. Got a new tour perfect for adrenaline junkies? Segment and send.
Retention Rates
Harvard Business Review found that depending on your offering and industry, acquiring a new customer can cost anywhere from 5-25 times more than retaining existing customers. Email is one of the most effective channels to keep you retention rates high and save you money in the long run on customer acquisition.
Here are a Few Fun Ways to Amp Up Your Email Campaigns
- Clickable Maps: Let users explore a map of your adventure offerings and click on their favorite location for more info.
- Choose Your Adventure Polls: Include a poll asking, “Where do you hope to head to next?” and send tailored follow-ups based on their answers.
- 360-Degree Video Previews: Show off your tours with embedded 360-degree previews so users can really see themselves in the experience before booking.
- Countdown Timers: For limited-time discounts or exclusive packages.
- Social Proof Pop-Ups: “John from NYC just booked our Whale Watching Tour!” appears dynamically in the email as real bookings happen.
- Interactive Chances to Win: Add a spinning wheel directly in the email for recipients to “win” a discount on their next booking. Or hide a clue in your email series that leads to a secret discount or freebie.
- Hotel and Tour Bundles: Partner with local accommodations to offer exclusive email-only packages.
- Booking Anniversary: “It’s been a year since your last adventure! Let’s plan your next trip.”
- Birthday Offers: “Celebrate your birthday with a 15% discount on your favorite tour!”
Ok, we could go on, but you get the idea. These are just a few different ways you can re-engage with your audience that actually feel like a value-add in their inbox.
10. Social Media Platforms
Socials are a great (free) platform to help get your name out there. But these platforms have come a long way since 2010 where you posted an overly filtered photo for your 10 friends on your feed. There’s a whole economy happening over there. And as such, they require quite a bit more effort from creators and brands looking to connect with their target audience. We actually have a whole offer for our clients aimed at teaching them how to “do social media” and spoiler alert: only about a third of the 40 pages of information in our social strategy template have to do with content creation.
Here are a few of the other tips and tricks you can use to actually make the most of your time on social media.
Outbound Engagement
Any social media algorithm’s ultimate goal is to get more users on the platform for more time during the day. Why? Because these stats look really great to people wanting to pay for ads.
The thing is, posting about your adventure tourism experience doesn’t really do much to keep people on the platform longer. All it does is provide content for people already scrolling.
The most effective way to get people back onto the platform is to send one of those pesky notifications, “John commented on your photo,” or “Stacy sent you a DM.”
It’s no longer enough to post and ghost.
You have to spend some time every day interacting with your audience on their pages and finding new people to interact with.
This looks like you sending the DMs. And you leaving thoughtful remarks in their comment sections.
We have a whole framework for this in our social strategy template if you’re interested in learning more about how this works! You’ll truly be amazed by the results. It’s the #1 free way people are growing their audiences on such saturated platforms.
Collaborative Posts
Collaboration posts are basically posts that you create and post to your feed that others are invited to participate in. If they accept the collab request, your post will go live on their feed as well and will show both of your account names as the creator of the post.
Collab posts are great if you have some industry partners who don’t mind your content living on their feeds. For example, if you’re a boat tour company in a popular tourist area, you might benefit from creating a reel about your tour and inviting a local hotel as a collaborator. You’ll benefit from getting in front of their entire audience while they benefit from a free piece of content that lives on their page showing off fun things to do in the area where they operate.
Story takeovers
You really need to be consistently showing up in your stories if you’re going to make it on social media platforms in this day and age. 3-5 slides is the golden standard, but if you’re feeling like your stories are stale, you don’t have the capacity, or you just want to mix it up for your audience, you can try out what’s called a “story takeover”.
To do this, you basically recruit people to become resident influencers to create user generated content in your stories. People love to hear from others who have bought and experienced what you’re offering more than they like feeling sold to on social media by a brand.
So here’s how it works:
Choose one person who joined your trip or experience and give them access to your Instagram account for the day. Throughout that day, they’ll “take people along with them” for the ride with selfie-style videos showing off a real look into their experience with your company. This is a great way to stay consistent with your stories and also offer a first-person POV into what it would be like to join in on your adventure tourism activity.
In exchange, offer them the opportunity for social media exposure by allowing them to post a final story slide with where people can follow them.
11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO strategy)
We work with a lot of outdoor adventure companies and brands in the travel industry who originally came to us for help with their SEO. When we asked what their goals were and why they thought SEO would help them get there, the overwhelming answer was something like, “my adventure tour operator buddy told me I need SEO” or one of our personal favorites… “I asked ChatGPT and it told me I need to add SEO to my marketing efforts”.
If this sounds like you, please please please read this section thoroughly. We’re going to explain to you what SEO is, why (and when) you should add it to your adventure tourism marketing plan, and also how some of what makes SEO so effective is changing with AI.
What is SEO and Why do You Need it?
Ok so SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s essentially a series of back-end and on-page techniques that allows Google to more easily find your website and populate it in search results. The goal is to drive high-quality organic traffic to your website to increase your online bookings.
You need SEO for a few reasons:
- SEO creates a steady pipeline of potential customers who otherwise may have never found your company.
- SEO is pretty cost-effective. You’ll likely pay an agency to help you out on a monthly basis, but it doesn’t require the same upfront investment as things like paid ads.
- Increased website traffic means increased direct bookings… which means less reliance on third-party listing platforms… which means more margins for you to play with.
- If you don’t do SEO, Google is basically blind to your website. People will only find you if they search you up by name which requires heavy investment in other marketing channels to raise that kind of awareness.
- SEO is cumulative. Once you gain traction with Google, you tend to continue gaining traction, so you can eventually build up enough monthly traffic that you can chill out on dumping money into other more expensive marketing efforts.
With SEO, if someone searches “small group ski tours” and you have website content optimized for that search phrase, you’ll have a good chance of coming up on page 1 of Google. If you haven’t taken the time to invest in SEO, your competitors will fill those slots all day long.
How Is SEO Changing With AI?
That’s an excellent question. And it’s unfortunately one that doesn’t have a clear answer just yet. But what we know is that more people are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT to get answers to their questions.
Things like “10 family-friendly hikes in Southern Spain” used to be great blog topics because lots of people were Googling questions like this. Nowadays, there’s still quite a bit of search traffic for these high-level questions, but a lot of it is siphoned off by AI.
As SEO experts, we’ve shifted our efforts toward targeting keywords that are a little bit more specific and a little further down the sales funnel. That way, when people ask ChatGPT for the best hikes in Southern Spain and they get a list, we can create content that speaks to the further research they’ll do on each of those hikes on Google.
Make sense?
If not, that’s ok, that’s why people work with us. This stuff is confusing. Time consuming. And always changing. But it’s just as important as it was 10 years ago.
12. Take Advantage of PR Connections
Building your own brand is a very manual, very intensive process. You have to not only craft a super effective, wide-reaching content net, but you also have to build an airtight sales funnel to capture those leads. (Both of these things are incredibly important for building out a customer experience that sets you up for long-term success.)
But for startups and burgeoning brands, partnering with a PR and media relations expert is a great way to get in front of new audiences fast.
At Indigo, we partner with outdoor adventure PR firms for brands that need that little extra boost of visibility.
For example, we recently chatted with one of our PR industry partners about a super niche Finnish brand that’s hoping to build a bit of a household name for themselves here in the U.S. We’re exploring some options like influencer marketing, PPC, and pitch decks for retailers, and since this brand is essentially a startup in the U.S., our PR partner recommended she call up her friend at NY Mag to write a piece about the product line.
Her only concern?
Would this small brand be able to keep up with the inevitable cascade of sales that would come their way.
We tell you this story to show you how quickly a well-placed piece of PR can work in your favor. PR experts are the people with all the connections and they’ll advocate for your brand to publications and media outlets in ways that can be extremely beneficial for your overall visibility.
It’s so important to have the rest of your marketing foundation in place before you rely on something like this though, otherwise you’ll become the next victim of the viral moment. For example, if you all of a sudden have thousands of orders, but you’re not collecting emails, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for repeat business.
Let’s Make it Happen
Phew! You made it. Almost 5,000 words later, thanks for sticking with us. We wanted to make sure we gave you all of the information you need to take these marketing strategies and run with them.
That being said, implementing these tactics takes far more time than reading a 5,000-word article. If you’re excited to see how these unique marketing strategies can help you drive sales in 2025, but don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen, Indigo Media is the perfect partner for you.
We’re a digital marketing team that specializes in the outdoor recreation and travel industries. We help you create sales funnels that speak your audience’s language so fluently that they don’t feel like sales funnels. And we’re ready to help you get your marketing in shape for the new year so you can keep doing what you love for years to come. Check out our marketing services today and let us know if there’s anything that piques your interest! We can’t wait to work with you.
