Is TikTok Worth It for Tours and Activities?

Short form videos on TikTok and other platforms have the potential to get you a lot of views, but do those views actually translate to bookings? One operator experiments

Reading Time: 1 minute 45 seconds

by | 13 February 2023

Inspired by the focus on short form video at Arival 360 | Las Vegas, one operator and first time attendee decided to experiment with the medium, in order to discover the potential impact on bookings. 

Rob Pitingolo from TripHacks DC posted a short form video every day for 62 days across four different channels: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Facebook Reels. On TikTok alone, TripHacks DC received nearly four million views and over 6000 new followers. 

But did the views and followers translate to bookings? In January, just 62 of those who visited TripHacks DC’s TikTok profile proceeded to follow the link to the website. So what’s the actual value of a view, like or follower? When, as Pitingolo observes, “each upload is like pulling the handle on a slot machine,” is it worth the investment of time and energy? 

“Short video will get more eyeballs on your content than any other medium,” concludes Pitingolo. “But for tour operators I think converting those eyeballs into tour customers is a much steeper climb than with other forms of content marketing.”

Read more about TripHacks DC’s experiment with short form video here. 

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Driving Bookings from Vertical Video at Arival 360 | Berlin

So you have your vertical — or short form — videos, now what? How do you use that attention to drive bookings? Arival will be digging deeper into this topic at Arival 360 | Berlin in a dedicated session led by travel influencer Ravi Roth and founder of Hype Collective Simon Lucey. The breakout session will cover trends with TikTok, Instagram stories and YouTube shorts, and offer guidance on adopting a future-focused strategy.

Ravi Roth
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Ravi Round the World

Simon Lucey
MD
Hype Collective

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Tags: tour operators, facebook, social media, digital marketing, tiktok, Featured, YouTube, Instagram Reels, Vertical Video, tours and activities, Arival 360 | Berlin, short form video

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