TLDR
- The Travel Customer Lifecycle consists of six critical stages: Inspire, Discover, Convert, Engagement, Feedback, and Loyalty.
- The pre-booking strategy uses Instagram for the visual Inspire phase (UGC and emotional storytelling) to capture leads and email marketing for the informative Discover phase (nurture sequences and planning guides).
- The Convert stage is the primary revenue moment: use upselling (upgrades) before payment and cross-selling (insurance/ancillaries) immediately after payment.
- The post-booking "service gap" (Engagement) is a goldmine for incremental revenue; leverage email for structured prep and WhatsApp for real-time, contextual cross-sells (e.g., tours) in-trip.
- WhatsApp is essential for high-utility messaging (confirmations, flight alerts) and reducing friction, leading to a dramatic reduction in cart abandonment.
- The final stages (Feedback & Loyalty) are critical for increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by soliciting reviews (NPS) and offering personalized incentives for repeat bookings.
In the retail world, the distance between "I want this" and "I bought this" can be measured in minutes. However, in the travel industry, that distance is a marathon.
According to Expedia’s 2024 Traveler Value Index, travelers view 141 pages of travel content on average before booking and spend 45+ days researching major trips. They often revisit the same websites and social posts multiple times as they move from inspiration to action.
Meanwhile, global travel demand has surged back, with international tourism in 2024–2025 now approaching or surpassing pre-pandemic levels. This means more travelers are entering this long, emotionally charged decision cycle than ever before. For marketers, this means the tourism customer journey is not a simple funnel but an ongoing relationship that must be nurtured across channels to drive both bookings and long-term customer loyalty in travel.
Let’s dive into the stages of the travel customer lifecycle and how you can adapt your marketing strategies for each phase.
Phase 1: Inspire
In the Inspire stage, travelers are in “I need to get away” mode, browsing social feeds, saving posts, and casually exploring destinations. Social and influencer content heavily shapes their ideas at this point, and research shows that travelers can browse hundreds of pages of travel content across social and websites before committing.
What is the best channel to guide travelers during the Inspire phase?
This is where Instagram becomes the primary stage for your travel marketing strategy, especially for Destination Marketing Organizations and hotels that rely on visual storytelling.
On Instagram, the focus should be on high-impact Reels, Stories, and carousels that highlight:
- Emotional storytelling: Short Reels showing “day in the life” experiences, local food tours, remote work stays, or family escape moments.
- User-generated content (UGC): Reposting guest content with permission, showcasing real people and real trips to build social proof and relatability.
- Clear next steps: CTAs such as “Save this itinerary,” “DM us for the full plan,” or “Get the full guide via email” that pull people from passive dreaming into your owned channels.
A practical example: A DMO promoting a coastal city could run a series called “48 Hours in [Destination]” with weekly Reels and Stories. Each Story includes a link to download a “Top 10 Bucket List Experiences 2026” PDF in exchange for email and WhatsApp opt-ins, turning Instagram leads into usable first‑party data and setting up later travel marketing automation flows.
To make Instagram a lead-generation engine, incorporate comment-triggered workflows and automated DM sequences. These are extremely effective for moving people from “dreaming” → “captured lead” without disrupting their browsing flow.
Comment-to-DM Lead Capture
Instead of only relying on Story links, encourage users to comment specific keywords, which automatically triggers a DM.
Examples you can add:
- “Comment ‘Guide’ and we’ll DM you our 7-Day [Destination] Itinerary.”
- “Drop a 🌴 and we’ll send you the Top 10 Hidden Beaches PDF.”
- “Planning a honeymoon? Comment ‘Honeymoon’ to get our 3-budget comparison guide instantly.”
Once they comment, Instagram automation sends a DM asking for an email or WhatsApp opt-in to deliver the guide, seamlessly converting social demand into first-party data.
Inspire Content with DM Funnels
Your high-impact Reels can double as lead magnets.
Example Reel caption:
“Save this 48-Hour [Destination] Plan! Want the full itinerary? Comment ITINERARY and we’ll send it to your DMs.”
This allows you to:
- Capture leads without sending people off the platform.
- Build a high-intent subscriber list.
- Personalize email nurturing based on what they commented (beach, family, food, adventure, etc.).
DM-Based Mini Planning Assistants
Once a user comments and enters the DM flow, you can ask qualifying questions:
- “When are you planning to travel?”
- “Solo / Couple / Family?”
- “Budget range?”
These answers can automatically sync to your CRM, powering personalized Discover-stage emails.
Phase 2: Discover: Consideration / Planning
Once inspiration travelers feel inspired, they move into evaluation mode. This phase can stretch for weeks because they are comparing destinations, reading reviews, studying safety information, and vetting providers. They begin thinking seriously about their budget, weighing the trade-offs between convenience and cost.
During this stage, the traveler is no longer driven purely by emotion; they are seeking clarity and reassurance. They want to eliminate uncertainty and feel confident that the trip they are considering aligns with their expectations.
This makes the Discover phase the most information-intensive part of the tourism customer journey and one of the most influential stages in the entire travel customer lifecycle.
What is the best channel to guide travelers during the planning phase?
Email marketing is your best bet in the planning stage. Use it as a digital concierge that offers personalized guidance to travelers.
An effective Discover email sequence (biweekly is usually a sweet spot) might include:
- Itinerary builders: “7‑Day Itinerary Template for First‑Timers in [Destination]” or “3 Budget Options for a Bali Escape,” tailored to the lead’s interests captured at signup.
- Safety and logistics guides: Visa requirements, neighborhood breakdowns, transport tips, and packing lists that reduce anxiety and perceived risk.
- Comparison content: Side‑by‑side comparisons of similar destinations or packages (“Santorini vs. Amalfi Coast for Honeymoons”) that simplify decision‑making.
For example, a boutique safari operator might run a Discover sequence where a user who downloaded a “First‑Time Safari Guide” receives:
- Week 1: “Best time of year for your first safari.”
- Week 3: “Packing checklist + photography tip.s”
- Week 5: “Compare 3 safari camps by budget and experience.”
Each email carries soft CTAs toward specific packages, gradually moving the traveler from research to readiness.
Phase 3: Convert: the primary upsell and cross-sell moment
The Convert stage is where travelers finalize dates, choose suppliers, and complete bookings, typically after several weeks of research. This is the best time to upsell higher-value options (like cabin or room upgrades) because intent is at its peak and customers have mentally committed to the trip.
At the same time, it is the right time to introduce complementary add-ons through smart cross-selling on the checkout and confirmation pages.
On the booking page itself, use:
Upsells: Offer premium room categories, flexible fares, priority boarding, or inclusive breakfast packages at the point of booking. Frame your messaging as “most popular” or “best value” to grab the traveler’s attention.
Bundled add-ons: Present options like airport transfers, early check-in, or late checkout as simple toggles to minimize friction.
Upselling on booking pages can significantly lift average order value, and travel brands that systematically offer ancillaries (insurance, seating, extra baggage, experiences) generate a large part of their margin from add-ons. Once payment is complete, the confirmation page and transactional email are your keys to cross-selling.
In the confirmation stage, prioritize:
- Essential cross-sells: Travel insurance, airport lounge access, Wi‑Fi, or local SIM cards framed as “smart safety” or “stress-free travel” companions.
- Early experiences: City passes, popular attractions, and day tours that often sell out, positioned as scarce and urgent, especially for peak season.
Here, WhatsApp and email should work together.
Email has the official booking confirmation and detailed breakdown, while WhatsApp can send a concise, utility-focused confirmation (for users who opted in) with a one‑tap link to manage booking or chat with an agent.
With WhatsApp messages achieving open rates close to 98% and response rates that can increase by 50% compared to traditional channels, using it at the Convert stage can dramatically reduce drop‑off and payment anxiety
Using WhatsApp at Convert without being intrusive
Over half of travel agencies now use WhatsApp for confirmations and service thanks to the channel’s very high read and response rates.
At this stage of the travel customer lifecycle, WhatsApp is ideal for:
- Payment and booking confirmation: “Thanks for booking with us! Here’s your confirmation number and a direct link to your itinerary.”
- Live support: Real-time chat help when a card is declined, a room type is unclear, or a traveler wants to confirm visa or baggage rules.
- Abandonment nudges: Automated, time‑bound nudges triggered if a booking is started but not completed. You can offer clarification or a small incentive.
For instance, a regional airline can trigger a WhatsApp message within 30 minutes of an abandoned booking: “Need help completing your booking to [Destination]? Our team is here to assist—tap to chat.” This feels like a service, not spam, and works especially well in markets where WhatsApp is already the default communication channel.
Phase 4: Engagement: pre-trip and in-trip service window
The engagement phase begins after purchase and runs all the way through travel, often spanning several weeks or months. This window is critical for both customer satisfaction and incremental revenue because travelers are excited, checking information frequently, and highly receptive to relevant suggestions.
Email remains the backbone for pre-trip engagement, particularly for structured information.
A simple three-touch pre-trip drip could look like this:
- T‑8 weeks: “Everything you need to prepare.” Include reminders about passport/visa checks, vaccination info if relevant, hotel and neighborhood overviews, currency tips, and basic FAQs.
- T‑4 weeks: “Plan your experiences”—cross-sell excursions, dining, local events, transportation passes, and optional insurance reminders.
- T‑1 week: “Final checklist.” Send a packing list, airport directions, weather forecast, check‑in reminders, and emergency contact information.
Add-ons like tours, activities, and insurance represent a growing share of travel revenue, and customers are more likely to add them once they are emotionally committed to the trip and feel the date approaching.
This makes the mid‑pre‑trip window (two to four weeks before departure) an extremely effective time to upsell experiences via email, especially if offers are personalized based on the booking. For instance, family‑friendly tours for family bookings, romantic experiences for couples, or group activities for larger bookings.
WhatsApp During the Engagement phase
During the in-trip portion of Engagement, WhatsApp becomes the hero channel. With over 3 billion users and extremely high responsiveness, it is ideal for time‑sensitive, location-aware messages.
Examples include:
- Arrival and check‑in support: “Welcome to [City]! Your hotel check‑in time is 2 PM. Tap here for directions and local tips.”
- Real-time operations: Flight delay alerts, gate changes, transfer pickup confirmations, or last‑minute rebooking support during disruptions.
- Contextual cross-sell: Weather‑based suggestions (“It’s raining today—here’s a museum + indoor activity combo ticket”) or geo‑triggered food and activity recommendations near the traveler’s accommodation.
A resort chain, for example, can use opt‑in WhatsApp automation to send a “Welcome” message on arrival day, a spa or activity upsell on day two, and a late‑checkout offer on the last morning. These messages work because they are contextual, convenient, and clearly tied to immediate value.
Phases 5 & 6: Feedback & Loyalty: turning trips into a growth engine
Once the trip ends, many brands go silent, but this is exactly when travel marketers can capture feedback, generate advocacy, and set up the next booking. A structured Feedback and Loyalty stage is essential to increasing travel CLV and feeding fresh prospects back into the Inspire stage.
From a measurement standpoint, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) are critical here. CLV reflects the long‑term revenue impact of repeat trips and upsells, while NPS proxies word‑of‑mouth potential that can drive new inquiries, especially in travel, where recommendations play a big role.
Travel and tourism businesses with strong loyalty programs and high satisfaction scores consistently outperform peers on retention and repeat bookings.
A simple Feedback & Loyalty flow can look like:
- “Welcome home” email (within 48 hours): A warm message thanking the traveler, with a short survey or NPS question and a direct review link for Google, TripAdvisor, or OTA partners.
- Story and UGC prompts (within 5–7 days): A follow‑up email or Instagram DM asking guests to share photos or tag the brand, possibly with a small incentive like a future discount or contest entry.
- Loyalty offer (within 7–14 days): A personalized email with a future trip incentive, such as “10% off your next stay if booked in the next 90 days,” tailored to what they just experienced (e.g., “Extend your next stay by 2 nights with a free upgrade”).
On Instagram, resharing guest stories and posts builds social proof and closes the loop of the tourism customer journey.
Channel strengths and how to integrate upselling/cross-sell
|
Channel
|
Best stages
|
Primary purpose
|
Upsell / cross-sell opportunities
|
|
Email
|
Discover, Convert, Engagement, Loyalty
|
Education, nurture, transactional, retention
|
Pre-trip activities, insurance, room/seat upgrades, loyalty offers
|
|
WhatsApp
|
Convert, Engagement
|
Speed, support, real-time utility
|
Cart recovery, in-trip experiences, geo-specific offers |
| Instagram |
Inspire, Feedback
|
Visual storytelling, advocacy
|
Lead magnets, UGC-driven demand, brand collab packages
|
Own the Journey, Not Just the Booking
The difference between a one-time transaction and a lifelong traveler lies in how you handle the "in-between" moments. As we’ve explored, the Travel Customer Lifecycle is not a sprint; it is a marathon that requires empathy, timing, and personalization.
By synchronizing your strategy across the Inspire, Discover, Convert, Engagement, and Loyalty stages, you transform a standard itinerary into an unforgettable relationship. However, orchestrating this symphony of email, WhatsApp, and social interactions manually is impossible at scale. You need a platform that understands the nuance of the travel timeline.
Ready to master the long game?
ZEPIC is built to help travel brands unify customer data and automate hyper-personalized journeys across the channels that matter most. Book a demo today and find out how ZEPIC can help you
FAQs
How to reduce travel booking abandonment rate?
Travel has an exceptionally high abandonment rate (often 80%+). Strategies to fix this include:
Price Transparency: Display all taxes/fees early; hidden fees are the #1 cause of abandonment.
Retargeting: Use email automation to send a "Save your Itinerary" reminder 1 hour after abandonment.
Trust Signals: Display security badges and "Free Cancellation" policies prominently near the "Pay" button.
How can I use personalization to increase travel bookings?
Personalization requires data, including:
Geo-targeting: Showing flight deals from the user's nearest airport automatically.
Behavioral Emailing: If a user reads three blog posts about "Family Travel," stop sending them "Solo Adventure" deals and switch to "Kids Go Free" offers.
Past Purchase Data: Recommending a relaxed beach holiday to a customer who previously booked a high-adventure hiking trip (or vice versa, depending on their feedback).
Why is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) difficult to measure in travel?
Unlike a coffee shop, where a customer visits weekly, a traveler may only take one major trip a year. This makes the "lifecycle" slower. To measure CLV accurately, you must look at a longer horizon (3–5 years) and factor in referrals/advocacy, not just direct repeat bookings.
How influential is User-Generated Content (UGC) in travel decisions?
Extremely influential. Travelers trust other travelers more than brands. Statistics show that potential guests are 3.9x more likely to book a hotel with higher review scores and visible guest photos than those without. Integrating Instagram feeds of guest photos onto your booking page acts as digital "word-of-mouth."
Desperate times call for desperate Google/Chat GPT searches, right? "Best Shopify apps for sales." "How to increase online sales fast." "AI tools for ecommerce growth."
Been there. Done that. Installed way too many apps.
But here's what nobody tells you while you're doom-scrolling through Shopify app reviews at 2 AM—that magical online sales-boosting app you're searching for? It doesn't exist. Because if it did, Jeff Bezos would've bought (or built!) it yesterday, and we (fellow eCommerce store owners) would all be retired in Bali by now.
Growing a Shopify store and increasing online sales isn’t easy—we get it. While everyone’s out chasing the next “revolutionary” tool/trend (looking at you, DeepSeek), the real revenue drivers are probably hiding in plain sight—right there inside your customer data.
After working with Shopify stores like yours (shoutout to Cybele, who recovered almost 25% of their abandoned carts with WhatsApp automation), we’ve cracked the code on what actually moves the needle.
Ready to stop app-hopping and start actually growing your sales by using what you already have? Here are four fixes that will get you there!
Fix #1: Convert abandoned carts instantly (Like, actually instantly)
The Painful Truth: You're probably losing about 70% of your potential sales to cart abandonment. That's not just a statistic—it's real money walking out of your digital door. And looking for yet another Shopify app for abandoned cart recovery isn't going to fix it if you're not getting the fundamentals right.
The Quick Fix: Everyone knows you need multi-channel recovery that hits the sweet spot between "Hey, did you forget something?" and "PLEASE COME BACK!" But here's the reality—most recovery apps are a one-trick pony. They either do email OR WhatsApp, not both. And don't even get us started on personalizing offers based on cart value—that usually means toggling between three different dashboards while praying your apps talk to each other.
Enter ZEPIC: This is where we come in. With ZEPIC's automated Flows, you can:
Launch WhatsApp recovery messages (with 95% open rates!)
Set up perfectly timed email sequences (or vice versa)
Create personalized recovery offers not just on cart value but based on your customer’s behavior/preferences
Track and optimize everything from one dashboard
Fix #2: Reactivate past customers today
The Painful Truth: You're probably losing about 70% of your potential sales to cart abandonment. That's not just a statistic—it's real money walking out of your digital door. And looking for yet another Shopify app for abandoned cart recovery isn't going to fix it if you're not getting the fundamentals right.
The Quick Fix: Everyone knows you need multi-channel recovery that hits the sweet spot between "Hey, did you forget something?" and "PLEASE COME BACK!" But here's the reality—most recovery apps are a one-trick pony. They either do email OR WhatsApp, not both. And don't even get us started on personalizing offers based on cart value—that usually means toggling between three different dashboards while praying your apps talk to each other.
Enter ZEPIC: This is where we come in. With ZEPIC's automated Flows, you can:
Launch WhatsApp recovery messages (with 95% open rates!)
Set up perfectly timed email sequences (or vice versa)
Create personalized recovery offers not just on cart value but based on your customer’s behavior/preferences
Track and optimize everything from one dashboard
Offering light at the end of the tunnel is Google’s Privacy Sandbox which seeks to ‘create a thriving web ecosystem that is respectful of users and private by default’. Like the name suggests, your Chrome browser will take the role of a ‘privacy sandbox’ that holds all your data (visits, interests, actions etc) disclosing these to other websites and platforms only with your explicit permission. If not yet, we recommend testing your websites, audience relevance and advertising attribution with Chrome’s trial of the Privacy Sandbox.
Top 3 impacts of the third-party cookie phase-out
Who’s impacted
How
What next
Digital advertising and
acquisition teams
Lack of cookie data results in drastic fall in website traffic and conversion rate
Review all cookie-based audience acquisition. Sign up for Chrome’s trial of the Privacy Sandbox
Digital Customer Experience
Customers are not served relevant, personalised experiences: on the web, over social channels and communication media
Multiply efforts to collect first-party customer data. Implement a Customer Data Platform
Security, Privacy and Compliance teams
Increased scrutiny from regulators and questions from customers about data storage and usage
Review current cookie and communication consent management, ensure to align with latest privacy regulations
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