How do you think of your maps – as inventory content or a marketing asset that can increase sales?

In fact maps are both.  Having a map that provides potential customers with a visualization of your cruise or tour is a good move but thinking of it as just content is passive.  A good map, one that’s informative and people can quickly relate to, is a valuable marketing tool with much wider application.

Here are 4 benefits maps can deliver to travel marketers:

• Increased Engagement
• Shareability
• Memorability
• Increased Brand Awareness

Maps are a valuable marketing asset

The key here is to have an eye-catching, attractive map that not only informs but also has an emotional appeal. The next step is to bring the trip alive, this is where animation and interaction come in. Think of a potential customer following a route as it rolls out from port to port, place to place – already they’re beginning to make that trip in their minds; they click on a destination opening a door to what they can see and do there – they start to imagine themselves there, to plan.  Your map is drawing in that viewer and getting them hooked. Maps have two big advantages when it comes to your trip being remembered.

First, simply, a map has more visual power than a page of text –  90 percent of the information that we remember is based on visual impact.

And then there are the memory hooks – showing itineraries on a map gives viewers a quick clear visualization of the trip and provides those visual hooks that strengthen their recall of it. A map is the ideal vehicle for getting your itineraries shared and talked about. Maps tick all the right boxes for content that people want to share – they are visual, appealing, fun, engaging and informative.  As a way of presenting that special cruise or amazing tour maps are a pretty neat package. Do your maps have something distinctive about them that mark them as yours or could they be anybody’s? Your maps are an opportunity to show what’s special about your travel offerings in a style that is on brand and recognizable to your customers. This is why it is more than worthwhile creating a visually appealing, on brand map showing only information relevant to your itinerary. You should be thinking of each map as a brand ambassador, infinitely shareable and leading back to you.