• Paid
  • SEO

Sold out tours in 6 months: how Globus pivoted from international to domestic travel in 2020 and won

About the client

Globus family of brands (Group Voyagers Inc) is the largest tour operator in the world. Specialising in river cruises, and escorted and independent holidays; prior to COVID-19 they provided services to almost 50,000 passengers each year. Offering more than 500 different itineraries, across 30 businesses, Globus has been a leader in travel for over 90 years. 

When COVID-19 shut down international travel, the ANZ team needed to pivot quickly, turning to domestic travel within Australia and New Zealand to offer holidays within people’s homelands. By July 2020, Globus had created tours for locations such as Tasmania, The Great Ocean Road, and the North and South Islands of New Zealand. 

Challenge

Changing the way regional customers saw Globus’ offerings through domestic travel.

Bring Globus tours to Australians and New Zealanders in their own countries

Traditionally, Globus customers in the ANZ region booked tours to Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa; but when COVID-19 shut down international travel, these bookings halted. With borders closed for an indeterminate period of time, Globus needed to pivot and bring the tours to clients in their home countries. 

Attracting customers in uncertain times

Globus designed 14 tours that were on offer via the Globus and Cosmos Tours brands. Once the tours had been created, the hard work began – selling their Australian and New Zealand customers on travel at home, when they’d traditionally looked abroad for their adventures. 

There are so many beautiful, unique destinations across the region, so efforts were needed to create a full-scale digital marketing strategy that focused on domestic, rather than international, travel in 2020 and 2021 to help scratch the travel itch while borders remained closed. 

Solution

Achieving big results from small dollars, using optimised digital strategies and experts in their fields.

Reaching your goals is easy when you have the right help

We assisted Globus in reaching their goal of selling a range of Australian and New Zealand-based domestic holidays to customers from within the region. 

We began by creating a digital strategy that focused primarily on:   

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Video

With a budget that fluctuated between $5,000 and $60,000 per month, we needed to be able to create flexible execution points that could be changed quickly to ensure we were maximising their spend and bringing the right audience to the Globus’ websites. 

How we got there

Our SEO experts researched the interest and volume of search trends for local tourism destinations. These insights were then used to create ads with copy that sold the opportunity of seeing some of Australia and New Zealand’s best sights, via Globus’ unique tour offerings, while living in a world where international travel was no longer an option. 

Our search engine marketing experts worked to structure Google ad search campaigns, ad groups, and keywords and match types (across four separate accounts), to create the most value for money for the client, all the while honing in on the unique selling points of the itineraries. 

Display ads were created to appear across Google’s extensive display network and YouTube clips were created by Globus’ creative team and uploaded into Video Campaign by In Marketing We Trust, as we knew that harnessing the power of YouTube would allow audiences to experience parts of the region they may not have been aware of and, hopefully, develop a hunger to travel at home.

Globus had big plans around offering domestic itineraries that they had developed to pivot during COVID-19, and were looking for help to define and execute a strong digital strategy to bring their tours to life. Having worked with them for many years, we knew we could offer a full scale solution that helped them remain relevant during turbulent times.

Results

Achieving 1,900+ conversions and booking out tours, via strong digital strategy and first-class execution.

Booking out tours around the region starts with good conversion metrics

In the six-month period from October 2020 to April 2021, the team at In Marketing We Trust achieved more than 1,900 conversions for Globus (900+) and Cosmos AU (1,000).

Having previously worked to automate sales and marketing analytics for Globus, we were able to provide data that measured campaign success in a meaningful way that could be presented to the senior leadership team. 

Cultivating robust conversion rates

Our team of experts built Google Ads campaigns that converted at 10% for click-through and a conversion rate of almost 4%  in the period from November 2020 to March 2021. Regular optimisation allowed us to make the most of Globus’ fluctuating budget. 

Using YouTube as a tool for education

Video is a powerful medium, and YouTube ads can be an important part of top-of-funnel activity for businesses, as they attract the attention of potential customers and can start telling a brand story that will entice them to learn more. During the six-month campaign period, we achieved a view rate of 24% for Globus. 

“Our main focus is now definitely on domestic business. And, surprisingly, passengers booked on our domestic products are new to the company.” 

Rachelle D, Consumer & E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Globus family of brands

1900+

conversions

10%

click-through rate

24%

video view rate

Testimonials