Cuban Adventures is a tour operator specialising in responsible, small-group tours of Cuba that go beyond the typical all-inclusive resort-style travel offered by other agencies. Their tours connect curious travellers with the genuine side of Cuba through authentic local experiences, community relationships and a deep commitment to sustainable and ethical tourism practices.
As advocates for meaningful travel, the company’s digital marketing and communications needed to reflect the same care and intentionality that goes into designing their tours.
When Cuban Adventures contacted us, they were looking for a marketing partner who could communicate responsible tourism accurately and without greenwashing. They wanted to engage a team with the technical capability to create, manage and measure digital marketing campaigns across multiple channels simultaneously.
Cuban Adventures approached Mankind Digital seeking end-to-end support for their email marketing and social media marketing. When utilised effectively, these two channels can clearly communicate the quality of the experiences tour operators offer. Cuban Adventures’ in-house team had passion and local knowledge, but they needed specialist expertise to develop and execute consistent, strategically sound travel content designed for these two channels that would inspire their audiences to travel to Cuba.
The brief encompassed three interconnected needs:
We love this kind of integrated engagement!
We developed a comprehensive content marketing strategy specifically for Cuban Adventures email marketing and social media channels. The shared strategic foundation of these two channels was designed to ensure both communicated with the same tone of voice while serving each platform’s unique audiences. We created the strategy, designed the templates, developed the content and guided the Cuban Adventures team for continued growth.
Before writing any copy, we developed a dedicated content strategy for both email marketing and social media. This gave Mankind Digital and the Cuban Adventures team a clear, three-part framework: what to say; who to say it to; and how to say it in a way that was authentic, differentiated from competitors and action-oriented. The strategy incorporated content pillars, audience considerations, tone of voice and channel-specific objectives that aligned with the company’s broader business goals and how to use them to reach marketing benchmarks.
Every month, our travel writers produced campaign copy for email newsletters and social media posts, crafting content that balances destination inspiration with clear calls to action. The copy is grounded in truthful, nuanced storytelling that celebrates Cuba’s natural beauty, culture and complexity whilst respecting the communities and local businesses that Cuban Adventures works with.
Developing channel-specific content strategies
Designing customised social media graphics and email templates
Writing persuasive and informative content
Auditing performance and coaching team members
The team at Mankind Digital drew on our expertise in responsible tourism marketing, digital strategy and optimisation, travel writing and graphic design to deliver these services:
Our partnership with Cuban Adventures has been a sustained, hands-on collaboration rather than a one-off, independent project. Every aspect of our work has been designed to build momentum together over time as a team. We have been partners from the initial strategy and onboarding phase through to ongoing monthly and quarterly working rhythms to create content, deliver campaigns, analyse performance, optimise content and continued mentorship.
Clarita Derwent
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER, CUBAN ADVENTURES
Email remains one of the highest-value channels for tour operators. For Cuban Adventures in particular, it is used as a tool for nurturing prospective travellers and as a loyalty channel for previous travellers. Our work spans the full lifecycle of email marketing, from strategy and content development through to ongoing optimisation.
01
We began by developing a dedicated email marketing content strategy before writing or commencing a single campaign. This established the purpose and structure of the channel upfront, defining the role email would play in Cuban Adventures’ broader marketing mix, the types of content that would perform best with its audience, the cadence of communications and the key messages that would move subscribers from curiosity to enquiry. Having this strategic foundation in place meant every campaign that followed had a clear purpose.
02
We designed and built a suite of custom email templates within Mailchimp, developed specifically for the Cuban Adventures brand. The templates were designed to be visually distinctive and consistent with the broader brand identity. We also optimised them to maximise deliverability, mobile responsiveness and ease of use. Our well-designed templates do more than look good; they reduce future production time, ensure brand consistency across every mail-out and create a familiar, trustworthy experience for subscribers when they open each new campaign.
03
Each quarter, we mapped out a content calendar for the Cuban Adventures email marketing program, developing campaigns around booking seasons, travel trends, destination highlights and key dates and events. Thought mapping and planning ahead each quarter allows us to approach each campaign strategically rather than reactively, ensuring the program as a whole tells a cohesive story and moves subscribers purposefully through their decision-making journey.
04
Our copywriters produced the content for each monthly newsletter campaign, including subject lines and preview text through to body content and calls to action. Every campaign is written in the Cuban Adventures tone of voice, which is warm, knowledgeable and grounded in genuine respect for the destination and its people. Each draft is carefully edited before client delivery to ensure it meets our high copywriting standards and delivers on the objectives outlined for that campaign.
05
Once the copy and layout are approved, we handle the full technical implementation of each campaign within Mailchimp. This process includes uploading the final newsletter content, setting up functionality, conducting thorough QA testing across devices and email clients, checking all links and dynamic content and preparing to schedule campaigns for publication. Taking responsibility for this end-to-end ownership means the Cuban Adventures team can be confident that each campaign will be delivered to their subscribers as intended.
06
One of the highest-impact improvements we implemented was structured A/B split testing identifying the optimal time of day and day of week for campaign publication. Even with excellent content, poorly timed emails can be buried in crowded inboxes. Our testing methodology removed the guesswork and gave Cuban Adventures confidence that their campaigns were reaching subscribers at the times they were most likely to engage with the email for maximum effect.
07
After every campaign, we produced a monthly performance report tracking the metrics that matter, including open rates, click-through rates, conversions and list health such as bounce and unsubscribe rates. We then analyse the data and translate it into insights with clear, actionable recommendations. Email marketing improves through iteration, and our reporting process ensures that the previous campaigns inform each new campaign.
08
At the twelve-month mark, we conducted a comprehensive audit of Cuban Adventures’ full email marketing program, analysing campaign performance across the year to identify patterns and potential opportunities. We then developed a set of strategic recommendations to guide the program’s evolution for the year ahead. We find that carrying out a periodic, big-picture review is imperative to ensure that future planning, content development and audience engagement become more effective over time.
If you’ve been considering email marketing for your tourism and travel business or destination, find out how we can support you with a strategic approach to reaching and engaging your subscribers.
Cuban Adventures’ presence on Instagram and Facebook offered a huge opportunity for the brand. We took on the full scope of their social media content marketing for over twelve months, covering everything from initial strategy and branded template design through to ongoing graphic design, quarterly content calendar planning and ongoing social media copywriting.
01
We began by building a dedicated social media content marketing strategy from the ground up. This established the foundation for the ongoing campaigns, including clear content pillars, a defined tone of voice that was warm and knowledgeable without veering into promotional cliché, insights to guide which types of content would resonate and why, and a focus on content themes tied to real business outcomes. The strategy gave both teams a shared understanding of the overarching direction, as well as an accepted framework to use as the starting point whenever new ideas or opportunities arose.
02
We designed a suite of branded social media templates for both Instagram and Facebook posts and stories. These reflected the soul of the Cuban Adventures brand and the destination’s colour, warmth and identity, balanced with a clean, professional aesthetic to ensure it stood out in a crowded feed. These templates weren’t just visually cohesive; they were built to be practical and easy to use, while giving every post a recognisable, on-brand look without requiring a designer to start from scratch each time.
03
Beyond the tailored templates, our graphic design work continued and we produced custom-designed assets for each month’s campaigns throughout the period of engagement. From destination-inspired imagery to storytelling content that shares local voices and traveller sentiment, every visual was crafted for intentionality and consistency, ensuring that Cuban Adventures would tell a cohesive visual story over time, rather than a series of disconnected posts.
04
Each quarter, we developed a forward-looking content schedule that mapped out the objectives, content pillars, topics, timing and volume of posts across both platforms. Planning at a quarterly level gave us enough lead time to think strategically, enabling us to align content with booking seasons, travel trends and events happening on the ground in Cuba, while still leaving room for the Cuban Adventure’s in-house team to respond to timely opportunities as they arose. It also gave the team knowledge of and confidence about what was coming up, making internal sign-off and coordination more efficient.
05
Every month, our travel writers produced social media copy for Cuban Adventures’ Instagram and Facebook channels, including post captions, hashtags and calls-to-action, along with engaging storytelling. Each post was carefully edited to ensure it met our non-negotiable standards: honesty, cultural respect, freedom from hype and genuine usefulness to the curious traveller. The result was a consistent and human voice across both platforms that built trust with the company’s audience over time.
06
We conducted a thorough audit of both Instagram and Facebook, reviewing twelve months of content and performance data to understand what was working, what wasn’t and why. Our audit examined audience growth and engagement trends, content performance broken down by content pillar and topic, brand tone, visual consistency and platform algorithm opportunities. The findings informed a set of clear, evidence-based recommendations for how Cuban Adventures could further strengthen its social media presence in the year ahead. These included prioritising the content types and strategies most likely to drive meaningful engagement and booking enquiries.
07
The audit findings and report fed directly into the development of a forward-looking social media mentorship and coaching program for the Cuban Adventures in-house social media team. This gave them a clear roadmap for how to grow their presence on Instagram and Facebook in a way that reflected their brand values and attracted the right kind of travellers, namely those who are culturally engaged and who value responsible tourism principles.
08
Recognising that the majority of the Cuban Adventures in-house team lives in Cuba and is therefore closest to the day-to-day operations of the business, we designed a mentorship and coaching program to maximise knowledge across both teams, create consistency in brand voice and support the Cuban Adventures team with guidance where they needed it most. Each quarter, we meet with their social media team to review performance, share emerging platform trends and tactics, provide direct feedback on their content and discuss new strategies they can implement themselves. This combination of expert guidance and practical empowerment means the team will continue to grow in confidence and capability over time.
Discover what a social media content strategy and expert travel copywriting can do for your brand.
The Cuban Adventures partnership with Mankind Digital demonstrates how responsible tour operators can build an effective, ethically sound digital marketing presence. By taking a strategic, consistent and multi-channel approach and investing in upskilling their internal team while outsourcing specialist work, they have built a marketing and communications strategy that attracts the right kind of travellers to Cuba, builds trust and reflects genuine commitment to the island and its communities.
If you are a tour operator or travel brand looking for a marketing partner who fully understands the nuances of communicating your responsible, sustainable and regenerative tourism initiatives and outcomes, we would love to hear from you.
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