Sustainable Tourism Marketing Audits & Insights
Marketing audits for travel companies with a sustainable tourism policy
Who is this audit for?
Government agencies
Tour operators
Travel brands and experience providers
Sustainable and responsible tourism organisations
Destination marketing firms
Tourism leaders driving sustainability
What challenges are affecting your tourism organisation?
Does your sustainable tourism marketing and communications strategy struggle with these problems?
- No guidance or direction about how to market or communicate an accreditation or certification effectively
- Lack of knowledge, skills and time to effectively market sustainability efforts and practices
- Marketing does not communicate values, resulting in missed opportunities to attract and engage your target audience
- Low visibility as a sustainable business results in losing customers to competitors who may be greenwashing
- Unable to connect with your ideal customers when leveraging consumer trends and insights
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above examples, let us support you with our comprehensive evaluation. Our audit will help you to:
- Understand your current marketing and communication shortfalls
- Identify key areas where your organisation can improve
- Prioritise what to address first
- Evaluate how your company shows up across numerous touchpoints
- Learn how to improve your online brand presence, storytelling and overall marketing strategy
- Connect your organisation with more travellers who value sustainable and responsible practices
- Consider the cohesiveness and alignment of your organisation’s brand story and sustainability efforts.
Who conducts the audit?
Our marketing and communications audits are prepared by Keeley Warren, founder and co-director of Mankind Digital, and JoAnna Haugen, founder of Rooted Storytelling.
Keeley Warren
Marketing, communications and advertising specialist Keeley Warren is the founder, co-director and creative mind behind innovative, multi-award-winning marketing and communications agency Mankind Digital. Her deep commitment to promoting regenerative, sustainable and responsible travel coupled with more than 17 years of local and international experience, puts ethics, community well-being and the environment ahead of profit.
An active member of Sustainable Travel International, Skål International, Creatives for Climate, The Tourism CoLab’s Communiversity and Flourishing Business, Keeley also conducts educational workshops for various travel organisations and interviews tourism industry leaders in her role as sustainable travel reporter for Travel Writers Radio.
JoAnna Haugen
A seasoned marketing communications professional, JoAnna Haugen is the founder of Rooted Storytelling, a solutions platform at the intersection of regenerative and sustainable tourism approaches, social impact and storytelling. As an award-winning writer, speaker and consultant, JoAnna works with tourism practitioners around the world to reimagine travel experiences, whilst supporting their commitments to responsible tourism using strategic storytelling.
Her work has been published in more than 60 print and online publications and, in 2021, Newsweek named JoAnna a winner in the storytelling category of its Future of Tourism awards. A curious traveller and hopeful global citizen, she’s not afraid to challenge the status quo.
When you work with Keeley and JoAnna, you work with a team of passionate, dedicated professionals who are committed to your sustainable marketing needs and invested in your success.
How does this sustainable tourism marketing audit work?
We assess your digital footprint and brand presence using a proprietary framework, process and measurement tool developed exclusively by us to identify the gaps in your current brand positioning, marketing messaging and sustainability commitments.
With respect to your business goals, sustainable tourism policy, local communication style and tone preferences, we then provide recommendations for updating your marketing and communications strategy. This includes suggestions for maximising marketing efforts across digital channels with an emphasis on your sustainability certification and/or your regenerative and responsible tourism values, efforts and impacts.
The audit is comprehensive, easy to understand and supported with customised resources designed for your business so you can take action right away.
Examples of how this audit can support your travel brand or destination include helping you:
- Learn how to effectively communicate sustainability in tourism
- Understand how to work with the media and develop an online press room
- Apply eco-labelling and/or accreditation branding best practices
- Update your digital communications to reflect your accreditation
- Communicate your business purpose, vision, mission and values clearly and concisely
- Tailor your communications to suit external audiences such as customers or internal audiences such as staff and partners
- Ensure your branding and sustainability stories are consistently represented across marketing channels
- Surface missed opportunities to connect with aligned travellers
- Develop guidelines for your content and marketing messaging that communicates sustainable, responsible and regenerative tourism initiatives and achievements clearly
- Learn how to use customer surveys and testimonials in your marketing and communications
- Create and effectively communicate an impact report
- Get recommendations for helpful resources such as photo banks and creation tools
- Feel empowered about crafting future sustainability communications
In addition to showing you how to update your marketing and communications strategy and activities in-house, we also offer optional training, workshops and mentoring in digital marketing fundamentals and brand management. Our specialised courses and workshops in marketing and communicating sustainable and regenerative tourism can be customised to suit your organisation’s needs.
Benefit from four personalised virtual sessions:
The audit process includes four valuable virtual sessions where we meet and collaborate on your business together, so you get the most out of the audit and our expertise. This includes:
Audit inclusions and outputs:
- A detailed marketing and communications discovery brief
- Documentation summarising the recommended marketing channels to audit, based on your business objectives, sustainability goals and commitments
- Review of the language used in your sustainable tourism policy (if you have one), existing marketing activities and brand presence
- Documentation summarising dozens of opportunities for improving your marketing and communications activities. These are based on five key criteria: Overall brand positioning, user experience, written content, visual elements and accessibility. The findings and recommendations are then ranked by priority to help you with implementation
- Supporting documentation that explains the audit findings and recommended resources. We offer suggestions for your ongoing marketing and communications activities, plus recommended next steps
- Three customised resources to help with ongoing marketing efforts, including guidance directly related to the audit findings. These resources might include checklists, copywriting templates, guides or planning documents, depending on the needs of your travel business
Delivery timeframe:
What results can you expect from this audit?
Reputation management: We offer guidance for enhancing your company’s reputation by effectively managing its online presence and responses, fostering trust and establishing a greater level of credibility within the tourism sector, throughout your organisation and with your customers.
Clarity and transparency: We guide you in achieving consistent and transparent communication of sustainability efforts and their impact across all digital channels, resulting in a clear and cohesive brand message that resonates with travellers.
Enhanced visibility: We provide recommendations to improve search engine visibility to highlight your sustainable practices, actions and impacts. This boosts your brand’s credibility and attracts more of the types of customers who are aligned with your organisation’s values over time.
Content strategy: We propose clear and achievable action items aligned with your sustainability goals to help you devise an impactful content strategy aimed at increasing customer and employee loyalty and retention.
Education: With our actionable advice, you will be able to better educate travellers and manage their needs while fostering long-term relationships, improving customer satisfaction and creating brand loyalists.
Expectation management: Our personalised recommendations help you achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and repeat business by setting realistic traveller expectations — then surpassing them.
Communication improvement: Our suggested communication strategies strengthen your unique brand and build credibility using effective marketing, without greenwashing. We assist you with creating a compelling narrative supporting the entire buyer and traveller journey that resonates with customers who also prioritise sustainability and responsible travel.
Inclusiveness: Our recommendations include suggestions on accessibility features such as image descriptions and alt text. We’ll also review your communication style and imagery and provide feedback to ensure it is free of harmful gender, race and language stereotypes.
Validation of sustainability commitments and changes: Implementing recommended changes and strategies strengthens your organisation’s commitments to sustainability and responsible tourism. Integrating these practices into your communications will attract travellers looking for viable sustainable travel options.
Clarity in sustainability efforts: The detailed insights provided ensure sustainability efforts are communicated clearly and consistently across digital channels, training spaces and on the ground with your team to foster alignment and cohesiveness.
Content strategy impact: Our clear action points on content strategy are designed to improve employee engagement, knowledge and loyalty while aligning with the company’s sustainability goals and actions.
Communication empowerment: As frontline experience providers and day-to-day ambassadors of your brand, your team will be prepared to deliver effective traveller communication that integrates sustainability messaging using suggested recommendations from the audit.
Improved communication: Enhanced communication strategies with clear benefits to the local community and other businesses can result in increased community engagement and support.
Elevated reputation: Developing a well-articulated sustainability narrative that positively impacts the local community fosters support and mutually beneficial partnerships for sustainability initiatives.
Key features our clients love about this auditing service:
In addition to the benefits listed above and the audit output itself, our clients tell us the most valuable components of our auditing service include:
- Focused consultation time to talk through communications challenges and discuss solutions.
- A phased implementation plan with recommended priorities divided among channels over 3-12 months to help with focusing on what’s most important.
- Resources that bolster ongoing marketing needs, including checklists, toolkits and documentation to support implementation.
- Templates to help with ongoing marketing management across channels such as social media, search engine optimisation (SEO) and public relations (PR).
- Suggestions for additional readings and resources from external sources.
- Feedback on what is working well, not just opportunities for improvement.
- Access to future marketing support, resources, training and workshops at loyalty customer rates.
What our clients say about our marketing audits
“If you’re looking to elevate your sustainable tourism marketing and communications with a value-driven, professional approach, I would highly recommend the services of Rooted Storytelling and Mankind Digital. We recently engaged them to complete a thorough Marketing and Communications Audit across our website, social media, and on-the-ground representation and the results were constructive, honest, and tailored to our business values. The audit was a deep-dive into how our communications reflect who we are and where we want to go. If your goal is to connect more meaningfully with your audience and build long-term brand trust, this collaboration is a smart investment.”
Ruth Franklin
Co-Founder & Director, Secret Paradise Maldives
Align your brand with your sustainability commitments to attract the travellers you seek
If your tourism marketing and communication strategy isn’t achieving the results you’re looking for, our marketing and sustainability communications audits will uncover key opportunities for improvement, aligned with clear actionable recommendations. Overcome the barriers your organisation faces in promoting your sustainability goals and achievements, effectively resonate with your preferred audiences and get the most out of your time and marketing budget.
If you’re ready to boost both your brand’s marketing presence and business growth while enhancing your credibility as a sustainable tourism organisation or destination, use our expertise and support to help promote your ethical practices, sustainability projects, initiatives and commitment. Contact us to book your discovery call today!