The world is a rapidly changing place these days, so it follows that travelling the world is a rapidly changing experience. Between a fast-moving global economy, new ways of producing and sharing travel content, and a huge pool of millennials eager to explore the planet, the next few years could prove unpredictable for travel and tourism companies — that is, unless they stay on top of the data and take advantage of emerging trends.

Here are 10 numbers all travel marketers should be paying attention to when planning their marketing strategies in the coming years:

1. 6% of Chinese citizens currently possess a passport (Forbes), and travel from China is expected to grow 10% by 2022 (Euromonitor International).

When growing your travel email marketing list, it’s important not only to use time-honored list growth best practices but also to identify untapped markets and areas of opportunity. For travel, tourism, and hospitality, that market is in China — and the wanderlust growing in this country could prove lucrative for savvy email marketers watching the data.

As China continues to grow its economic influence, not only will business travel increase, but its citizens will grow hungrier for vacations to distant locales. Smart travel marketers should look to this country in coming years to capture this trend — and, potentially, a billion leads.

2. 70% of smartphone-owning travelers research their plans via mobile (Google).

If your travel email marketing strategy isn’t mobile first, now is as good a time as any to optimize your program for the mobile inbox — view our on-demand webinar on mobile email for expert tips on design, development, and more! Expect that your customers will use their smartphones and tablets to research destinations, compare prices, and read reviews (more on that soon!).

What does that mean for your travel or tourism marketing strategy? It means designing emails that look incredible on mobile devices, making sure your website is mobile-friendly, and finding creative ways to reach your leads and customers where they are — on the go.

3. 95% of travelers read reviews prior to booking their trips (tnooz).

Let’s stick a pin in mobile reviews, because it turns out they’re a huge part of your audience’s buyer’s journey. Fully 95% of your customers are reading reviews — most likely on their smartphones — before making the decision to book a trip. For marketers, that means that collecting those reviews, displaying them in a user- and mobile-friendly format, and providing five-star service is critical to an effective program.

For travel email marketers, a good customer review is a priceless asset. You can feature them in your marketing emails alongside scenic photos, pairing irresistible visuals with envy-inducing feedback from a happy tourist. You can use reviews to score customer value, providing ever more enticing incentives the more valuable the segment. After customers return home, you can use a discount on a future trip to collect more reviews and feedback.

4. 59% of travelers research their trips 1-3 months before embarking on them (TripAdvisor).

When it comes to email marketing, timing is everything. That doesn’t just mean finding the best time of day or day of the week to push your campaign, but also getting inside the customer’s head to determine the time of year they’re most likely to want to take a vacation.

Whether your customers want to take a break from winter weather or turn the heat up on their summers, knowing that the majority of travelers start shopping around for getaways a couple of months before leaving gives you a great starting point for planning and executing your email campaign. First, identify the key times of year your customers book trips at each of your destinations, then work three months backward with a multi-phased email campaign that continues to kindle interest.

5. airfare and hotel prices are predicted to rise more than 3% in 2018 (Hotelogix).

The cost of travel is going up, making it more important than ever to offer the kinds of incentives that convince leads to become customers. This might mean partnering with a credit card provider that offers competitive travel miles, bundling attractive extras and upgrades with your travel packages, and scoping out what the competition is doing to make your offerings rise to the top in terms of quality and affordability.

6. 30% of people would make spontaneous travel plans, provided the right incentive (Google).

Not only will providing travellers with the right financial incentives help offset the rising prices of air travel and lodging, but it could also increase the likelihood of your leads turning into customers — even if they weren’t originally planning to. This is a great reason to push cost-saving campaigns during off seasons, like island vacations during the summer or trips to Iceland — now a trendy destination among millennials — during cold winter months.

7. 60-70% of North Americans consume digital travel-related content (USDM Digital).

Canadians and United States travelers love reading about far-away lands — after all, travel blogs are the tourism industry’s version of window shopping. From digital travel journal entries to online magazines, YouTube videos, reviews, virtual reality experiences, and even Instagram stories, your audience is eager to travel the world digitally to whet their appetites for the actual trip.

An aggressive content strategy, executed across diverse media, will be your ticket to gaining an edge on your competitors — and email is a powerful distribution channel. You can embed media in your travel marketing emails, like National Aquarium did masterfully in this Turtle Tuesday campaign. You can drive recipients to your YouTube channel, Instagram account, Pinterest board, or VR experience. On a simpler level, you can feature travel blog content in your newsletters, leveraging the power of authentic written word to stir your subscribers’ imaginations. And like any other media, you can (and should) personalize email video content.

8. “bleisure” trips (part business, part pleasure) represent 43% of business travel (Huffington Post).

Not all portmanteaus are created equal, and “bleisure” is a pretty egregiously ugly one. However, we can all rally behind its meaning — that business trips can be more than a marathon of conference sessions and networking, and can feel more like a genuine vacation.

Not only can you market luxury add-ons to a traditional business trip, but you can use subscriber data to personalize those add-ons for greater engagement and conversion. If a repeat customer has purchased spa services in the past, you can throw a nice aromatherapy massage into their next business trip. Whether it’s snorkeling, hiking, skiing, or just a comped meal at a wonderful Italian restaurant, you can customize a bleisure experience for your subscribers — who may then reward you with an amazing review.

9. social mentions of travel incorporating AR/VR experiences increased 13% YOY in 2017 (CMO.com).

Virtual and augmented reality are the next frontier when it comes to marketing, and the travel and tourism industry is ripe for this type of immersive content. On the AR front, Pokemon Go has gotten people young and old to explore their cities, discovering landmarks they may have otherwise overlooked. In the VR world, you can now slip on a headset and transport yourself to beaches, mountains, and historical sites across the globe — all from the comfort of your living room.

These technologies open up a world of opportunity for travel and tourism marketers. Kindle your subscribers’ excitement with a 360º video of a trip they might not have previously considered, or tease an already-booked vacation with an immersive VR experience.

10. 92% of millennials who used travel agents said the service enhanced their trip experience (American Express).

We’ll conclude with a statistic that may surprise many travel marketers. It’s often assumed that the “digital native” millennial generation would prefer to book their trips on smartphones, but it turns out that a bespoke, personal experience appeals to this demographic more than you might think. This speaks to the importance of offering a variety of options for your customers based on their personal preferences. Even your youngest, most digitally connected subscribers may be interested in speaking to a human over the phone or in person — meanwhile, some of your Baby Boomer customers might want a more frictionless online interaction.

future-proof travel email marketing with WhatCounts

No matter what channels and media you incorporate into your marketing plan, all roads lead to email — and WhatCounts provides automations, features, and a platform laser-targeted to the needs of the travel and tourism industries. With WhatCounts, you can easily leverage personalized content, geolocation-based offers, weather-related incentives, vacancy alerts, and more. Learn all about WhatCounts travel email services, then schedule a demo to see our platform in action.

How will these statistics impact your marketing strategy in 2018 and beyond? Tweet us @WhatCounts to let us know!