15 Strategies Travel And Wellness Marketing Have In Common

Written by: Sini Hietaharju, Wellness Travel Marketing Specialist

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You might be selling retreats, or you might be selling a stay in a wellness resort.

Either way, you are either in travel or wellness industry.

Let me tell you how these two industries can actually be marketed pretty similarly.

After each point, I am sharing one simple tip how you can apply it to your marketing.

Content

1. Both are Experience‑Based Businesses

Both wellness and travel are ultimately experiences.

You are selling a transformative experience, not just an empty room or a wellness service.

Your guest buys relaxation, personal growth, memories and deep experience, not a “product”.

Your marketing must focus on storytelling, emotion, and aspiration.

2. You Want to Resonate with Soul, not to Sell to Rational Mind

During the purchase process, it is of course important to give rational reasoning to your ideal client, but in wellness and travel, cold facts are not the only thing that matter.

You may need to stay for long-term in the top of mind of your buyer, get them to know you/your experience better, before they are ready to invest.

You want to share same values before they are ready to invest on maybe for the most meaningful experience of their lifetime.

For marketing this means the importance to listen and understand your ideal client as well as possible, to talk to them the way it resonates for them.
Read also: How to Define your Wellness Client Persona in 3 Simple Steps

3. Visual Storytelling is Important

To spark the soul, a stunning image is often the first inspiration for booking the experience.

Retreats, wellness and travel businesses all thrive on authentic, aspirational visuals that allow the audience to imagine themselves in the experience.

For marketing this means high ROI in quality photography for retreats, hotels and wellness services.

4. Target Audiences Overlap

If your accommodation is a wellness hotel or eco lodge, very likely your clientele is also into wellness.

On the other hand, if your service is yoga classes or retreats, many times your clientele is also into mindful, soulful traveling.

Wellness clients often prefer traveling with soulful, meaningful, restorative way instead of mass tourism.

This means that in marketing, cross-promoting between travel and wellness brands can be a win-win situation.

5. Booking Cycles & Seasonality

For transformative experiences, like retreats and wellness resort stays, people tend to plan longer and build anticipation before they are ready to book.

Holidays may be planned a year beforehand.

Seasonality is relevant in travel destinations, but also even in online wellness experiences.

Generally speaking, you will see a peek in online wellness in January, and a dip during summer.

Marketing must focus on maintaining a steady flow of brand awareness and leads all year around and focus also on filling shoulder seasons.

6. Direct Booking Dependency

Both hotels and retreats are heavily dependent on third-party platforms, like booking and bookyogaretreats.

Owning the customer relationship and driving direct bookings is a shared priority.

To reduce the dependency in third-party platforms, focus on Search Engine Optimization in Marketing.
Read more about SEO for Hotels
Read more about SEO for Wellness

7. Need for Trust & Peer Reviews

Guests often want to read experiences of other guests before booking.

That is why relevant blogs, User-Generated content, reviews and testimonials are important both for retreats and wellness hotels.

Establish credibility with relevant collaborations and ask always guest feedback and testimonials.

8. Multi‑Channel Marketing

As discussed, on both industries it is common to get stuck on being fully dependent on third party platforms that charge heavy fees.

That is why it is essential to start with a clear marketing strategy, to be able to choose the correct channels, core messages and ways to communicate with ideal client.

Start with this simple marketing template

9. Long Sales Cycles

Booking cycle can be long for transformative experiences, but also the planning phase can take long.

This involves googling, comparing, planning and browsing social media for inspiration.

Make sure you are producing content consistently for the top of funnel, for example with regular Instagram/Pinterest posting and/or a sold SEO blogging strategy.

10. Emphasis on Location & Local Expertise

Retreats and hotels often miss out on enormous potential in marketing.

Ideal clients are searching for local destination guides and insider tips.

This is a great chance to give something valuable for an ideal client persona.

This builds authority and attracts travelers seeking mindful experiences.

Establish a way to regularly share local insider tips for your area

11. Sustainable & Conscious Values

I have actually done a Bachelor’s thesis about yoga retreats travellers, and how much sustainability means to them.

Generally speaking, the interest for eco-consciousness and sustainability was much higher among retreat travellers than other travel personas.

Both retreats and travel businesses can leverage sustainability as a marketing angle.

Start by simply listing on your website what does your accommodation/retreat do for sustainable practices. Try to make this text approachable for your ideal client, instead of making a “corporate jargon” post, that nobody wants to read.

12. Reliance on Partnerships & Collaborations

On both businesses, it’s a great idea to seek for influencers, blogger and complementary brands to talk about the retreat.

Start with relevant blogs and youtubers to see if they could mention your retreat/resort centre in their relevant content.

13. Fewer Clients, Higher Prices

Wellness resorts and retreats are more about high value experiences, than high crowds.

Marketing focuses on attracting the right guests, not all the guests.

Focus on identifying your ideal customer persona, and then define the channels they spend time on, and what kind of content resonates for them.

14. Need for Personal Connection

The more special your experience is, the more likely a guest wants personalized communication before booking.

This can mean emails, or Direct Messaging in social media.

Make sure you have established a clear communication channel to reach out to, as this can increase conversion a lot. And no, chatbot is not a clear and easy communication channel.

15. Past Guests Marketing

You are selling an amazing experience.

After having lived it, nurturing earlier clientele can turn them into loyal customers, or people who recommend your experience for friends.

Consider having a loyalty program/discount for earlier visitors to have them come back, and stay in their top of mind with communication, like newsletter.