5 Instagram Tips for Destination Management

There’s no denying the power of social media to affect change in real life. We’ve all heard about the little-known destinations that suddenly exploded beyond capacity thanks to a serendipitous Instagram post gone viral. And while this might have translated to success back in the days of the “more heads-in-beds” tourism model, we now know better.

We know that not only does sustainability sell, but it’s also the right—and frankly, only—way forward. We also know that Instagram, with its visually-focused platform, is incredibly well-suited for tourism marketing. As more and more destinations find themselves pivoting from marketing to management amid an influx of travelers beyond sustainable limits, you may be asking yourself, how do we use our destination’s Instagram to help direct the travelers we already receive, rather than market to more of them?

After all, the strength of social media is its exponential capacity for virality—we just need to make sure we’re harnessing it properly. Below are our top Instagram tips for Destination Management:

1. Share visitor sustainability information

Photo by GLP Films

Sustainable travelers already heading to a destination are going to search for the information that matters to them.  So use your Instagram account to make that information more accessible than ever. Instagram is chock-full of potential real estate that can be maximized for all sorts of different purposes (Reels, Stories, Lives, Carousels, etc.), including some that are ideal for sharing sustainability information:

Highlights 

Instagram Story Highlights are a great place to store valuable evergreen content such as suggested alternatives to popular spots and recommendations of all types. The ability to add link stickers to your story highlights is a hugely valuable feature since it’s the only way that Instagram lets you direct web traffic off of the app (other than the one link in your bio). 

Guides

Guides are perfect for sharing a curated flow of posts (yours or others’) with additional commentary between posts. This would be great for sharing Leave-No-Trace practices that apply to your destination, or even curating posts from local businesses and vendors in your destination for travelers to check out. 

2. Raise awareness of local Indigenous culture (with consent)

Photo by GLP Films

Partner with local Indigenous leadership to share the information about their communities that they would like travelers to know. Indigenous representation should have a seat at the table, and including Indigenous culture in the destination’s narrative, in whatever way they prefer, is an important first step in educating visitors. 

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, from literally inviting Indigenous representation to sit on the local tourism board and partake in marketing decisions, to collaborating with local Indigenous content creators on takeovers of your destination’s Instagram account (always for pay, of course!). 

3. Employ local micro-influencers to help spread the word

Photo by Karsten Winegeart

Speaking of collaborating with local content creators, employing micro-influencers to share your message is an effective way to get that message out to the right people. It’s important to seek out the right influencers for your destination. Consider factors like:

What type of activities do they partake in? 

Is your destination a popular surfing spot, or the home to world-famous spas? Make sure the type of tourism that your destination can offer makes sense for that influencer to engage with. 

What size and how engaged is their audience?

You might think that the larger the influencer’s audience, the better for your campaign, but that might be wrong. Micro-influencers, that is, influencers with 1,000 to 100,000 followers, have better engagement rates, are more affordable to work with, have more targeted audiences, are often seen as experts in their particular niche, and often produce the same quality work as a larger influencer. 

Not only is it more bang for your buck to seek out micro-influencers whose niche audience meets your campaign’s goals, you’re also more likely to avoid issues like the California poppy disaster of 2019 if working with micro-influencers with smaller audiences. Remember, the goal of destination management isn’t necessarily to get more visitors, but to make the most of the visitors you do receive. 

4. Promote destination management initiatives 

Photo by GLP Films

Whatever sustainability and management initiatives your destination is engaging in, Instagram is a great way to promote them. If you have an active or upcoming destination management campaign, look for creative ways to engage travelers (and your community too!) via Instagram. 

It can be as simple as creating branded stickers for visitors to use in their stories, or as involved as a hashtag campaign encouraging visitors to take conservation action during their stay. 

During year two of Jackson Hole Wyoming’s award-winning “Stay Wild” campaign, one of the elements of the campaign called upon locals and visitors to use the generic geotag, “Tag Responsibly, Keep Jackson Hole Wild” rather than pin-pointing specific locations. This was an effort to prevent exposing Jackson Hole’s “hidden gems” to a potential onslaught of visitors beyond its capacity to manage.

5. Consider your stance on generic geotagging

The debate over whether to geotag or not has come under fire recently. On one end of the spectrum, we have valid points being made about conservation and ecosystem disruption concerns. And on the other, we have equally valid points about gatekeeping and environmental justice concerns. This REI article by Katie Boue does a solid job of summing up both sides.  “On one side, concerned parties say that tagged photos are inspiring more people to visit public lands than ever before, leading to the overcrowding and destruction of fragile places. On the other side, supporters argue that geotags make the outdoors more accessible and can be a tool to empower the next generation of outdoor advocates.” 

Whatever stance your destination takes on the geotagging debate, it’s important to be mindful of why you’re choosing to either encourage or prevent geotagging and how you plan to communicate that information to your visitors. 

As of the writing of this article, Instagram is arguably the fastest-evolving major social platform. Over the last 1-2 years, users have come to expect new feature roll outs and announcements every month, if not multiple times per month, and it’s poised to keep growing.

To keep up to date on the latest ways to maximize your Instagram and for further help developing your social media marketing strategy in general, reach out to us!