In today’s content-saturated world, catching and keeping someone’s attention is a tall order. Tourism organizations face this daily, not just in their marketing campaigns, but in the critical task of educating front-line staff, stakeholders, and community members. The good news? The secret to impactful training may already be in your marketing department.

Here’s how tourism professionals can borrow proven marketing strategies to supercharge their tourism training programs and turn passive learners into active tourism ambassadors.

1. Know Your Audience, Like Really Know Them

Marketers obsess over their audiences. They know their pain points, dreams, favorite breakfast cereals—okay, maybe not that far, but close. In tourism training, we often skip straight to building content without first understanding what learners care about, what challenges they face, and how they prefer to learn.

Bianca Baumann and Mike Taylor, co-authors of Think Like a Marketer, Train Like a Pro, stress the importance of creating learner personas. “If we can answer the question for them, ‘Am I making a difference at work?’ that is really where that emotional aspect makes a huge difference,” says Baumann.

✅ Pro Tip: Conduct quick interviews or surveys before developing training. Create learner personas that guide tone, content format, and delivery strategy.

2. Turn Training into a Campaign

Training doesn’t start when someone clicks “Begin Course.” Marketers craft multi-step campaigns to build anticipation, reinforce messages, and keep audiences engaged. Trainers should too.

Taylor explains how they used email marketing software to deliver targeted, role-specific content in an onboarding program. “The recipient’s job role determined the depth of content they received—sales staff got more in-depth competitor insights, while administrative staff received high-level overviews,” he notes.

✅ Pro Tip: Break learning into snackable pieces delivered via email or messaging platforms like Slack. Think of it as a learning drip campaign.

3. Create Once, Use Everywhere

Repurposing is a superpower in marketing and training. A webinar can become a blog post, a blog post can become a video, and a video can become a quiz. The same content can be stretched to meet multiple learner needs and attention spans.

“Marketing pros take one asset and slice it up into 12 social posts, infographics, emails, and more,” says Taylor. “That’s what we should be doing in training, too”.

✅ Pro Tip: Build your content strategy to allow for repurposing. Document core learning objectives separately from formats so you can adapt quickly.

4. Speak Human. Be Memorable.

Great marketers are masters of voice and storytelling. They know that emotion drives attention and action. Too often, training is dry, overly complex, or detached from the learner’s real-world experiences.

“If it’s not simple, useful, or emotionally resonant, people won’t remember it—and they won’t change behavior,” says Taylor. Think slogans, jingles, memes… anything that sticks.

✅ Pro Tip: Use storytelling, metaphors, and casual language to make content stick. You’re not dumbing it down—you’re humanizing it.

5. Bring in the Right Tech

Marketing tech isn’t just for big budgets. Affordable email tools, chatbot builders, and campaign tracking platforms can help you personalize learning and measure its impact.

Baumann and Taylor both describe running automated learning campaigns using tools that dynamically adjusted based on user behavior—who clicked, who didn’t, and who needed a nudge.

✅ Pro Tip: Start small. Try using a free email campaign tool to deliver learning content and track engagement, and then build from there.

6. Measure What Matters

Marketers live and die by data. They test, tweak, and adjust based on metrics, and training should be no different.

“Marketing has figured out how to tie actions to outcomes. We need to do the same,” says Baumann. That means looking beyond completion rates to performance data, feedback, and business impact.

✅ Pro Tip: Pair your LMS data with business KPIs. Are trained staff generating more positive visitor reviews? Are locals more likely to recommend your destination after taking a course?

Why It Works: Real-World Examples

In programs developed and delivered by Learn Tourism the nonprofit academy, learners regularly cite improved confidence and enthusiasm after completing courses. Poconos Ambassador Program participants, for example, shared that they now feel more confident about creating exciting visitor experiences and requested even more ways to engage, such as videos and trivia.

And in LaGrange County, Indiana, a front-line professional shared:

“Although I’m from here and have worked here for years, it felt like a whole new world to me”.

These are the outcomes that happen when training is strategic, audience-centered, and emotionally resonant.

Marketing + Learning = Better Destinations

Tourism organizations already invest heavily in brand storytelling, emotion-driven campaigns, and user-centered design. Applying those same tools to your training programs will not only improve learning outcomes, but it will also create passionate tourism ambassadors equipped to inspire every visitor they meet.

Because just like a great ad, a great course doesn’t just inform. It moves people.

About Learn Tourism the nonprofit academy...

Learn Tourism is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the tourism industry through innovative educational practices and professional development initiatives. Our mission is to harness the power of science, business psychology, and adult education to build sustainable economies and enrich the tourism landscape.