QR Codes In Tourism And Travel

If you're planning on using QR codes in the tourism or travel industry the opportunities go way beyond simply adding a QR code to the back page of your brochure that links to your website. As the articles shown below point out, QR codes in tourism, travel and hospitality can be used for product and destination marketing, in-house guest engagement, interpretive signage, adding multimedia dimensions to self-guided tours, and linking online content to traditional print media.

• How Hotels Can Use QR Codes For Marketing And Customer Service: Using QR codes to improve a guest’s service experience. QR codes are used on cards in the rooms, notices in elevators, at the concierge desk and message boards in the lobby to engage clients with tips on where to dine or what to do during their stay. Here's the original article by Xotels.
• Increasing Print Catalog Engagement With QR Codes: Luxury villa rental company Wimco recently released its annual Vendôme Guide to St. Barts with a multitude of QR codes that lead consumers directly to mobile-optimized real estate listings for the first time.
• 4 Ideal Tourism Uses for QR Codes: An increasingly popular marketing tactic for the tourism industry, QR codes provide a unique link between the physical world and a limitless supply of digital content.
• 12 Ways Your Travel Brand Could Use QR Codes: QR codes are a great way to connect prospective guests who are offline to information about your brand that is online. Just make sure your site is mobile-friendly and you offer some kind of value-add.
• Implementing QR Codes to Enhance Hotel Guest Interaction and Revenue:  The future holds more interesting uses for the technology, especially in the hotel industry, as we learn how to better connect with and respond to our guests.
• Hospitality Industry Using QR Codes to Improve Guests' Experience: The hospitality industry has come up with some interesting ways to use them to help ensure that guests enjoy their stay.
• Smart Scanning: Six Savvy Hotels Using QR Codes: Real-life examples of hotel and conference centers incorporating QR codes into their hospitality marketing with success.
• QR codes and Mobile Apps: What can they do for Destination Marketing? QR codes will certainly revolutionize what we can do as marketers to reach customers – but must be used at the point of consumption, or close to the end of the travel buying cycle.  Here's the original article by acoupleofchicks.com Digital Tourism Marketing.
• The Rise and Success of QR Codes in London: Innovative adaptations of QR codes in London have made visiting this popular tourist destination easier, with London attractions available at the touch of your smart phone.
• Examples of using QR codes to integrate multimedia and online content into interpretive signage and self-guided walking tours -  San Antonio (Texas) River Walk, Grand Rapids (Michigan) Historical Tour, New York City Gotham Guide , Napier City (New Zealand), Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge (Florida), Pheasant Valley Winery (Oregon), Long Beach (Washington) Discovery Trail, various museum tours, and the Explore Cebu (Philipines) Heritage Tour.
• North Wales Tourism QR Code Revolution: QR codes have been used on a quarter of a million Great Days Out leaflets to be distributed across North Wales, the North West and the Midlands. The QR codes direct smartphone users to a website that is constantly updated with the latest information so that the leaflet doesn't become outdated, effectively extending the useful life of the printed product.
• QR Codes for Lodging Seminar (Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Conference 2012) and 15 QR Code Ideas For Bed And Breakfasts
• Our earlier blog post on Making A Google Places QR Code

Finally, here's a video that highlights, in a humorous way, a few of the pitfalls to avoid when putting a QR code campaign together. Image Sources: www.skipedia.co.uk, www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com, www.funbeach.com, www.3seventy.com