This ‘dreaming’ stage comes before everything else. It’s the moment when the imagination is captured. Interest is ignited and the desire to travel to a particular location becomes even stronger.

With regards to the majority of international markets, prospective travellers are two or three times more likely to use the web when making a choice, rather than doing so offline.

This stage also aims to move these people from dreaming to decision-making. Most decisions are emotionally based and emotional connections are always more effective when using an individual’s native language.

Without content written in their native language, the gap between inspiration and action becomes harder to bridge. By publishing content in their native language, your browsers are more likely to convert to travellers.

Analytics pointing to abandonment or non-conversions aren’t always what they seem. Often, your target market is still in the ‘dreaming’ stage so it’s important to continue the online relationship via email, remarketing and other campaigns.

Building an emotional connection at this stage is important. Generally speaking, people are more likely to build an emotional connection in their native language.

More than one quarter of internet users use the web to search for information on health and safety while travelling. The statistics for young adults specifically are even higher, meaning that this area will continue to grow as the web becomes the automatic search method for new generations of travellers.

As an example, after having decided to visit, three-quarters of Chinese first-time travellers to Australia decided to use the web to learn more about the country.

Word-of-mouth was the second most popular source, indicating that the choice to source information elsewhere is not always driven by competing markets.

Some countries are regarded highly in terms of health and safety but not all international tourists know this and it’s something more and more tourists are searching for online in their travel planning. Mitigate the risk by providing information that addresses health and safety issues in their language.

Communicating in-language with existing and potential international tourists doesn’t stop online. Word-of-mouth plays a big part in decision making, so having multilingual ground staff, recorded tours and videos in various languages and content designed for the experience will help drive future sales.

Conducting planning online has been steadily increasing for the last decade. And yet, what proportion of these websites are available in a variety of languages?

Established travel brands effectively capture the market by offering users a simple and trustworthy path to their dream trip.

If a user fully understands the booking process because it’s explained in their native language, the amount of trust they have in the service increases, along with the likelihood that they’ll follow through with the transaction.

Have a digital strategy that puts your product in the hands of potential tourists. Planning apps such as TripIt and Google Trips suggest locations, points of interest and attractions to its user so making sure your product not only displays in these apps but speaks their language is increasingly important.