LinkedIn in tourism in Germany 2024

I held my first webinar at the MAQNIcademy in early 2023. Since then, LinkedIn has rapidly gained in importance for B2B communication. The frequency of use is increasing. In my second webinar at the end of January, I received the following responses: 8 x sporadic use, 37 x daily use and 20 x use several times a day. Anyone who visits the profiles of colleagues or top performers to get an idea of their LinkedIn usage should therefore not be fooled too quickly by the statement: "Hasn't published anything yet". The "Show all activities" button directly below this leads to the interactions. You will often be surprised to see that the last content interaction on the profiles you visited was only a few days ago. Find out what has happened in the last year.

Rising numbers of DMO company pages and their followers

Corporate pages of German DMOs achieved average growth of between several hundred and 1,000 followers. Bayern Tourismus Marketing GmbH recorded an increase of 2,000 followers and in Schleswig-Holstein, TASH was even able to increase its number of followers fivefold from 436 to 2,507. LinkedIn newcomers such as Tourismusagentur Nordsee GmbH and Potsdam Marketing und Service GmbH also multiplied their number of followers thanks to more active communication. Stuttgart Marketing GmbH, which had no company page a year ago, now has 500 followers. And recently launched on LinkedIn: The Saxon Switzerland Tourism Association. After the LMOs, the state tourism associations are following suit. New additions by January: Tourismusverband Sachsen, Tourismusverband Schleswig-Holstein, Tourismusverband Baden-Württemberg and Tourismusverband Niedersachsen.

Increasing feature utilisation by DMOs

Sending regular newsletters by email to stakeholders, B2B partners in the travel industry and MICE customers is part of the standard repertoire of every DMO. However, the first DMOs are now also working with LinkedIn's newsletter tool, which saves the often difficult task of maintaining distribution lists. Examples of use with distribution lists of between 400 and 1,100 profiles: State Tourism Association of Saxony, BIS Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung und Stadtentwicklung, Wiesbaden Convention, Dresden Convention Service and Hannover Kongress und Veranstaltungsbüro.

In addition to the MICE area as a linked page of the DMO, there are now focus pages for the tourism strategy (Rhineland-Palatinate), French-speaking B2B partners (GNTB), the state tourism association (TMBW Baden-Württemberg), the health tourism project of the Oder Partnership (VisitBerlin) and the surrounding area (Wiesbaden with focus page Rheingau).

Events such as tourism days, networking and training events are also organised by most DMOs on LinkedIn. However, the opportunities for inviting relevant stakeholders via LinkedIn have hardly been utilised to date.

Investments are now also being made in LinkedIn ads. Examples include the promotion of networking events (BayTM), job advertisements (TMBW), tourism acceptance (VisitBerlin) and, of course, ads to promote the conference and congress location (numerous convention bureaus).

The next level

What happens now? The DMO pages are set up, follower numbers and interactions are growing and we are often surprised at the relevance we achieve with our LinkedIn communication. With these steps, we are taking our LinkedIn presence to the next level:

Definition of goals and target groups
Strategic search, networking and interaction with the defined target group
Optimised use of all LinkedIn features for an integrated presence
Interlocking the communication of DMO, employees and stakeholders with an integrating destination appearance.
Increasing the relevance of future LinkedIn content
Realisation of LinkedIn trainings

Quick tip: How to optimise your communication for recurring events

If a certain type of content is recurring, it is worth collecting ideas and creating templates. Using GTM and IMEX as an example, your typical communication could look like this:

Announcement post for the event presence with a picture/graphic on which you can also be seen (social content brings more reach).
To increase visibility, place the content on your profile in the "In focus" section.
Never tag the organisers GNTB or IMEX themselves (if tagged people or companies do not interact with the content, this reduces the reach). Instead, use the event hashtags #gtm24 and #imex2024.
Follow the hashtags yourself and interact with other people's posts (interacting with other people's content also increases the reach of your own posts).
If you pass GTM logos, installations or similar at the event, take a selfie in front of this background and use it for your event announcement post 2025.
Collect the best experiences and impressions and note them down for your expert post with your personal insights after GTM/IMEX.

Further information

#linkedinfürdestinationen

All my previous LinkedIn tips can be found in summarised form via the LinkedIn search with the hashtag #linkedinfürdestinationen

The 3 most popular LinkedIn tips were:

Ich verrate heute meine Top 5 LinkedIn-Einflüsse (German)

Darf ich das posten? Wie verzahnen wir die Kommunikation von DMO und MitarbeiterInnen? (German)

Deutscher Tourismustag: So optimierst du deine LinkedIn-Kommunikation (German)

Handouts for the webinar with my speaker notes

The handouts are available for download as PDF files here. (German)