The volume of search queries regarding travel to Turkey on the Internet increases significantly during the summer period and reaches its peak in June. For this reason, online channels offer important opportunities to tourism companies. Yandex Ads Turkey, Middle East and South Asia Agency Partnerships Leader Nejla Bilge Atila made 6 golden suggestions to tourism companies and facilities to attract tourists from Russian-speaking markets to the country.
Türkiye was the most popular destination among Russian-speaking tourists last year. According to Yandex Search data, hotels were the first category in travel-related searches from these countries with a share of 50 percent, followed by tours with 23 percent and flights to Turkey with a share of 17 percent. Resort and SPA hotels became the most popular accommodation type in Turkey in the last quarter of 2023, while Istanbul ranked first among the most sought-after cities for long-term accommodation.
Here are 6 golden suggestions for tourism companies to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the internet and attract tourists from Russian-speaking markets to the facilities:
- The language of your content is important: Your online content should be informative, visually appealing, and most importantly, relevant and understandable to your target audience. You must prepare all your content in Russian and other languages common in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Although online translation tools are widespread and easy to use, it is important to confirm the content with a native Russian translator. Even one mistake can reduce user confidence in your business and increase your risk of losing potential customers.
- Use the power of social media: Actively use social media to promote and promote travel offers. Users of the CIS region pay attention to profiles in social network communication programs that are informative, accurate and up-to-date. Create chat pages where they can easily access your phone numbers, learn about your business through photos and videos, and see user ratings and comments, and update these pages regularly.
- Don’t overlook the importance of mobile: Citizens in Russia and the CIS region often spend their time online on their mobile devices. Make sure that the design of your website, which you have prepared in local languages, is suitable for mobile devices or that your business has an application. Establish online booking and secure payment infrastructure while ensuring functionality and use of the mobile website and app. If you offer ease of use and reliability at the same time, it will be much easier to reach Russian-speaking communities.
- Make data-driven decisions with web and app analytics: Helping reduce costs and improve results, web analytics tool Yandex Metrica and app analytics tool AppMetrica allow you to see and evaluate the results of your digital advertising campaigns. Yandex Metrica focuses on indicators after your visitors click on your site. Web Visor, on the other hand, displays session logs, identifies any obstacles a user may encounter, and quickly resolves the error. AppMetrica offers analytics on in-app user activities and provides insight into your app’s performance and the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
- Take advantage of the impact of ads: Allocate a budget for advertising campaigns to reach more users in the Russian-speaking market and increase the number of conversions. Yandex, which has the largest search engine market share in Russia, accounts for 64 percent of the country’s search share and allows you to reach an audience of nearly 200 million. This means that there are significant opportunities in the Yandex Advertising Network for tourism companies and facilities in Turkey.
- Register your company on regional online travel platforms: Planning trips online has almost become the norm. Yandex search engine and other sites in its ecosystem, which allow direct reservations from hotels’ websites, allow users in Russia and CIS countries to make direct reservations from the website. These collaborations, which symbolize the power of technology in reshaping the tourism sector all over the world, enable tourists who discover the beauties of Turkey to gain new experiences.