Smaller travel brands cannot outspend industry giants like Expedia and Booking.com. But they can be outtargeted.
Travel is a highly competitive industry. For many smaller travel companies out there, the problem they face isn’t demand, it’s discoverability. Usually, all potential customers see when they search, are larger competitors who have fully optimised pages. Brands who have invested a lot into their SEO strategy.
So, how can smaller brands compete? Long-tail keywords, an updated Google Business Profile and optimising for local SEO are all highly effective strategies.
What SEO means for travel companies
The widespread adoption of online travel services has shifted how people discover, plan and book their trips. The use of Google services has changed the entire industry, with people easily able to find holiday packages in a couple of clicks, plan a trip on the day and get the best deals on flights without leaving their sofa.
SEO isn’t just about basic keywords and high-end web design. It’s a direct way that your potential customers are trying to find you. For travel related services, most people will fulfill their queries through search engines. More than half of all British travellers rely on search results to research their travel plans. For most people, if you book a hotel, tour, or flight, you’ve searched something on Google beforehand.
Travel search results can be altered by a variety of different factors: people look into day trips, activities, flights, food, hotels and tours, all before they even leave the house. Nowadays, they'll also use search engines once they’ve arrived at their destination, looking for things in the local area that haven't been arranged beforehand. Not having that essential visibility on search results when your customers are looking for you is the quickest way to lose potential clients.
Local is key
With travel SEO, optimising for the local area is highly important. Make sure you have a page for each destination or service, with relevant, localised header tags. When it comes to travel, people aren’t searching for ‘hotels with swimming pools.’ They are more likely to be Googling ‘Hotels with swimming pools in LA.’
But is that going to rank against a competitor? No. Even some localised search terms are too broad, and large travel companies know them and are already targeting them. So your page needs to include the hyper-relevant information that actual users are going to include in their search terms. Think about it:
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Travel queries are inherently geographic. Most people don’t search for travel related queries generically. They search specifically for what they want: ‘an eco-friendly hotel near Lake Garda’ or ‘a fully escorted animal tour in South Africa.’
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Local pages can outperform generic destinations pages. Having a dedicated page for ‘luxury spa hotels Kyoto’ or ‘luxury onsen experiences Kyoto’ may outperform ‘hotels Japan’ due to the keyword alignment, as more people are searching locally and specifically.
- Search engines reward hyper-specific content. Consider specific neighborhoods that people may be looking to book a hotel in, or for events running such as ‘Tokyo marathon 2026 hotels,’ that can be comparatively easier to rank for, and be rewarded. They have traffic from specific search intent.. If you are a hotel in Hollywood, it will be easier to try to rank for ‘hotels with swimming pools in Hollywood’ than it will be ‘hotels with swimming pools in LA.’
Long tail keywords and Keyword Research
Competing for broader and high volume keywords often isn’t a realistic prospect for smaller brands. Trying to rank for ‘hotel Tokyo’ or ‘hotel Kyoto’ you are going to be met with fierce and massive competition from the big brands. This is where longtail keyword research comes in.
With some research you might now opt for ‘luxury eco-friendly spa break in Tokyo’ or ‘Private onsen hotel Kyoto.’ Because though the number of users searching for these terms may be lower, you’ll be able to rank for the specific terms and if your research is good enough, you can divert clicks away from your competitors for your site. Let's use a real example:
In December 2025 ‘kyoto hotels with private onsen’ were searched for, in Japan, 480 times. There is far less competition for this example compared to searches with large volumes, and SE Ranking suggests that this is an ‘effortless term’ to rank for with only ‘6% difficulty’.
Data from SE Ranking for ‘Kyoto hotels with private onsen’ December 2025.
So no, you are unlikely to rank for ‘Kyoto hotels’ without that huge budget. But, you don’t need to. What you need to think about is what amenities and services you offer, that (even if your competitors offer something similar) they aren’t targeting for ranking.
To do this you need to conduct keyword research to find out what your potential clients are searching for. Brainstorm what services you offer that make you stand out, consider localised terms, amenities, allergen specific food requirements - any service you offer that a user may search for.
These keywords are affected by seasonality. In February 2025, the search for ‘Kyoto hotels with private onsen’ volume was 1,080. Over the last twelve months Semrush suggests the average for this example is 720 monthly searches. These are the types of hyper-specific terms that larger sites may not even be considering attempting to rank for.
Semrush data on ‘Kyoto hotels with private onsen’ for the last twelve months.
According to Google, 15% of travel related searches are entirely new, this reinforces the idea that a large proportion of travel searches are going to be long-tail, highly specific, and not going to be covered by broader higher volume keywords.
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Localised language is vitally important. Even English speaking international travellers and tourists who are familiar with Japan are likely to type ‘onsen’ instead of ‘spa.’ Travellers to France will usually ask for ‘TGV tickets’ rather than ‘high speed train tickets.’ Often your audience is far more aware of localised customs, individual words and acronyms, than they are given credit for. This is why your keyword research is so important.
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Keyword difficulty is an equaliser. With lower competition keywords that have difficulty scores less than ten, smaller brands are able to compete with larger travel agencies. Even big competitors aren’t able to dominate in every single niche.
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Amenities lead to opportunities. What services are you offering that clients will search for? Pools, parking, breakfast included, gluten-free; day tours, night tours, bike tours. Be as specific as you can about what services you offer on your pages, so when potential customers are searching, their search is going to take them to your optimised page.
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There’s a contrast between search volume and search value. Lower volume and hyper-specific keywords such as ‘hotels with onsen’ indicate higher booking intent than broader, higher volume terms. A traveller who is searching for this knows exactly what they want, and is more likely to convert into a paying customer.
Google business profile
The first thing customers do when they find a hotel, a tour, a restaurant, a service, that they are considering splashing out on is check the reviews. 88% of potential customers are going to read them. But these aren’t just for potential customers; reviews are a core part of Google’s local ranking system.
Google Maps is often where people turn to when searching for travel related guidance. They are often already in the destination, looking for something nearby. Plenty of good reviews, a fully completed Google Business Profile, including name, address, hours, parking availability, and even WiFi keywords in your descriptions will go a long way to making sure you are visible to the most relevant people.
If you want to increase visibility, encourage your happy customers to leave a review. Having a few bad ones isn't necessarily the end of the world. It’s the response and clear feedback from you to them that’s going to matter. Customer reviews are both a ranking signal to Google locally, and a conversion factor for your potential clients. Keep on top of them, because they influence how prominently you are going to be featured in Google Maps and affect whether that search visibility that you’ve worked so hard for is going to be converted into enquiries and bookings.
Blogging and socials for Travel
Travel blogging, whether on your own site or through an intermediary, is a vital part of SEO. Having your site mentioned in places where there is high quality travel content is one of the strongest signals search engines are going to use to assess credibility and trust. This can be through guides, suggested itineraries or comparisons.
If you are a travel business and you aren’t partnering with bloggers or being mentioned on high traffic sites, you should be. Having links to your site from reputable blogs will bring you long term SEO value and authority. That’s how you start to compete with your competitors, who on the larger scale may have partnered with big hotels and even airlines.
Social media and online content is also essential, especially in 2026. Social media plays a huge part in planning for travel. 57% of Gen Z and millennial travellers are using social media as a key planning source for travel inspiration. While social media is playing a massive role in travel inspiration here, search engines remain the channel where that intent is captured.
As part of a social media SEO strategy, you need to make sure that your social media pages are also optimised for search and that you are creating searchable and shareable content. As of 2025, social media posts on platforms like Instagram can rank on Google. With search engines increasing their ability to index social content, social media presence is now playing a vital role in your brands overall visibility in results.
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Is your travel business eco-friendly?
As our EEAT content expert Rosie Etheridge pointed out in her November blog on 2026 SEO trends, “searches for ‘sustainable travel’ increased 191% between 2020 and 2023.” It’s clear that modern travellers take sustainable travel seriously, so by putting a focus into showcasing your sustainable practices, your business may be able to benefit from the good that you do in the community and for the planet.
There is a huge demographic of people who are increasingly concerned about the climate, and their travel preferences reflect this. 44% of 18-34 year olds are now opting for sustainable and impactful travel options. ‘Eco-friendly’ and ‘sustainable’ may just be the hottest keywords that help you outrank your larger competitors in 2026.
AI and voice search for travel
According to YouGov, 42% of travellers now say they are already using or considering using AI for travel plans. As more people step away from traditional search and move towards AI alternatives, it’s important that your content is also optimised for popular AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. Audiences are trusting them as reliable results to answer users’ queries. Good quality content will often be used by AI as a source, provided your page is ranking well. If you want to see if you are featured in an AI result, simply ask an LLM a question related to your business, and see if your brand is mentioned. While AI is changing the way we find out information, traditional SEO still drives the most user traffic to websites.
According to Search Engine Land, more than half of adults in the US have tried voice search at least once. Instead of opening a new browser window, users might ask Alexa or Siri for an answer to their travel related query directly.
58% of consumers are now using this feature to find local business. But this practice is still going to depend on your SEO fundamentals. Pages need to be structured, locally relevant and easy for a system to interpret and summarise aloud. This isn’t a separate discipline, but rather the same best practices that your strong SEO strategy is already built on.
Key takeaways
SEO isn’t a cost in the travel sector. It’s an investment. It is revenue that is being captured by your competitors who are more visible at that moment when travellers are actively searching. For smaller travel brands, success doesn’t come from competing on broad high volume keywords, but owning the locally relevant and specific terms that reflect real search intent. As search behaviour continues to develop, clarity, structure, local relevancy, and specificity are going to matter more than ever.
Smaller brands that start investing in targeted, intent driven SEO will be able to compete effectively with bigger brands without trying to outspend industry giants.
