New Campaign Urges Consumers to ‘Go Human. Book Human’

When it comes to experiences and travel, it’s going to impossible for technology to replace humans. And while so many travel advisors are aware of that, a new campaign from Internova Travel Group aims to make that message as clear as possible to consumers. 

“The Covid-19 pandemic brought to light the horrors of travel disruption in a new way,” said J.D. O’Hara, CEO of Internova Travel Group. 

“Individuals and families left stranded with no refunds and limited support gave way to a climate of extreme frustration. Many realized that getting travel wrong—personal or business—can have very real, very strenuous consequences. That’s when travel advisors were called in to save the day,” he added. 

The campaign aims to connect with consumers to convince them that booking travel with actual people, instead of just doing it alone online, is part of the reason why travel is so compelling. 

“Some people may not know better than booking with an online travel agency,” O’Hara said during a media call this week. “Trust is more important now than ever.”

Internova partnered with Broken Heart Love Affair advertising agency to builds the campaign, which, at its heart, “urges travelers to consider how computer programming and artificial intelligence could possibly plan vacations without the same sensory perception as human beings.”

Each marketing piece will end with a call for consumers to “book human” instead of going online. 

The campaign will run over the next three months on social media, online, and in the consumer press, with a new website, BookHuman.Travel, connecting consumers directly with travel advisors across the U.S. from Internova’s Global Travel Collection. It also includes long-form video and out-of-home in New York and Los Angeles. 

The consumer will do the picking when it comes to advisors, and the more robust the advisor profile is on the website, the more likely he or she will be able to harness it and get more leads for their business. 

Advisors will not be charged to be included on the platform, either. This is one of the ways Internova is hoping to help advisors build back from the depths of the COVID-119 crisis. 

The goal is to get consumers onto BookHuman.Travel and then funnel those leads to travel advisors. Consumers will sign onto the platform and be matched with advisors who fit their preferences. 

The campaign is simple and, according to Brent Rivard, the chief marketing officer at Internova, that was one of the goals—“simplicity is power,” Rivard said. 

It’s an ambitious goal—Rivard said that with the right investments, the hope is to “become the Nike of the travel industry one day”—but the team at Internova believes the time is right to do so and is purposely undertaking it as travel starts to come out of the COVID-19 crisis, one that decimated so many parts of the industry. 

While the campaign will push leads to Internova’s advisors, the campaign’s goal is much bigger than that—O’Hara said that the goal is to strengthen the bond between consumers and advisors and raise awareness of what advisors provide. 

This could be just the start of the campaign, too, O’Hara told the media. Depending on the measurable ROI of the campaign, Internova could push even more funding behind BookHuman. 

“If this yields an ROI I have committed to getting more investment for it until it doesn’t yield an ROI,” O’Hara said.