You don’t go to travel trade shows to hand out stuff. You go to start the right conversations and leave with opportunities to keep the conversation going after everyone flies home.
The challenge and delight of this setting is that the travel show floor is full of different players, each there for a different reason. Some are buyers with a tight schedule. A lot of people are just scouting, grabbing a sense of who’s there, and saving their time for later. Others are willing to stop if you have a compelling enough message. Then you get the people you really want: the ones who start asking fundamental questions about distribution, pricing, seasonality, and the nuts and bolts of working together.
If your booth experience ends with the same generic item no matter who you’re talking to– and worse, what every other vendor is handing out–you’re training people to file you mentally with every other booth that did the same thing.
Instead, it helps to plan your branded giveaways in three tiers, based on the level of engagement you’re actually getting.
Tier A
At a travel trade show, Tier A is your “default handoff” item. It goes to almost everyone who stops, but resist the urge to bulk-order items like pencils and totes. Go for branded swag that makes sense in the travel industry, and is useful enough that it’s not exiled to a hotel trash can.
A dry bag checks both boxes. It’s travel-adjacent, it solves a real problem, and it doesn’t feel like a random branded object you grabbed because you needed something cheap.
TBK produced a branded dry bag about 10 years ago, and it recently resurfaced in a photo taken on a boat in Antarctica. Same bag, still in use. That’s why we push clients to skip the plastic crap. A good item keeps showing up, even a decade later!
Tier A Pick:
Tier B
Not everyone who stops is worth a follow-up, and not everyone who gives you a card actually wants one, so tier B is for those who engage in a clear exchange with you. For example, they schedule a sales meeting, and you give them something even better than the table item.
A luggage tag feels appropriate in a travel-industry room, and it’s likely to get used. We tend to recommend higher-end tags with a more modern look because the cheap ones don’t last and don’t get kept.
Tier B Picks:
- ReturnMe Tags (Available as round or rectangular)
- Trakard
- Airtag
Tier C
Tier C is the point where you stop trying to appeal to everyone and focus on the small number of conversations that are actually headed somewhere. These are the show-goers who want to have real discussions about topics like distribution, pricing, seasonality, contracts, and, most importantly, next steps.
For travel industry branded promos, a luggage scale is a great tier C choice because it’s practical and slightly unexpected. It’s a problem-solver that makes sense for anyone who’s around travel logistics all day, and it’s the kind of item people keep because it’s useful when you need it.