Written by Will Novosedlik
Time has certainly stood still for Goway Travel. The 53-year-old bespoke travel agency hasn’t updated its brand since the company began in 1970. Nor has it changed its marketing strategy, which has traditionally been much more focused on bottom funnel lead generation. Aside from a decent baseline social presence and email newsletter, Goway’s investments have not been in brand marketing.
That may explain why, unless you are a client, or you happen to live in the north Toronto neighbourhood where Goway’s distinctive orange building is located, you’re likely unfamiliar with the brand.
Fifty years is a long time to be in business without a strong marketing presence. Family-owned and closely held, Goway was founded and is still overseen by Bruce Hodge. So why, after all this time, is a change being undertaken? “One word: Covid,” says incoming VP of marketing, Mitchell Fawcett. “Bruce is honest when he says that of all the ups and downs he’s experienced over the last 50 years, COVID was the worst. It hit hard.”
It turned out to be a pivotal moment in which the owner realized it was time for the brand to rethink its future. “At no other time has there been such an appetite for change at Goway,” says Fawcett. “Everyone in the company is poised and ready for change. They’re hungry for it.” For the first time, there is an openness to bringing in an outsider with the right mix of strategic marketing smarts and familiarity with the travel industry.
Fawcett, formerly VP of strategy at Vancouver-based marketing shop Major Tom, brings a wealth of experience on both sides of that coin. During his ten-year tenure at Major Tom, he led the firm’s transformation from a specialist in performance marketing to a full funnel brand marketing shop, all the while serving travel clients such as W Hotels, Expedia and KLM. His client-side experience was with Westin Hotels and Resorts, where he managed marketing for its B.C. properties.
So, on the strategic marketing chessboard, what are the big moves that Fawcett is expected to make? Job one is to blow the dust off a 53-year-old visual identity, top to bottom and across all touchpoints – something that requires a big think about positioning. As a luxury travel specialist, Goway is in the same niche as brands like Butterfield & Robinson and Kensington Travel. In other words, if you’re planning a Disney cruise or a couple of weeks in Cancun, Goway is not your go-to.
When asked where he sees Goway’s positioning, he admits that is still a work in progress. It will likely be built around the notion of highly personalized, highly bespoke trip design. But the timelines are aggressive. He is expected to have a new identity system ready for launch in a few months’ time.
The second key asset is a full website overhaul. At 25,000 pages, the current site isn’t exactly traveling at the speed of light. Toronto-based web shop Therefore, a Drupal CMS specialist, has been called upon to do the work. The new site is planned for an end-of-year launch.
Goway’s longest standing asset is its magazine, Globetrotting. It is distributed exclusively to Goway clients twice a year. But now, frequency will be increased to four issues a year. Unlike Conde Nast Traveller, Monocle or Travel & Leisure, you won’t find it on newsstands, but Fawcett dreams of achieving this someday, noting that those publications are the company he would like his magazine to keep. For this, Goway has a full staff of writers, designers and researchers.
The last piece on the marketing chessboard is content strategy. “We have an impressive content marketing machine driving organic traffic and organic lead volume,” says Fawcett. “It puts out a huge volume of content across a number of different properties. That includes the Globe Trotting Blog, the Getaway Guide, and an entire B2B component of our operation that’s aimed at other travel agents.”
What’s clear is the digital investment Goway plans to make to catapult the brand into the future. “We’ve got amazing content that’s buried so deep that it’s almost impossible to unearth on our own site,” says Fawcett. “We’re going to use email in a much smarter way and we’re investing in more robust first-party data so that we can serve clients better and market to them in a more personalized way.”
