Gain exclusive insights into how Lufthansa City Center leverages the socialPALS platform to effectively boost the online visibility of their travel agencies—while keeping costs low. Victoria Kalbfleisch, Marketing Manager at LCC, shares her experiences, discusses successes and challenges, and provides a glimpse into the future of physical travel agencies competing with large online competitors.
Victoria Kalbfleisch
Online Marketing Managerin | Lufthansa City Center
Victoria, could you give us a brief overview of your role at Lufthansa City Center?
I have been with Lufthansa City Center for almost 3 years as a Marketing Manager in the Online, CRM, and Marketing team. My main responsibilities include social media marketing (content creation, approval processes with service providers, post distribution within the LCC network, support for LCCs). Additionally, I manage the content for the LCC TVs in the travel agencies. I also handle several B2B projects (B2B newsletters, LCC intranet, B2B quizzes, etc.) and assist with internal LCC events.
You have been using socialPALS since the beginning of this year to deliver high-quality travel offers to your travel agencies on a weekly basis. What were the main reasons for integrating the automated marketing platform into your communication strategy?
Our main reasons for the switch were as follows:
- Distribution of decentralized ads (greater reach, visibility – local customer acquisition)
- Sponsored budget for ads of service providers
- Ability to allocate our own budget to specific posts
- Option to participate in individual campaigns
- Custom editing of text, links, and hashtags from original posts
- Detailed metrics and reporting
- Issues and dissatisfaction with the previous social media provider
What goals have you pursued with your previous campaigns, and how much internal effort was required from your marketing team to launch them?
The main goal for our paid advertisements is to achieve visibility and reach, since our product isn’t targeted at online sales/bookings but rather at attracting potential customers to our physical travel agencies. For organic posts, the objective depends on the specific post. Generally, it’s also about reach, but for some posts, we focus on interaction/comments.
Initially, the internal effort was quite substantial as I needed to adapt to the new process, though it has become more routine over time. I must admit that managing organic posts, particularly with weekly campaigns involving content descriptions and screenshots (due to paid content from partners), requires a significant amount of work. However, the effort involved in paid ads is much lower compared to working with the Meta Ads Manager.
How effective were your previous campaigns? Did socialPALS offer new features compared to other tools? Has the platform bolstered your marketing image or improved your market position?
The success of the campaigns cannot be generalized. Our primary goal with Facebook ads was to increase participation from travel agencies due to the simplicity of the tool, and this has definitely been achieved.
We also increased our reach with a minimal budget. However, we have noticed a slight decline in likes and reach for organic posts. There has been no change in our content or posting frequency. One possible factor could be the missing album feature, which used to generate the highest likes and reach. Carousel posts look too promotional, and Instagram still doesn’t support this feature.
How did automating your campaigns through socialPALS affect the efficiency and scalability of your marketing activities? Was the platform able to help you utilize your budgets more efficiently and enhance your ROI?
As we are not focusing on direct bookings with our ads at this point, we cannot comment on ROI. Nonetheless, the increase in reach and the high level of participation from individual LCCs have had a very positive impact for us.
How did you inform your travel agencies about the transition to socialPALS, and what was their reaction to the change?
The transition was communicated through several channels:
- Initial announcement in a virtual marketing meeting
- Posts on our intranet
- Articles in our B2B newsletter
Most offices responded positively and actively participated in the online training sessions. There were a few minor exceptions, mostly related to dissatisfaction with the absence of a feature for creating custom posters and the general effort required for the tool transition.
How did the use of socialPALS affect the cooperation between your marketing department and your travel agencies? Were there enhancements in communication or brand perception due to the digital support? Did this lead to increased satisfaction?
The early feedback is favorable, since there was a lack of detailed campaign information for the travel agencies before. Moreover, we have established a consistent schedule with weekly campaigns, which the LCCs can rely on.
Have there been any travel agencies that engaged more deeply with the platform, for example, by planning (additional) posts or advertising budgets themselves?
So far, there haven’t been any.
How has socialPALS helped you keep up with current trends in digital travel agency marketing? Has the platform assisted you in addressing changing customer needs like ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline)?
Since we have only run two ads so far and measuring customer growth in the travel agencies is quite challenging, it’s difficult to make a reliable statement on this. However, it is clear that we achieved high reach with a very small budget—€100 per travel agency per week—resulting in an average reach of 50,000.
What is your perspective on the future of physical travel agencies in light of the significant market influence of online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Booking.com? Do digital retail marketing platforms like socialPALS offer travel agencies an edge compared to online-only travel agencies?
While major players will always be significant, it has also been evident that many customers do not fully trust online platforms, particularly for more complex or extended trips. Recent events — like the FTI bankruptcy and the COVID-19 pandemic — have shown that many online bookers would have preferred a direct contact. I think that intricate and high-priced travel products will always require personal consultation and expertise provided by travel agency staff.
How do you rate the customer support from socialPALS? Did you experience any instances where the support was especially beneficial, for example, during the onboarding or when new features were introduced?
The support from socialPALS has been excellent. Oshane and Maria did a fantastic job with the onboarding and addressing any issues.
Do you have any thoughts on how socialPALS could improve as a trade marketing platform to help you tackle existing challenges more effectively?
Streamlining the automation of weekly campaigns—without the need for manual Excel spreadsheet management.
Voices from the Trade:
“Once we registered on the socialPALS platform, we were able to effortlessly participate in the ready-to-use campaigns from LCC. Everything runs automatically, without us having to worry about the details. It’s amazing how simple and efficient the process is — we are directly involved in professional marketing actions without any extra work.”
Reisebüro Conrad | Lufthansa City Center
Günter Conrad
“We are very enthusiastic about the campaigns, it helps us immensely to build up and expand our social media platforms professionally.
The post is scheduled with just one click, which is simply marvellous in our industry.The plattform saves us so much time, which we then have for our customers.
Easy handling, usable for everyone thanks to the clear UI on the website. Great way to reach new customers, but also existing customers.
Best support I know of in the social media sector.
The expertise and patience of the staff – simply fantastic.
We struggled with a problem for a long time, and we were helped competently here, with a great solution approach and a lot of patience.”
Lufthansa City Center Business Travel Reisebüro K+NReisebüro
Joana Jöckel
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