Why Sound Shapes Travel Decisions Before Anyone Boards a Plane
Travel branding has a blind spot
Travel brands obsess over imagery. Destinations are framed through sweeping visuals, carefully graded films, and meticulously art-directed photography. Entire campaigns are built around how a place looks.
Sound, by contrast, is usually added late. Often borrowed. Sometimes ignored entirely.
Because by the time someone watches a brand film or scrolls through a destination website, a decision process has already begun. Emotionally, at least. And sound plays a disproportionate role at that early stage.
This article is not about music taste or “epic” scores. It is about anticipation. About how sound quietly prepares people for an experience before they understand why they feel drawn to it.
Anticipation happens before visuals do
From a behavioural perspective, sound reaches us faster than sight. Audio does not require focus. It surrounds rather than presents itself.
Research published in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that sound can influence emotional judgement even when people are not consciously paying attention. In other words, audio primes expectation before rational evaluation begins.
In travel, this matters enormously.
The decision to travel is rarely logical at first. It starts as a feeling. A pull. A sense that something will be worth the effort, the cost, the disruption. Sound is particularly effective at triggering that sense of readiness.
Yet most brands treat audio as a finishing layer, not a strategic one.
Why most travel brands sound interchangeable
If you strip visuals away from many destination films, airline campaigns, or tourism websites, what remains sonically is often indistinguishable.
Generic cinematic builds. Stock textures. Familiar emotional cues.
This is not laziness. It is structural. Sound is rarely owned at brand level. It is commissioned per campaign, per agency, per project. Over time, this fragments the experience.
The result is a brand that looks consistent but sounds accidental.
According to analysis frequently referenced by Harvard Business Review, consistency across sensory touchpoints increases trust and perceived quality. Travel brands understand this visually. Far fewer apply it sonically.
What sound does better than visuals
Sound excels at three things that are critical to travel branding:
1. It creates mood without explanation
You do not need to explain scale, calm, tension, or movement through sound. People feel it instinctively.
2. It implies motion
Travel is about transition. Departures, arrivals, journeys. Sound is uniquely suited to expressing movement over time.
3. It works before attention
Sound can influence perception even when the audience is distracted, multitasking, or only half-engaged.
This is why sonic decisions made early in the brand journey are more valuable than last-minute music choices.
Sound as a system, not a track
The strongest travel brands do not rely on one piece of music. They build sonic systems.
A core Brand Track establishes emotional territory. From there, shorter edits, ambient layers, sonic logos, and spatial applications are derived. Each touchpoint behaves differently, but speaks the same language.
This is not about being loud or cinematic. In fact, restraint is usually more effective. Space. Texture. Pace.
As Keith Gillespie, Head of Sonic Branding at WithFeeling, often notes:
“Good brand sound rarely announces itself. It earns trust by feeling inevitable.”
Why this matters commercially
Anticipation influences behaviour.
People who feel emotionally prepared for an experience are more likely to:
- Stay longer with content
- Attribute higher value to the experience
- Remember the brand positively afterwards
Sound contributes to that preparation phase. It helps set expectations before reality has a chance to disappoint or exceed them.
For travel brands competing in saturated markets, this is not a creative luxury. It is a strategic advantage.
Wrapping up: sound prepares the ground
Travel decisions are emotional before they are rational. Sound in travel branding plays a quiet but decisive role in shaping those emotions early.
When audio is treated as a system rather than decoration, brands gain consistency, credibility, and emotional depth across every touchpoint.
This is not about sounding adventurous.
It is about sounding intentional.
If you are rethinking how your brand prepares people for the journey ahead, WithFeeling designs sonic identities that work long before arrival.
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