Sunday, July 27, 2025
In an exclusive interview, Mila Genova, Chief Marketing Officer at HolidayPirates Group, shared her insights on the evolving role of sustainability in travel, the company’s commitment to diversity in leadership, and the future direction of its marketing strategy.
According to Genova, sustainability remains an important factor for customers, but its influence on decision-making has shifted, especially since the pandemic. With the rising cost of living, eco-friendly travel options, such as staycations and trips to nearby countries, are becoming more popular for being both environmentally conscious and affordable.
HolidayPirates Group is also setting a strong example for diversity with 60% female representation at the C-level, which, Genova believes, positively influences the company’s marketing approach and overall culture.
She emphasized how this diversity aligns with the preferences of their predominantly female audience and contributes to better decision-making, benefiting both the company and its customers.
Looking to the future, Genova highlighted that HolidayPirates will continue to lead the travel industry by embracing new technologies and direct messaging channels. She also pointed to the growing trend of experience-based travel, where consumers are increasingly driven by activities such as concerts, sports, and cultural events areas that HolidayPirates is actively focusing on in its marketing strategy.
You’ve been with HolidayPirates for over a decade, rising through the ranks to CMO. From your perspective, how has the travel and tourism landscape evolved during that time, and how is the brand staying ahead of shifting consumer expectations?
For me, the most drastic change since I started to work in HolidayPirates happened after the pandemic.
For instance, on average, air travel has become more expensive and the flight supply in most markets is not back to the level it used to be in terms of connections and frequencies. More customers are looking into alternatives for these reasons, travelling by train, car, or bus within their countries or to neighboring ones.
In general, people have become more price sensitive which makes our value proposition even stronger.
With social media and direct messaging as HolidayPirates’ core commercial channels, what innovations are you exploring to deepen user engagement and deliver even more personalized travel inspiration?
Social channels are driving travel inspiration with engaging short videos (reels, stories, Tiktoks) in high frequency and this is allowing us to grow our customer base organically.
When it comes to our app, we have already launched a “for you” section that is AI powered and gives inspiration on current deals or other kinds of content that is relevant to our users.
Operating across ten international markets, localization is crucial. How do you strike the balance between regional relevance and a unified global brand voice in your marketing efforts?
Our group operates in a matrix structure that perfectly addresses local needs and global ambitions. The day-to-day business is fully executed by each market team covering content and digital marketing as well as partnership management.
Global functions support the market operations and provide guidelines when it comes to strategy, marketing, brand or product. This structure allows us to stay agile on a local level but steer the ship in one direction.
Technology is reshaping how people discover and book travel. How is HolidayPirates leveraging tools like AI, mobile marketing, and video to enhance the customer journey and increase conversions?
For us, video content is a key factor for success. Apart from that, Large Language Models (LLM) seem to value brands that have gained authority in their domains, which is why we are often highlighted when users prompt travel deals.
Other companies in the industry are struggling due to a rather high dependency on SEO traffic, which is impacted by increased LLM usage, but we have a very diversified set of traffic channels where SEO accounts for about only 13%.
Apart from social media, mobile marketing is our other home turf, as mobile traffic (app and web combined) lies around 85% of our total traffic. We therefore constantly work on improving the user experience in a mobile first approach.
As sustainability becomes a defining factor in travel decisions, how is HolidayPirates responding to the demand for more ethical and environmentally responsible travel options in its content and campaigns?
We have seen that sustainability has become more important when travelling, also for our customers. Since the pandemic, it seems like the role play by sustainability has dropped when it comes to decision making.
The overall increase in cost of living seems to have changed that to some extent for the time being. However, we do offer more options for so-called staycations and trips to nearby countries, which are eco-friendlier and more affordable at the same time.
With 60% female representation at the C-level, HolidayPirates is setting a strong example for diversity in tech and travel. What impact does this leadership dynamic have on your marketing strategy and company culture?
This balanced representation enables HolidayPirates to define strong strategies in all areas of the business. It also helps us to provide the engaging product that our 65% female followers and users value. At the end of the day, diverse organizations are able to take better decisions and to meet the needs of a diverse society.
Looking ahead, what are your top strategic priorities for HolidayPirates’ marketing team over the next 12 to 18 months—and what travel and hospitality trends are you keeping a close eye on?
HolidayPirates will remain trailblazers in the travel industry and roll out new direct messaging as well as social channels going forward. One of the trends we have seen growing after the pandemic is experience based travel.
Consumers base their travel decisions increasingly on things they want to experience like specific activities, concerts, sports, and culture. These are strong motivations to travel which we increasingly address.
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