How to Create a Travel Brochure Template: A Complete Guide
How to create a travel brochure remains a popular topic year after year. Brochures are a powerful tool for building a marketing foundation for travel agencies, hotels, guides, and anyone in the tourism industry. A professionally designed travel pamphlet helps visualize a destination and brings the idea of travel to life.
In this article, we'll explain how to create a travel brochure in Google Docs or Google Slides and show you how to significantly simplify the process. A detailed step-by-step guide to building one from scratch and a set of free brochure templates are included.
Plan Your Brochure Content
Before creating a design and planning how many brochures to print, you need to conduct some research. Combining different destinations into a single handout is possible, but it is ultimately useless.
First, you should understand your target audience:
- Families with children want a safe vacation that includes a children's menu and entertainers. Photos of happy kids and bright, warm colors are essential for the design.
- Extreme sports enthusiasts value unique, detailed information on equipment and itineraries. Your brochure will be more effective with dynamic photos, maps, and activity descriptions.
- Business travelers value comfort and efficiency. Proximity to the airport, convenient logistics, conference rooms, and additional amenities work well in this case.
Of course, there are other travel styles, and if you don't want to narrow your focus too much, there are two important rules.
Each brochure should focus on a single purpose.
Brochures with a single and clear offer have a 30-40% higher conversion rate than catalogs. You offer the client a ready-made solution, rather than forcing them to spend time choosing. You can sell a tour, showcase a specific hotel, or an activity. The "One Goal" rule is something worth paying attention to.
Planning content that sells is always about information hierarchy.
Visuals and headline => Description and benefits => Price and contact information.
This is a proven approach for structuring content in your brochure.
Choose the Right Brochure Layout
We recommend using the tri-fold brochure format because it's the industry gold standard. Its six panels allow for logical content organization. The first panel serves as the cover, followed by a step-by-step tour description, contact information, and a clear CTA.
However, other formats can also be effective. For example, a bi-fold brochure is preferred in the premium segment and provides more space for large-format photos. The z-fold format is better suited to include maps and panoramic images. This brochure folds in a zigzag pattern and can be opened into one long strip.
How to Create a Travel Brochure Template from Scratch
By creating a travel brochure template from scratch, you gain complete control over both the visuals and the text. Therefore, we will show you how to create a travel brochure from scratch using Google Docs and Google Slides, and then explain how to make this process much easier.
Creating a Travel Brochure in Google Docs
Google Docs is not a graphics editor, so it does not have a built-in fold tool. This way, to ensure that your text is positioned correctly across all panels, you should use tables.
Setting Up the Page
- Step 1: Create a blank document and go to Page Setup (File => Page Setup).
- Step 2: Select Landscape orientation and set all margins to 0.25 inches (approximately 6 mm). You can also choose a paper size. We recommend Letter (standard for the US) or A4 (standard for European countries).
This setup provides maximum design space, and the page itself should resemble the screenshot shown below.
Creating a Grid
- Step 1: Now you can create a grid for the design, text, and folds. Click Insert => Table => 3x1 (three columns and one row).
- Step 2: Expand the table to fill the entire page. Then, in the upper right corner, open the Table options. Under Quick layouts, select the middle option to center the table on all sides.
- Step 3: In Table Options, find the Cell section and set the Cell padding value to 0.1 or 0.2 inches to create sufficient spacing between text or images and the fold line.
This is how the final layout with the grid will look like. Copy and paste the table to the second sheet to create a double-sided brochure with six panels.
Adding Text and Visuals
Before adding any content, you should know that the right column of the first page is your front panel, the left one is the back panel, and the middle column is the inside panel.
Working with text and adding photos is straightforward:
- To insert a photo from your computer or Google Drive, click Insert => Image => Photo Location.
- To add text, you can copy and paste it from any document (Ctrl+C => Ctrl+V) or click inside a table cell and start typing.
- To center headings in the middle of a panel, select the heading and choose Align => Center Align.
- To fill each panel with color, click on the cell and go back to Table Options => Color => Cell background color.
After customizing the background, return to the same section and remove the Table Border or set it to a desired color. Your final layout without text and images may look like this.
Designing a Travel Brochure in Google Slides
Google Slides is a better choice for designing your travel brochure. It offers more intuitive and user-friendly design customization tools. For example, you can freely move any element around the slide. The absence of row snapping makes the design process faster and easier.
Setting Up a Page for Print
By default, slides are set up for a 16:9 screen ratio, so the first step is to adjust the page settings.
- Step 1: Click File => Page Setup.
- Step 2: Select "Custom" and enter the dimensions of a standard sheet of paper: 11 x 8.5 inches for US Letter size or 8.27 x 11.69 inches for A4 size.
Setting Fold Lines
Next, you need to set the fold lines.
- Step 1: Click View => Guides => Edit Guides.
- Step 2: Click Add new guide twice. Set the first line to 3.66" and the second to 7.33". If you're formatting for an A4 paper, set the first guide to 3.90" (99 mm) and the second to 7.80" (198 mm).
Your layout should look like this. These three vertical lines indicate where to place blocks of text, headings, and images.
Adding Headings, Text, and Images
All further customization of the template is done through the Insert menu.
This section allows you to add text boxes, images, charts, choose a background, and more. Similar to Google Docs, left-clicking on any element opens Format options on the right side of the toolbar. In this panel, you can adjust fonts, text size, and other settings.
Using TheGoodocs Travel Brochure Templates
We've already shown how you can create a travel brochure template from scratch using Google Docs or Google Slides. However, there is a method that most people prefer: using our brochure templates. Each template comes with built-in settings for high-quality printing, so you don't have to design the brochure and add all elements from scratch.
You can get a copy instantly in your Google Drive or download it for further customization in PowerPoint. Just check out our free featured brochures.
Travel Trifold Brochure - perfect for the VIP travel segment.
Customize for Free
Barcelona City Tour Brochure - a customized option for promoting Barcelona tours.
Use Premium Template
Digital Nomad Travel Brochure - ideal for promoting exotic tours.
Customize for Free
Each of these templates is fully editable in Google Slides and PowerPoint.
How to Customize a Travel Brochure Template
Once you have selected a suitable travel brochure template on our website, click Edit in Google Slides or Download in PowerPoint on the template page. Before downloading, you can choose the A4 or US Letter format if both options are available.
You can use up to 5 templates per month for free, or up to 10 templates with registration.
- Step 1: Right-click on any image or logo and select Replace image => Upload from computer to update the visuals in the template. You can also use the Crop tool (located in the top toolbar) to align and crop images.
- Step 2: Click inside a text field to add new content. Change the font and text size using the tools in the top toolbar.
With these simple steps, you can customize every element of the design. No special skills are required; all fold lines are properly aligned, and the templates are editable on any device.
Find more Google Slides brochure templates.
Conclusion + Printing Checklist
Before sending the file to print, review the final checklist:
- Check your contact information and QR code.
- Make sure all images are clear and high quality.
- Proofread the content and check for typos, double spaces, and other errors.
- Ensure that important text is placed safely away from the edges and fold lines.
- Save the template as a PDF to ensure everything stays in place during printing.
You can now try to create your handout from scratch or use the best travel brochure templates from TheGoodocs.
We are a team of creative people who dream of sharing knowledge and making your work and study easier. Our team of professional designers prepares unique free templates. We create handy template descriptions for you to help you choose the most suitable one. On our blog, you'll find step-by-step tutorials on how to use Google Products. And our YouTube channel will show you all the ins and outs of Google products with examples.
