The video exemplifies how the best tourism campaigns make the most of digital platforms by combining powerful messages with fun and creative ideas.
Are you curious about new and exciting tourism marketing strategies? Read on to find out more!
Top Marketing Campaigns Issue Exciting Challenges
The Thebe Tourism Group’s #CTRainDanceChallenge taps into a new trend. Tourism marketing is increasingly turning to exciting online challenges to engage visitors, securing sustained interest through travel incentives. For instance, the 2016 ‘Iceland Academy’ campaign challenged tourists to an interactive learning experience. Viewers collected badges at the end of video ‘courses’ on Icelandic life, and had the chance to win a trip once all four badges were collected.
Challenges and interactive campaigns like these help tourism bureaus maximise social media platforms. Among the most popular Facebook strategies, tourist challenges create social buzz, gaining exponential exposure as participants share the message with their friends and loved ones.
Professionals with Tourism Business Training Aim for Viral Success
Sometimes, these marketing campaigns go viral. While Internet success might seem unpredictable, certain strategies help marketers increase their chances. Online personalities, especially YouTube ‘influencers,’ provide an important shortcut. Professionals with tourism business training can connect with these influential personalities by sponsoring videos or offering trips or freebies in exchange for exposure. With a devoted following that trusts their taste and judgement, online stars provide highly-circulated content on the advertised destination.
A successful career in tourism means attracting visitors with a clear and shareable message. For example, humour is a common feature of viral tourism marketing content. In fact, a recent Tourism Ireland campaign overlaid a picture of a couple on a cold beach with a comforting message: “your beach bod will look great under all those layers”. With an element of self-parody, campaigns like this one draw in audiences and quickly gain exposure online.
Technology Enables Remote Interaction Between Tourists and Locals
Maximizing new technology, industry leaders are helping potential visitors interact with locals in real time. At a train station in Zurich, marketers set up a screen with live video of a man in Graubünden, a rural Swiss canton. From his laptop, the man stopped passersby in the Swiss capital, encouraging them to come visit him—even printing off train tickets distributed below the screen. The campaign video shows the man persuading potential travellers, and later welcoming them for lunch!
Campaigns like this one establish a personal connection, welcoming tourists before they even start travelling. Another Graubünden Tourism campaign set up a phone in the town square of Tschlin, a small village of only 166 people. Advertisers promised that the town was so quiet its inhabitants could hear the phone, and answer it before the ringing stopped. All callers not greeted by a local would win a prize. In just six days, the phone received 30,000 video calls and the village-phone promotion went viral with 1.5 million views. Combining a challenge, viral appeal, and interaction with locals, this campaign was applauded around the world.
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