New Tourism Campaigns & Social Media for Every Season

“Love Every Second of Sydney” User Generated Content Winter Campaign

Aiming to build its winter numbers and reach 2020 overnight visitor targets, Destination NSW has just launched a new campaign telling Aussies and Kiwis they’ll ‘Love every second of Sydney’.

The campaign was designed to emit a romantic factor behind Sydney while showcasing the wide range of events running throughout the city during the colder season.

Utilising ‘first time’ initiatives, the campaign includes digital and social media promotion including a first ever eight page fold out in the New Zealand Herald as well as tram wraps in Melbourne, bus sign in Auckland and light projections in Brisbane and Auckland.

Destination NSW Chief Executive Officer, Sandra Chipchase, said the campaign theme captures what research has shown people want in short breaks and weekends away: exciting, vibrant experiences packed into every second. She said the Group was also making an increased effort in combining its events with tourism promoting relevant shows.

This campaign will be the first time consumer generated content will be uploaded onto some of the key outdoor sites in Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland. Social media will play a key role in the campaign with travellers urged to “Capture the Perfect Sydney Second” and share their favourite Sydney memories online, where their photos are displayed in a second by second timeline as well as play a type of ‘pass the parcel’ game on Facebook that will see fans win prizes every now and then.

Source: www.sydney.com, www.destinationnsw.com.au

Visit Florida New Summer Social Media Campaign

Visit Florida which recently announced an increased number of visitors and visitor spending for the first quarter of this year, launched its newest social media-based campaign to increase destination awareness as a summer vacation destination.

The campaign features “Florida’s Three for Free Giveaway” sweepstakes, where participants from the U.S can enter to win a grand prize of three personally selected Florida vacation packages. The five-week campaign, which is expected to garner more than 425 million impressions, kicks off with targeted Facebook and Twitter ad buys. Visit Florida worked closely with the two social media giants to develop a highly-defined target audience that includes families and couples throughout the North and Southeast who are interested in summer drive travel. As a way to continue the campaign’s momentum, house ads on VisitFlorida.com and a dedicated email blast to e-newsletter subscribers will begin in early June.

In the summer of 2011, Visit Florida conducted a highly-successful Facebook-driven campaign that became the subject of white papers from Facebook and Wildfire – the Facebook marketing software provider that produced the applications used in the sweepstakes. A Nielsen study on the “Sunshine Moments” campaign showed a 10-point increase in intent to visit Florida and a significantly improved opinion among the state’s key demographic of 25-34 year olds.

Fresh Marketing Initiatives from Australia, Philippines & Bermuda

Time to Dream in Tourism Australia & Sydney

We loved the fresh New Year’s Eve initiative by Tourism Australia and Sydney, who this year went a step further

The film, titled ‘Project:12 – Time to Dream’ was created overnight and released on Tourism Australia’s YouTube channel and Facebook and Twitter pages in the early hours of New Year’s Day before many other parts of the world reached their own 2012 countdown.

Tourism Australia asked Sydney residents and visitors to record up to 6 seconds of video footage on their smart phones and upload them on the 31st of December, via the freely provided Sydney NYE App. They released this short film capturing the night as it unfolded, following the stories of a few individuals as well as the individual clips of user generated content, uploading them via the Sydney NYE iPhone app, and the official broadcast footage of the fireworks within hours of the midnight celebrations.

Australia passed the 2million mark on their Facebook page shortly before 2012 began, leading to the video being liked and shared over 14,000 times in the first few days, reaching an extended network in the tens of millions.

Source: www.sydneynewyearseve.com

“Feel the Love Month” at Bermuda

The  Bermuda Department of  Tourism  is promoting the destination as the ideal romantic getaway in a new winter marketing campaign in North America.

Sponsored by the Department of Tourism, the island’s  ”Feel the Love Month”  takes place from  January 16 – March 3 offering couples the chance to enjoy the island’s cultural offerings through dedicated daily activities including cruises, champagne and strawberries museum reception, salsa dancing nights and more.

Additionally, travellers can enjoy a free night stay at participating hotels when booking a minimum three-night stay during Feel the Love Month.

Accommodations range from luxury resorts and boutique hotels to beach clubs and historic beach-front properties, and the promotion also provides access to exclusive deals and rates at more than 50 Bermuda retailers, including water sports shops, retail stores, restaurants and more with a special Traveler’s Price Card.

Bermuda’s “Feel the Love Month” events and activities include: Couples’ Golf Tournament; Champagne and Strawberries Afternoon Affair; Love Train City Tour; SalsaMania Latin Night Out Dockyard Glassworks; Shopping in the City; Visitors’ Love Cruise; Feel the Love Fridays and a Love Tales Walking Tour.

More information: www.gotobermuda.com

“It’s more fun in the Philippines”

The Department of Tourism (DOT) just launched a new brand campaign to attract visitors to the country with the line –  ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’.

Focusing on the country’s core strength, the campaign singles out what no other destination can offer – and that is the Filipino people. For example, the Lonely Planet guidebook calls Filipinos ‘among the most easygoing and ebullient people anywhere.’

“Our strategy is simple: while other countries invite you to observe, Filipinos can promise a more heartfelt and interesting experience. Wherever you go, whatever you do in the country, it’s the Filipinos that will complete your vacation and will make your holiday unforgettable,” says the new Tourism Secretary, Ramon Jimenez, Jr.

The Filipinos are already known around the world to be one of the happiest and warmest people on earth. The campaign hopes to enjoin the whole country in creating positive buzz of the tagline.

As the international campaign is underway, the DOT is also developing a national initiative under the line ‘#1FORFUN’ to rally the nation.“The national line is a goal, a constant reminder to ourselves why we can tell travellers it’s more fun here than anywhere else,” says the Secretary, “It needs everyone’s support for it to stay true—we need to make sure people’s experiences in our country are positive, enjoyable, and most of all, fun.”

For the past week, the DOT, through private briefings with traditional media and social media personalities, has been trying to create buzz about the unveiling of its new campaign while it also launched its new website for the campaign, itsmorefuninthephilippines.com.

On Friday morning, the hashtag #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines became the top trending topic worldwide on Twitter. In the Philippines, the campaign also figured prominently on Twitter.

Source: www.tourism.gov.ph

Business Events Offer More to Destinations than Tourism Dollars Alone

Australia’s leading convention bureau, Business Events Sydney (BESydney), has released the second phase of its Beyond Tourism Benefits: Measuring the social legacies of business events research, which quantitatively examines the extensive social, innovation and knowledge benefits of business events.

Lyn Lewis-Smith, Acting Chief Executive Officer of BESydney comments, “Our industry has long struggled to measure the important legacy effects of hosting conferences and conventions. This research is a huge step in the right direction: we believe this is the first quantitative research examining this subject.”

The Beyond Tourism Benefits research, undertaken by the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) on behalf of BESydney, demonstrates that the international norm to evaluate the lucrative business events sector in tourism terms alone overlooks perhaps the most valuable legacies – the many educational, intellectual, trade and investment outcomes from business events.

“If we don’t measure the multiple, long-term benefits, such as the ability to increase professional knowledge, improve local education offerings and career opportunities, disseminate the latest technical practices and forge international networking, research and business collaborations, we are undervaluing  our industry.

“The research highlights that business events offer much more to our destinations, economies and global community than tourism dollars alone: they are a key driver in knowledge economies,” Lewis-Smith concludes.

The key outcome of the research was an innovative framework developed to classify and understand the diverse and valuable benefits outside of the tourism sector. Five broad legacy categories – social, intrinsic, practice, economic and attitudinal – comprise the framework and relate to benefits delivered to delegates, sponsors and exhibitors, professional bodies, the host destination and even the wider community.

The lifeblood of any business event, delegates are the benefactors of a large number of the legacies identified. Over 90% of delegates surveyed believe that congresses have facilitated the dissemination of new knowledge, ideas, techniques, materials and technologies and 85% indicate that they have applied these new insights to their professional practice.

Collaboration is a key outcome from the shared social interactions created at business events – 95% of respondents agreed business events fostered networking that led to the sharing of knowledge and ideas, whilst almost 60% agreed events either acted as a catalyst for research collaboration (58%) or resulted in business relationships (57%).

Professor Roy Green, Dean of the UTS Business School and BESydney Ambassador agrees business events provide essential opportunities for collaboration.

“In a knowledge economy, education and innovation are principal drivers of productivity and prosperity. And innovation is driven by collaboration, not silos. Innovation requires the exchange of ideas, skills and passion. Business events provide opportunities to network and collaborate locally and globally.”

The Beyond Tourism Benefits research also found that legacies extended to sponsors and exhibitors. Those surveyed reported an important economic legacy, with 90% confirming they gained product exposure and awareness, and also obtained leads for further business. Although, not applicable to the whole sample, one respondent indicated that they had benefited from investment worth more than $10 million as a result of exhibiting at a business event.

And at a time when the education and training of the young workforce is so topical, the research revealed that business events equip the destination’s workforce with skills and knowledge and foster global networks and collaborative projects to drive innovation. 82% agreed that the events exposed local delegates to cutting edge research and the world’s best practice and 76% agreed the capacity of the professional sector was enhanced post-event.

From a destination’s perspective, the host city (for this research, Sydney) was shown to also benefit from a wide range of valuable legacies. Sydney’s reputation for driving social change and action was enhanced (52% agree) and the business events increased the attractiveness of the local education sector for delegates from outside of Sydney (60% agree).

Full Report and information here.