Sharing a short essay that arrived in my inbox today, courtesy of Dense Discovery β a newsletter about design, tech, sustainability and urbanism curated by Kai Brach, based in Melbourne, Australia.
Do we travel for transformation or validation?
It's always interesting to hear what thought leaders "outside" the travel industry have to say about the state of tourism, so I'm sharing Kai's article with his permission.
There's a few good points in this piece, including how touristic travel (e.g. mass tourism) can import more culture to a destination than it exports. I also agree that seeking validation on social media is drowning out good quality travel content.
There's some truth to Kai's point about escapism. Consider this: the biggest competitor to a travel agent is the electronics shop, where consumers can instead buy a new 50" flatscreen TV. In this scenario, which "escapism" is worse? Buying a new TV or booking a trip on a cruise ship? π
However, I don't believe that all trave...
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Hi there. I am Caroline (Founder of Map Your City), we are regularly publishing some articles and interviews around destination marketing - since our platform empowers destination marketers.
π We would be delighted to hear about some memorable success story or campaign from your experience that highlights the power of effective destination marketing?
We just had a really successful co-marketing campaign with the Ireland tourism board this last fall. We readied a lot of content in preparation for an "Ireland Week" from our assets and some from the tourism board to push out through all of our channels and boost with more budget than our norm. But the key was having one of our UnFluencers (our partner influencers who we're differentiating for their dedication to our slow travel style) on the ground creating realtime, beautiful content to play off the scheduled content. Results were much better than expected and far beyond what the budget would normally produce.
Great example Richard! Love this. So would you say it was the co-marketing/ influencer co-lab that made it work much better or was it the mix of scheduled and realtime content especially? And did you use social media live video streams?
The βsecret sauceβ was that all of the ingredients felt important. We had a tourism board with a significant following supporting and amplifying, mixed with real time relevance.
We didnβt use live, but itβs certainly a thought for next time!
Great to hear that. Certainly understand the massive reach partners like that can bring. Do you mind me asking how much this co-lab improved conversion for you compared to other campaigns on similar budget?
Conversion suffered a tad, because the goal was reach for the campaign, as I expect it always would be on those collaborations. Targeted reach is the desire, but definitely wanting to cast a wider net.
Thanks so much for those insights Richard.
π Feel free to still join in the discussion or add your success story or campaign - we love to hear.