Claire Cadogan, from Fáilte Ireland, joined us for a keynote on how they have accelerated domestic tourism in Ireland.
Claire Cadogan, from Fáilte Ireland, joined us for a keynote on how they have accelerated domestic tourism in Ireland.
She started by introducing us to Fáilte Ireland's objective, which is to drive domestic visitor demand, trips and industry support via digital marketing.
Claire Cadogan, from Fáilte Ireland, joined us for a keynote on how they have accelerated domestic tourism in Ireland.
She started by introducing us to Fáilte Ireland's objective, which is to drive domestic visitor demand, trips and industry support via digital marketing.
Claire Cadogan, from Fáilte Ireland, joined us for a keynote on how they have accelerated domestic tourism in Ireland.
She started by introducing us to Fáilte Ireland's objective, which is to drive domestic visitor demand, trips and industry support via digital marketing. Claire then explained that Irish people have looked at travelling to distant places for many years, but highlighted that Ireland is a beautiful country in which the weather isn't that bad. Thus, their job is to help people see that!
Fáilte Ireland has managed to increase domestic tips by 24% between 2015 and 2019, with a 23% increase in short breaks, which is their strategic focus. In addition, she mentioned that 81% of domestic tourists are satisfied or very satisfied with their trip or holiday. Nonetheless, there were still stragglers, in which they saw the perfect opportunity when the pandemic hit.
Claire explained that pre-pandemic, they had a clear vision for digital, with their objective being to be a trusted and 'go to' source of the best things to see and do in Ireland. They wanted to achieve this through: visitor first approach, data led insights, inspiration and destination messaging via social channels, and increasing direct referrals to industry.
During the pandemic, the added a new set of initiatives to the plan, and realised the importance to continue to drive domestic tourism and to step-change their support for trade. The projects they focused on were: the relaunch of their Digital Ecosystem, the rollout of their Love Local campaign, the launch of their new Keep Discovering communications platform, and their B2B support.
Claire explained that the design work had started pre-pandemic, although the speed of implementation hyphened in 2020. They delivered a brand new, consolidated and feature-proof ecosystem, with a mobile-first approach due to over 70% of visitors accessing it through these devices. She also explained that to ensure their work kept moving forward, they created a 360º reporting system which integrates their social channels and Google Analytics.
The tangible product of this project was their new website, www.discoverireland.ie, with which visitors had a memorable and incredible short break, as the content provides the best things to do and places to see all over Ireland. Their challenge rested upon the locals, for whom deeper and more hidden offers had to be proposed to incentivise their travel.
This campaign, as Claire explained, was born before Black Friday 2020. After a number of lockdowns, Covid numbers were increasing again and the tourism had already been greatly impacted. They recognised that many tourism businesses had a much broader offering, so they used their social media marketing to pull together business offerings under different categories of products, so the businesses could inform people about what they offer at different times of the year.
Due to its success, they decided to create a second version to be released in Easter to adapt the offerings to the season of the year and people's needs.
Their platform was launched in May 2021, instead of February 2020, but it was postponed due to the pandemic. This new brand platform was born out of a blend of consumer insights and brand truth.
As Claire explained, through this platform they invite people to seek out meaning with abandon, to endlessly delve into every kind of discovery on offer. They divide their work to deliver into two broad parts of the funnel. The work from Brand Ireland, as well as the regional work developed, has the purpose of inspiring and motivating travellers to explore the country. She explained what this work does is to get people 'dreaming' of visiting the destination during the pre-booking phase, for which they also used ambassadors and influencers during the campaign to raise Ireland's visibility.
The next phase of the campaign, as Claire mentioned, was launched in September, and it was a conversion-focused campaign to encourage people to book 'now'. They did this by focusing on counties and destinations and showing the offerings each of them had, as well as the spectacular landscapes found in them. The campaign was geo-targeted through YouTube, Instagram, Sky Adsmart and Facebook.
They also launched the Keep Discovering Planner, a tool which through social posts, turned what they were interest in into personalised emails with relevant information about discovering Ireland.
Lastly, but not less important, Claire gave us an overview of what they did for the industry. She explained they created an a series of toolkits for the industry's digital activation, which is reviewed and updated from time to time.
The whole team at Fáilte Ireland, in close collaboration between the different departments, developed their B2B Support Hub, which gathers support regarding a range of different topics on which the industry might need guidance on. The provided webinars and training toolkits for a multitude of areas, but particularly in marketing and sales to leverage digital presence.
Claire explained that they spread the word about this initiative through social media and email targeting by means of promoting it, but also of raising awareness about it, as then it would help many more businesses.
1. Adapting our strategy and developed campaigns to external situations and the needs of the travellers and the industry is essential.
2. When developing a website, it is fundamental to understand the devices users access it from to adapt its usability.
3. Helping the industry overcome hardships is key for its recovery.
Claire heads up the digital marketing division at Fáilte Ireland (The National Tourism Development Authority), the State Agency responsible for guiding and supporting the sustainable development of tourism in Ireland.
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