The role of technology and social media in the Travel and Tourism industry has been growing over the years, gaining influence over how travel organisations and destinations develop their services and products and how they promote them to their intended market.
The role of technology and social media in the Travel and Tourism industry has been growing over the years, gaining influence over how travel organisations and destinations develop their services and products and how they promote them to their intended market.
Right now, the biggest talk is about digitalisation and how we can enhance the visitor experience - and it has become even more relevant since the beginning of the pandemic. As the world operates remotely, the use of digital and its efficiency in communicating with each other has become essential. This explains, once again, the need for exploration and innovation across the digital and technological spectrum to keep up with the demands of an ever-changing world.
But how is this applicable to travel and tourism? Conveying a message effectively has to be done through the right platforms and using the right tools: knowing what your consumers want and where they are can make a big change.
According to Google, over 50% of travellers plan their trips online and 70% research on their smartphones. Smartphones influence the entire travel journey, from the first stages of inspiration through booking and in-destination experience to sharing.
The reason for this is because using the internet, especially on mobile, makes travel research much more efficient and accessible. People can find all the information they need to plan their perfect trip, without the need to constantly contacting travel agents.
Bookings are easier as well; there’s a bigger variety of booking platforms and deals within the traveller’s desired budget. Besides, printing is no longer necessary, which makes it even more accessible (and sustainable). Now more than ever, the travel experience is more personalised, unique and digital; people feel more in control of their travel decisions but also feel more responsible for their actions.
It comes without saying that when we talk about smartphones, we are referring to mobile apps, including social media apps. At this point, there’s no doubt of how powerful social media is in peoples’ lives, travellers included. Destinations know that having a good social media presence can greatly impact the traveller’s decisions to visit a destination. That’s why purpose-driven social media campaigns are so important: they allow DMOs to make travellers feel more connected with the destination and improve the chances of being chosen for their future trips. Making a purpose-driven campaign means showing the brand’s values through storytelling in an engaging way, this can include user-generated content (UGC).
A recent study found that UGC is perceived as similar to word-of-mouth recommendations and offers more authentic, credible and entertaining information than organisation generated content.
A perfect example of this is from the Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism Board’s Story Exchange initiative, which consists of a canvas where travellers or even locals can share their travel stories and upload their photos, the canvas then provides covers for the stories transforming them into a digital book. Newfoundland and Labrador found a way to use storytelling and UGC and still reflect their brand by maintaining the digital book’s appearance consistent with the brand and overall visual content.
For destinations to produce marketing campaigns that have an impact, there are four important elements to take into consideration – the type of content, the channel, the audience and the message. These elements are all greatly interconnected; without knowing the audience, the message may not be personalised enough to captivate them; developing a certain content, it is necessary to establish the most adequate channel for a better experience. These elements also depend on the stage of the visitor cycle. For example, during the awareness and inspiration stages, using media as the main channel is the best to help potential visitors develop an interest in a destination.
In terms of content, destinations should focus on developing what we call ‘Hero Content’.
Hero content refers to the type of content that is aimed to be a game-changer for your destination marketing, engaging and entertaining a larger audience. Destinations are investing a significant amount of their annual marketing budgets into producing hero content in the form of a video or working with influencers, carefully crafting the destination story. Hero content may also revolve around large events that provide a great opportunity to stimulate buzz about the destination and its tourism offering.
Hero content can help to attract visitors, boosting the destination's overall brand, image and perception, bringing consumers to actively consider the destination for their next trip or holiday.
To produce the right hero content, destinations are strategically planning to ensure they are delivering a piece of content that people want to see, share on their social media and that can lead to buzz online, reaching a larger audience through just one piece of content. In addition to the hero content, destinations will also release ancillary content to create pre-buzz in the lead up to the release of the hero content and through smart media investments, potential visitors can be targeted with further content after having watched and engaged with the hero content.
Although there is no recipe for going viral, it is the hero content that has lots of potential to have a higher impact and reach a wider audience than other types of content. Hero content needs significant investments, both time and money, to work on the original idea and strategically craft, produce and seed the content. Destinations tend to produce hero content less frequently, focusing on investing in one or two hero content pieces a year, if not less.
Last year, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) announced the launch of a new platform called 'SingapoReimagine'. This is an initiative for travellers to reimagine travel for Singapore, to incentivise conversation and sharing of ideas between local tourism communities and create a vehicle for global partners to communicate on how global travel will be reshaped. The platform will start with “Reimagine Travel - Global Conversations”, which is a series of forums around the world where global partners are invited to share knowledge and exchange ideas.
This initiative pairs well with 'SingapoRediscovers', the $34 million domestic travel campaign, launched last year, that encourages locals to rediscover their own country through new experiences. As part of this campaign, the tourism board released the video campaign ‘Dance to a New Beat’ that features dancers from the Singapore Dance Theatre performing at prominent landmarks across the country including the ArtScience Museum, Gardens by the Bay and Jewel Changi Airport, accompanied by background music provided by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The video campaign used the hashtags #SingapoReimagine, #PassionMadePossible, and #SGCultureAnywhere, which increased engagement and currently has four million views and 11k likes.
Three months earlier, STB also released “Singapore Town (2020 Rendition)”, a video part of the #PassionMadePossible branding that shows locals recreating tourist experiences at home accompanied by a music cover of the 60's classic song 'Singapore Town' performed by the local singer-songwriter, Charlie Lim. The creativity shown in the video reflects what is considered hero content.
The embodiment of buzz-creating content is Tourism New Zealand’s recent campaign “Traveling Under the Social Influence”. The campaign consists of a series of videos encouraging people to avoid visiting popular places because of their ‘instagrammability’ and start exploring new places and getting involved in different experiences. The video features the comedian Thomas Sainsbury, who plays a lone ranger in the “social observation squad” going after travellers and scolding them for continuously choosing mainstream locations and photo poses such as holding hands in the lavender field, sitting contemplating on a rock and standing open arms by the cliff.
This campaign follows the launch in May 2020 of its 'Do Something New' campaign to boost domestic tourism while borders remained closed to international visitors. The videos are highly entertaining and created great engagement.
More recently, Tourism New Zealand released the ‘Stop Dreaming about New Zealand and Go’ campaign videos aimed to promote tourism to Australian visitors. This came after the April announcement of plans for a ‘Trans-Tasman bubble’ between the two countries, which means people from both countries can travel without having to quarantine.
The videos feature an Australian who dreams about New Zealand and proceeds to visit various attractions including National Parks and doing different activities like cycling through vineyards, jet boating, enjoying crayfish at a local restaurant, and stargazing in a hot tub next to a gigantic Kiwi. With its comedic sense, the videos performed very well, gaining between 17 and 281 thousand views.
According to Tourism New Zealand’s research, “77% of Australians who are actively considering travelling to New Zealand will come to holiday and around 60% of Australians actively are considering a holiday indicated they are willing to come to New Zealand within six months of borders reopening”. The ‘Trans-Tasman bubble’ represents a great opportunity to boost tourism for both countries, while their borders are still closed for international travel.
In the up to the 2018 Super Bowl, a teaser for a new film, Dundee: The Son Of A Legend Returns Home, captivated millions around the world on social media and racked up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube clips. The film teasers created a buzz on whether a new Dundee film was in the works and even prompted the hashtag #BringBackDundee to go viral.
However, the film teasers were part of a Tourism Australia ad that featured an all-star cast of Australian celebrities. The full "trailer" was aired to an estimated audience of 11 million people during the 2018 Super Bowl.
Overall the campaign achieved a social media reach of about 890 million, with 80% of those people based in the US, on top of the 100 million Americans who saw the climax of the campaign, an ad during the halftime break at the Super Bowl. The popularity of the idea generated more than 12,000 media articles, worth an estimated $74 million. It was also 2018's most searched Super Bowl campaign, according to Google statistics.
In October 2018, Australia launched a follow-up video, featuring Luke Hemsworth and billed the Original Hemsworth. The video is called Dundee Movie: Visit The Set
Destination British Columbia took a unique approach to this destination marketing video. '13 Minutes of Wild Ambience' is an “ASMR” video that shows the amazing landscapes of the country using solely the sound of nature as background. The tourist board incentivises viewers to “take a deep breath and enjoy the calming power of BC’s nature with this collection of moments in nature from across the province”.
Highly immersive videos are still a growing trend on YouTube because of their effect on the viewers. The sound effects on these videos are often considered relaxing, providing a “sedative sensation” to the listeners.
Talking about ASMR, it comes without saying that what Visit Greenland produced recently is one of the most unique and attention-catching pieces of content we have seen recently.
In February 2019, Visit Faroe Islands launched the 'Closed for Maintenance, Open For Voluntourism' campaign to promote the closing of the Faroe Islands for two days, 26th and 27th April, to conduct the maintenance and preservation of fourteen tourist sites. The board invited 100 volunteers to help alongside locals and offered accommodation, food and transport to the participants during these days.
The work included maintenance of walking trails, viewpoints and fences to preserve the country's nature.
Visit Faroe effectively managed to create a campaign that shows its commitment to promoting sustainable tourism and maintaining environmental responsibility while providing an authentic experience to these tourist volunteers.
The campaign was a huge success and went viral, receiving applications from 3,528 people across 25 countries. The story gained traction in multiple new stations around the globe, appeared in 511 news articles and received over three billion online readerships, as well as thirty-four million social media actions. All this with a £0 media budget.
The initiative had such a positive impact on the country's environment that in 2020 Faroe Islands planned to repeat its success. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign was postponed to September 2021. The plan is to close the fourteen tourist sites again on the 23rd and 24th of September 2021 and have 100 randomly chosen volunteers from 30 countries coming to the Faroe Islands. Those who were not selected will have the opportunity to part in the initiative again in 2022.
Unique campaign concept and delivery
Promoting sustainable tourism and nature preservation
Authentic experience for the volunteer tourists
Bringing together tourists and locals on a more significant cause
Global media appearance with a zero media budge
As demonstrated through the examples, hero content is a type of content that not only can attract a big audience, it can also help establish the destination’s brand, which is important if DMOs want visitors to connect with them.
Like our CEO, Nick Hall said in 'The Principles of Destination Branding’
“Destination branding is not about the logo or the graphical representation of the destination, it’s not about giving a name or a colour to a product or a physical place. It is the sum of multiple elements all converging into a common idea or a concept which we call a brand. Destination branding is driven by three main factors, which represent the fundamentals of a destination brand – reputation, identity and perception. Reputation is the sum of the beliefs or opinions about a destination, it needs to be built, protected, maintained, and changed if needed through time. Identity has to be driven by authenticity, you need selling points of the destination, consistency, and a strong personality. Perception is mostly made of immaterial experiences and it’s subjective in the mind of the consumers.”
Branding strategy and destination marketing strategy goes hand in hand and it’s important to develop one before the other. Branding improves recognition which leads to trust. One of the ways that destinations can increase their brand awareness is through social media, specifically on the three most popular platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Despite Facebook having more users (3 billion users as of 2021), Instagram is certainly the most popular for travel. According to Hootsuite, 81% of people use Instagram to research products and services and 50% of people have visited a website to purchase after seeing a product or service on Instagram.
An example of a great destination brand that is always evolving yet never lacking consistency is Estonia. #EstonianWay is truly consistent and reflects the link with the nature of the destination. Visit Estonia uses this branding to share various stories that showcase what the destinations have to offer under different segments such as ‘Forest and Nature’, ‘Sports and Adventure’, ‘Food and Drink’, ‘Relaxing and Sauna’, ‘City and Culture’, ‘Events and Happenings’, and ‘Christmas and Winter’.
The most interesting aspect about these branded stories is that they all feature prominent faces of Estonia and other countries, including travel bloggers, journalists, celebrity chefs and TV hosts, athletes, and YouTubers that were invited by the tourism board to explore the life and mores of the Estonian people. Although these experiences are with famous people, it still manages to display authenticity.
An interesting fact about Instagram is that two-thirds of 18 to 34-year-olds admit that the ‘Instagrammability’ of a location (how good the photos of the destination look) is the single most important factor when booking a holiday. This factor is what creates user-generated content, this type of content is highly useful in destination marketing because it promotes authenticity, which is a trend that has been increasingly growing in travel. People want to make sure they can trust the brand and the destination before travelling and this should happen in the first stages of the visitor cycle. User-generated content (UGC) is 5x more likely to convert customers and 50% more trusted among millennials than other types of advertising, this type of content allows destinations to project an authentic picture of the brand based on genuine storytelling from the visitors themselves.
A great example of destination marketing using UGC is the campaign by Montreal Tourism Board; #MTLmoments invites locals to share their experiences and favourite moments under the hashtag #MTLmoments. Just on Instagram, the hashtag has 2.5 million posts which shows how popular and effective the campaign is and how using social media storytelling is one of the best ways to promote a destination.
Promoting authentic travel experience through user-generated content
Creative campaign
Storytelling made of travellers' emotions
Many tourist boards started using storytelling in their marketing campaigns as a way to empathise with travellers during the pandemic. Visual storytelling has a bigger impact than any other type because it allows people to really see the emotions and feel closer to a potential authentic experience, so the use of it in video marketing allows destinations to not only reach a wider audience but also to create easily shareable content. Tourists boards like Visit Portugal, Switzerland Tourism, Faroe Islands and New Zealand understood the power of storytelling. Our Best Practices’ Storytelling article dives deeper into these destinations’ content, but here we have a new one by Visit Azores.
#SafeByNature by Visit Azores showcases what the destination has to offer, as it takes advantage of the excellent biogeographic conditions to provide wonderful nature-based experiences. The majority of Azores’ offers are outdoor and adventure-based experiences like bike tours, bird watching, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, scuba diving and geo-tourism. The video also promotes the fact that Azores was awarded the European Safest Destination 2020 by European Best Destinations.
The growing interest in exploring the natural environment is one of the travel trends for 2021 - people being locked inside of their homes for almost more than a year feel the need to reconnect with nature. Considering this, the Visit Azores’ video comes in perfect timing as it will help spark interest in travellers that are already interested in this type of experience.
Visual display of nature imagery to attract adventure travellers
Branding adherent to current travel trends
#SafeByNature - shareable video content
Videos have become easier and more cost-effective to produce; they’ve also risen in popularity among consumers. The demand for video content is increasing, with 54% of consumers requesting more video content from brands or businesses they follow, especially through social media where it’s most consumed. In 2019, 60.6% of all internet traffic was streaming video. By 2022, 82% of all internet traffic is expected to be video content. Furthermore, companies that use video marketing see 157% more organic traffic than those that don’t and 54% more brand recognition on average. More than just bringing in traffic, video helps convert those visitors into customers. Home pages with videos see 86% more conversions. Landing pages see 80% more.
So why is video marketing the “New King of Content”?
Video allows the customer to immerse themselves in a destination or attraction, without leaving their chair. This gives destinations unprecedented access to show potential visitors what they can see and do during their trip. It doesn’t need to be a large production either- most phones come equipped with near-professional quality cameras and with a large selection of free video editing tools, producing a video doesn’t have to be expensive.
Today, 96% of online video consumption is on mobile. Despite it breaking almost every single rule of traditional video, the ergonomics of how we hold our phones has meant that vertical is now the more convenient option for the user. In fact, research has shown that people hold their phone vertically 94% of the time.
Vertical videos allow people to focus on what really matters: your brand. As the video is full screen, there is no other content drawing their attention away, no comment section to pique their curiosity, just your video.
But more importantly, vertical video matters now more than ever because Stories is currently on track to overtake the News Feed on both Facebook and Instagram in terms of growth and user engagement. Meanwhile, Instagram is preparing to push IGTV’s external campaign, whilst also testing a ‘tap through’ model for its Explore Tab – perhaps the first step in a complete transition towards a tap over scroll feed model.
Reels are the latest video feature that allows users to create 15-second videos with audio, AR effects and other creative tools, and these can be recorded in a series of clips, all at once or can be uploaded from the phone gallery. Public accounts like the ones from tourist boards and other brands and organisations will have their Reels appearing on the Explore page where they can reach a bigger audience.
On the other hand, its counterpart TikTok has 689 million monthly active users worldwide, showed a 5.5x growth in the number of US adult users in less than 18 months, and has been downloaded 2 billion times on the App Store and Google Play being available in 155 countries and 75 languages.
TikTok has a wider Gen Z audience compared to Instagram, so if companies are looking to reach Millennials instead of Gen Z, then Reels are the place to go. Another difference is in its paid advertising and e-commerce, while Instagram doesn’t roll paid ads on Reels, brands can work with influencers to create branded content.
Reels can be very beneficial for travel brands and destinations and the best way to use them is by sharing engaging content that includes beautiful scenery and focuses on either inspiring or educational content with short captions and catchy songs. The use of branded hashtags is equally important on Reels as much it is on feed posts and Stories.
Switzerland Tourism is one of the tourism boards that show how well Reels work. With 674k followers, their Reels get an average of 100k views. Fjord Norway is another destination account that creates amazing Reels content.
Currently, there are more than 171 million virtual reality active users in the world. Each year, there’s an increased demand for AR and VR devices, it’s predicted that 70% of companies will be experimenting with immersive technologies and 25% will have deployed to production.
The latest statistics show that the global market size of AR and VR was forecasted to hit $18.8 billion in 2020. Between 2020 and 2021, the growth of the VR market almost doubled, going from just over $40 billion to almost $80 billion. Meanwhile, the AR market saw a much bigger growth, going from $50 billion to almost $140 billion.
Virtual reality continues to march into the mainstream and one of the main benefits of applying VR systems is that it allows travellers to sample a destination beforehand. With the immersive experiences that are available, travel brands can offer customers an opportunity to see new sights or enjoy exotic adventures without leaving the comfort of their own space. Through Google Cardboard and various VR Gear now becoming available widely on the market, virtual reality content is now more accessible than ever for consumers.
Below are a handful of our favourite virtual tourism campaigns across the world.
The use of immersive content such as virtual reality augmented reality and 360-degree videos are highly beneficial for destinations, especially during these times when travel is limited. The ability to still connect with travellers remotely and have them plan future trips despite the uncertainty creates a competitive advantage and is something destinations should leverage on.
Despite the perception of appearing like a substitute for an authentic in-person experience, immersive travel content is just a way to support tourism marketing strategies while helping the industry recover from the pandemic and be ready to receive visitors.
Over the years, technology and digitalisation of products and services has become a fundamental drivers of innovation in travel and tourism. It’s a way for DMOs to gain competitive advantage, especially embracing new emerging trends.
One of the most interesting emerging trends that help destinations connect with travellers, during the pandemic, are immersive content with 360-degree videos, virtual reality and augmented reality. The increased popularity and demand proves how essential it is for tourism to integrate and make the most out of technology advancements.
Successful travel campaigns now require producing successful social media and video content. As the use of these two elements have been increasing so has their influence.
It was proven over and over again, through these examples, that just making any type of content isn’t enough. DMOs need to create hero content, something that captures the attention of their audience in a personalised and authentic way and using storytelling along with beautiful imagery and maybe a hint of comedy is certainly a great way to reach people.
The role of technology and social media in the Travel and Tourism industry has been growing over the years, gaining influence over how travel organisations and destinations develop their services and products and how they promote them to their intended market.
Right now, the biggest talk is about digitalisation and how we can enhance the visitor experience - and it has become even more relevant since the beginning of the pandemic. As the world operates remotely, the use of digital and its efficiency in communicating with each other has become essential. This explains, once again, the need for exploration and innovation across the digital and technological spectrum to keep up with the demands of an ever-changing world.
But how is this applicable to travel and tourism? Conveying a message effectively has to be done through the right platforms and using the right tools: knowing what your consumers want and where they are can make a big change.
According to Google, over 50% of travellers plan their trips online and 70% research on their smartphones. Smartphones influence the entire travel journey, from the first stages of inspiration through booking and in-destination experience to sharing.
The reason for this is because using the internet, especially on mobile, makes travel research much more efficient and accessible. People can find all the information they need to plan their perfect trip, without the need to constantly contacting travel agents.
Bookings are easier as well; there’s a bigger variety of booking platforms and deals within the traveller’s desired budget. Besides, printing is no longer necessary, which makes it even more accessible (and sustainable). Now more than ever, the travel experience is more personalised, unique and digital; people feel more in control of their travel decisions but also feel more responsible for their actions.
It comes without saying that when we talk about smartphones, we are referring to mobile apps, including social media apps. At this point, there’s no doubt of how powerful social media is in peoples’ lives, travellers included. Destinations know that having a good social media presence can greatly impact the traveller’s decisions to visit a destination. That’s why purpose-driven social media campaigns are so important: they allow DMOs to make travellers feel more connected with the destination and improve the chances of being chosen for their future trips. Making a purpose-driven campaign means showing the brand’s values through storytelling in an engaging way, this can include user-generated content (UGC).
A recent study found that UGC is perceived as similar to word-of-mouth recommendations and offers more authentic, credible and entertaining information than organisation generated content.
A perfect example of this is from the Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism Board’s Story Exchange initiative, which consists of a canvas where travellers or even locals can share their travel stories and upload their photos, the canvas then provides covers for the stories transforming them into a digital book. Newfoundland and Labrador found a way to use storytelling and UGC and still reflect their brand by maintaining the digital book’s appearance consistent with the brand and overall visual content.
For destinations to produce marketing campaigns that have an impact, there are four important elements to take into consideration – the type of content, the channel, the audience and the message. These elements are all greatly interconnected; without knowing the audience, the message may not be personalised enough to captivate them; developing a certain content, it is necessary to establish the most adequate channel for a better experience. These elements also depend on the stage of the visitor cycle. For example, during the awareness and inspiration stages, using media as the main channel is the best to help potential visitors develop an interest in a destination.
In terms of content, destinations should focus on developing what we call ‘Hero Content’.
Hero content refers to the type of content that is aimed to be a game-changer for your destination marketing, engaging and entertaining a larger audience. Destinations are investing a significant amount of their annual marketing budgets into producing hero content in the form of a video or working with influencers, carefully crafting the destination story. Hero content may also revolve around large events that provide a great opportunity to stimulate buzz about the destination and its tourism offering.
Hero content can help to attract visitors, boosting the destination's overall brand, image and perception, bringing consumers to actively consider the destination for their next trip or holiday.
To produce the right hero content, destinations are strategically planning to ensure they are delivering a piece of content that people want to see, share on their social media and that can lead to buzz online, reaching a larger audience through just one piece of content. In addition to the hero content, destinations will also release ancillary content to create pre-buzz in the lead up to the release of the hero content and through smart media investments, potential visitors can be targeted with further content after having watched and engaged with the hero content.
Although there is no recipe for going viral, it is the hero content that has lots of potential to have a higher impact and reach a wider audience than other types of content. Hero content needs significant investments, both time and money, to work on the original idea and strategically craft, produce and seed the content. Destinations tend to produce hero content less frequently, focusing on investing in one or two hero content pieces a year, if not less.
Last year, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) announced the launch of a new platform called 'SingapoReimagine'. This is an initiative for travellers to reimagine travel for Singapore, to incentivise conversation and sharing of ideas between local tourism communities and create a vehicle for global partners to communicate on how global travel will be reshaped. The platform will start with “Reimagine Travel - Global Conversations”, which is a series of forums around the world where global partners are invited to share knowledge and exchange ideas.
This initiative pairs well with 'SingapoRediscovers', the $34 million domestic travel campaign, launched last year, that encourages locals to rediscover their own country through new experiences. As part of this campaign, the tourism board released the video campaign ‘Dance to a New Beat’ that features dancers from the Singapore Dance Theatre performing at prominent landmarks across the country including the ArtScience Museum, Gardens by the Bay and Jewel Changi Airport, accompanied by background music provided by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The video campaign used the hashtags #SingapoReimagine, #PassionMadePossible, and #SGCultureAnywhere, which increased engagement and currently has four million views and 11k likes.
Three months earlier, STB also released “Singapore Town (2020 Rendition)”, a video part of the #PassionMadePossible branding that shows locals recreating tourist experiences at home accompanied by a music cover of the 60's classic song 'Singapore Town' performed by the local singer-songwriter, Charlie Lim. The creativity shown in the video reflects what is considered hero content.
The embodiment of buzz-creating content is Tourism New Zealand’s recent campaign “Traveling Under the Social Influence”. The campaign consists of a series of videos encouraging people to avoid visiting popular places because of their ‘instagrammability’ and start exploring new places and getting involved in different experiences. The video features the comedian Thomas Sainsbury, who plays a lone ranger in the “social observation squad” going after travellers and scolding them for continuously choosing mainstream locations and photo poses such as holding hands in the lavender field, sitting contemplating on a rock and standing open arms by the cliff.
This campaign follows the launch in May 2020 of its 'Do Something New' campaign to boost domestic tourism while borders remained closed to international visitors. The videos are highly entertaining and created great engagement.
More recently, Tourism New Zealand released the ‘Stop Dreaming about New Zealand and Go’ campaign videos aimed to promote tourism to Australian visitors. This came after the April announcement of plans for a ‘Trans-Tasman bubble’ between the two countries, which means people from both countries can travel without having to quarantine.
The videos feature an Australian who dreams about New Zealand and proceeds to visit various attractions including National Parks and doing different activities like cycling through vineyards, jet boating, enjoying crayfish at a local restaurant, and stargazing in a hot tub next to a gigantic Kiwi. With its comedic sense, the videos performed very well, gaining between 17 and 281 thousand views.
According to Tourism New Zealand’s research, “77% of Australians who are actively considering travelling to New Zealand will come to holiday and around 60% of Australians actively are considering a holiday indicated they are willing to come to New Zealand within six months of borders reopening”. The ‘Trans-Tasman bubble’ represents a great opportunity to boost tourism for both countries, while their borders are still closed for international travel.
In the up to the 2018 Super Bowl, a teaser for a new film, Dundee: The Son Of A Legend Returns Home, captivated millions around the world on social media and racked up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube clips. The film teasers created a buzz on whether a new Dundee film was in the works and even prompted the hashtag #BringBackDundee to go viral.
However, the film teasers were part of a Tourism Australia ad that featured an all-star cast of Australian celebrities. The full "trailer" was aired to an estimated audience of 11 million people during the 2018 Super Bowl.
Overall the campaign achieved a social media reach of about 890 million, with 80% of those people based in the US, on top of the 100 million Americans who saw the climax of the campaign, an ad during the halftime break at the Super Bowl. The popularity of the idea generated more than 12,000 media articles, worth an estimated $74 million. It was also 2018's most searched Super Bowl campaign, according to Google statistics.
In October 2018, Australia launched a follow-up video, featuring Luke Hemsworth and billed the Original Hemsworth. The video is called Dundee Movie: Visit The Set
Destination British Columbia took a unique approach to this destination marketing video. '13 Minutes of Wild Ambience' is an “ASMR” video that shows the amazing landscapes of the country using solely the sound of nature as background. The tourist board incentivises viewers to “take a deep breath and enjoy the calming power of BC’s nature with this collection of moments in nature from across the province”.
Highly immersive videos are still a growing trend on YouTube because of their effect on the viewers. The sound effects on these videos are often considered relaxing, providing a “sedative sensation” to the listeners.
Talking about ASMR, it comes without saying that what Visit Greenland produced recently is one of the most unique and attention-catching pieces of content we have seen recently.
In February 2019, Visit Faroe Islands launched the 'Closed for Maintenance, Open For Voluntourism' campaign to promote the closing of the Faroe Islands for two days, 26th and 27th April, to conduct the maintenance and preservation of fourteen tourist sites. The board invited 100 volunteers to help alongside locals and offered accommodation, food and transport to the participants during these days.
The work included maintenance of walking trails, viewpoints and fences to preserve the country's nature.
Visit Faroe effectively managed to create a campaign that shows its commitment to promoting sustainable tourism and maintaining environmental responsibility while providing an authentic experience to these tourist volunteers.
The campaign was a huge success and went viral, receiving applications from 3,528 people across 25 countries. The story gained traction in multiple new stations around the globe, appeared in 511 news articles and received over three billion online readerships, as well as thirty-four million social media actions. All this with a £0 media budget.
The initiative had such a positive impact on the country's environment that in 2020 Faroe Islands planned to repeat its success. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign was postponed to September 2021. The plan is to close the fourteen tourist sites again on the 23rd and 24th of September 2021 and have 100 randomly chosen volunteers from 30 countries coming to the Faroe Islands. Those who were not selected will have the opportunity to part in the initiative again in 2022.
Unique campaign concept and delivery
Promoting sustainable tourism and nature preservation
Authentic experience for the volunteer tourists
Bringing together tourists and locals on a more significant cause
Global media appearance with a zero media budge
As demonstrated through the examples, hero content is a type of content that not only can attract a big audience, it can also help establish the destination’s brand, which is important if DMOs want visitors to connect with them.
Like our CEO, Nick Hall said in 'The Principles of Destination Branding’
“Destination branding is not about the logo or the graphical representation of the destination, it’s not about giving a name or a colour to a product or a physical place. It is the sum of multiple elements all converging into a common idea or a concept which we call a brand. Destination branding is driven by three main factors, which represent the fundamentals of a destination brand – reputation, identity and perception. Reputation is the sum of the beliefs or opinions about a destination, it needs to be built, protected, maintained, and changed if needed through time. Identity has to be driven by authenticity, you need selling points of the destination, consistency, and a strong personality. Perception is mostly made of immaterial experiences and it’s subjective in the mind of the consumers.”
Branding strategy and destination marketing strategy goes hand in hand and it’s important to develop one before the other. Branding improves recognition which leads to trust. One of the ways that destinations can increase their brand awareness is through social media, specifically on the three most popular platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Despite Facebook having more users (3 billion users as of 2021), Instagram is certainly the most popular for travel. According to Hootsuite, 81% of people use Instagram to research products and services and 50% of people have visited a website to purchase after seeing a product or service on Instagram.
An example of a great destination brand that is always evolving yet never lacking consistency is Estonia. #EstonianWay is truly consistent and reflects the link with the nature of the destination. Visit Estonia uses this branding to share various stories that showcase what the destinations have to offer under different segments such as ‘Forest and Nature’, ‘Sports and Adventure’, ‘Food and Drink’, ‘Relaxing and Sauna’, ‘City and Culture’, ‘Events and Happenings’, and ‘Christmas and Winter’.
The most interesting aspect about these branded stories is that they all feature prominent faces of Estonia and other countries, including travel bloggers, journalists, celebrity chefs and TV hosts, athletes, and YouTubers that were invited by the tourism board to explore the life and mores of the Estonian people. Although these experiences are with famous people, it still manages to display authenticity.
An interesting fact about Instagram is that two-thirds of 18 to 34-year-olds admit that the ‘Instagrammability’ of a location (how good the photos of the destination look) is the single most important factor when booking a holiday. This factor is what creates user-generated content, this type of content is highly useful in destination marketing because it promotes authenticity, which is a trend that has been increasingly growing in travel. People want to make sure they can trust the brand and the destination before travelling and this should happen in the first stages of the visitor cycle. User-generated content (UGC) is 5x more likely to convert customers and 50% more trusted among millennials than other types of advertising, this type of content allows destinations to project an authentic picture of the brand based on genuine storytelling from the visitors themselves.
A great example of destination marketing using UGC is the campaign by Montreal Tourism Board; #MTLmoments invites locals to share their experiences and favourite moments under the hashtag #MTLmoments. Just on Instagram, the hashtag has 2.5 million posts which shows how popular and effective the campaign is and how using social media storytelling is one of the best ways to promote a destination.
Promoting authentic travel experience through user-generated content
Creative campaign
Storytelling made of travellers' emotions
Many tourist boards started using storytelling in their marketing campaigns as a way to empathise with travellers during the pandemic. Visual storytelling has a bigger impact than any other type because it allows people to really see the emotions and feel closer to a potential authentic experience, so the use of it in video marketing allows destinations to not only reach a wider audience but also to create easily shareable content. Tourists boards like Visit Portugal, Switzerland Tourism, Faroe Islands and New Zealand understood the power of storytelling. Our Best Practices’ Storytelling article dives deeper into these destinations’ content, but here we have a new one by Visit Azores.
#SafeByNature by Visit Azores showcases what the destination has to offer, as it takes advantage of the excellent biogeographic conditions to provide wonderful nature-based experiences. The majority of Azores’ offers are outdoor and adventure-based experiences like bike tours, bird watching, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, scuba diving and geo-tourism. The video also promotes the fact that Azores was awarded the European Safest Destination 2020 by European Best Destinations.
The growing interest in exploring the natural environment is one of the travel trends for 2021 - people being locked inside of their homes for almost more than a year feel the need to reconnect with nature. Considering this, the Visit Azores’ video comes in perfect timing as it will help spark interest in travellers that are already interested in this type of experience.
Visual display of nature imagery to attract adventure travellers
Branding adherent to current travel trends
#SafeByNature - shareable video content
Videos have become easier and more cost-effective to produce; they’ve also risen in popularity among consumers. The demand for video content is increasing, with 54% of consumers requesting more video content from brands or businesses they follow, especially through social media where it’s most consumed. In 2019, 60.6% of all internet traffic was streaming video. By 2022, 82% of all internet traffic is expected to be video content. Furthermore, companies that use video marketing see 157% more organic traffic than those that don’t and 54% more brand recognition on average. More than just bringing in traffic, video helps convert those visitors into customers. Home pages with videos see 86% more conversions. Landing pages see 80% more.
So why is video marketing the “New King of Content”?
Video allows the customer to immerse themselves in a destination or attraction, without leaving their chair. This gives destinations unprecedented access to show potential visitors what they can see and do during their trip. It doesn’t need to be a large production either- most phones come equipped with near-professional quality cameras and with a large selection of free video editing tools, producing a video doesn’t have to be expensive.
Today, 96% of online video consumption is on mobile. Despite it breaking almost every single rule of traditional video, the ergonomics of how we hold our phones has meant that vertical is now the more convenient option for the user. In fact, research has shown that people hold their phone vertically 94% of the time.
Vertical videos allow people to focus on what really matters: your brand. As the video is full screen, there is no other content drawing their attention away, no comment section to pique their curiosity, just your video.
But more importantly, vertical video matters now more than ever because Stories is currently on track to overtake the News Feed on both Facebook and Instagram in terms of growth and user engagement. Meanwhile, Instagram is preparing to push IGTV’s external campaign, whilst also testing a ‘tap through’ model for its Explore Tab – perhaps the first step in a complete transition towards a tap over scroll feed model.
Reels are the latest video feature that allows users to create 15-second videos with audio, AR effects and other creative tools, and these can be recorded in a series of clips, all at once or can be uploaded from the phone gallery. Public accounts like the ones from tourist boards and other brands and organisations will have their Reels appearing on the Explore page where they can reach a bigger audience.
On the other hand, its counterpart TikTok has 689 million monthly active users worldwide, showed a 5.5x growth in the number of US adult users in less than 18 months, and has been downloaded 2 billion times on the App Store and Google Play being available in 155 countries and 75 languages.
TikTok has a wider Gen Z audience compared to Instagram, so if companies are looking to reach Millennials instead of Gen Z, then Reels are the place to go. Another difference is in its paid advertising and e-commerce, while Instagram doesn’t roll paid ads on Reels, brands can work with influencers to create branded content.
Reels can be very beneficial for travel brands and destinations and the best way to use them is by sharing engaging content that includes beautiful scenery and focuses on either inspiring or educational content with short captions and catchy songs. The use of branded hashtags is equally important on Reels as much it is on feed posts and Stories.
Switzerland Tourism is one of the tourism boards that show how well Reels work. With 674k followers, their Reels get an average of 100k views. Fjord Norway is another destination account that creates amazing Reels content.
Currently, there are more than 171 million virtual reality active users in the world. Each year, there’s an increased demand for AR and VR devices, it’s predicted that 70% of companies will be experimenting with immersive technologies and 25% will have deployed to production.
The latest statistics show that the global market size of AR and VR was forecasted to hit $18.8 billion in 2020. Between 2020 and 2021, the growth of the VR market almost doubled, going from just over $40 billion to almost $80 billion. Meanwhile, the AR market saw a much bigger growth, going from $50 billion to almost $140 billion.
Virtual reality continues to march into the mainstream and one of the main benefits of applying VR systems is that it allows travellers to sample a destination beforehand. With the immersive experiences that are available, travel brands can offer customers an opportunity to see new sights or enjoy exotic adventures without leaving the comfort of their own space. Through Google Cardboard and various VR Gear now becoming available widely on the market, virtual reality content is now more accessible than ever for consumers.
Below are a handful of our favourite virtual tourism campaigns across the world.
The use of immersive content such as virtual reality augmented reality and 360-degree videos are highly beneficial for destinations, especially during these times when travel is limited. The ability to still connect with travellers remotely and have them plan future trips despite the uncertainty creates a competitive advantage and is something destinations should leverage on.
Despite the perception of appearing like a substitute for an authentic in-person experience, immersive travel content is just a way to support tourism marketing strategies while helping the industry recover from the pandemic and be ready to receive visitors.
Over the years, technology and digitalisation of products and services has become a fundamental drivers of innovation in travel and tourism. It’s a way for DMOs to gain competitive advantage, especially embracing new emerging trends.
One of the most interesting emerging trends that help destinations connect with travellers, during the pandemic, are immersive content with 360-degree videos, virtual reality and augmented reality. The increased popularity and demand proves how essential it is for tourism to integrate and make the most out of technology advancements.
Successful travel campaigns now require producing successful social media and video content. As the use of these two elements have been increasing so has their influence.
It was proven over and over again, through these examples, that just making any type of content isn’t enough. DMOs need to create hero content, something that captures the attention of their audience in a personalised and authentic way and using storytelling along with beautiful imagery and maybe a hint of comedy is certainly a great way to reach people.
Right now, the biggest talk is about digitalisation and how we can enhance the visitor experience - and it has become even more relevant since the beginning of the pandemic. As the world operates remotely, the use of digital and its efficiency in communicating with each other has become essential. This explains, once again, the need for exploration and innovation across the digital and technological spectrum to keep up with the demands of an ever-changing world.
Right now, the biggest talk is about digitalisation and how we can enhance the visitor experience - and it has become even more relevant since the beginning of the pandemic. As the world operates remotely, the use of digital and its efficiency in communicating with each other has become essential. This explains, once again, the need for exploration and innovation across the digital and technological spectrum to keep up with the demands of an ever-changing world.
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