Prior to 2012, the state of New Mexico didn’t have a cohesive tourism marketing strategy. Its tourism department focused mostly on providing administrative services and support for its regional destination marketing organizations.

But that all began to change with the election of Governor Susana Martinez in 2011, who challenged the department to shift their focus towards initiatives that provided a greater return on investment, primarily, marketing their destination as a whole. Since that time the organization has evolved from a support system to its own tourism and economic activity powerhouse.

Starting Point: Understanding Incorrect Impressions of New Mexico

The first step in that transition was to conduct focus groups and research in order to understand the impression held about New Mexico in key markets. According to the tourism department’s Cabinet Secretary, Rebecca Latham, the results weren’t flattering.

“What they thought about New Mexico, if they thought about New Mexico at all, was wrong. To them New Mexico was a dry, barren, desert wasteland, which was tough to hear.”

To make matters worse, the tourism department gathered all of the state’s DMOs and had them present their marketing approach. “It was total clutter and chaos,” Latham said, adding that the messaging varied widely between neighboring cities and towns.

With a mandate that now dedicated three quarters of the annual budget to marketing, the New Mexico Tourism Department began their rebranding effort in 2012. The goal was to unify the various campaigns, change the perception of New Mexico as a tourism destination and also inspire pride amongst the local population.

In a direct nod to the many misconceptions about the state, its tourism department united regional marketing efforts under a new banner: New Mexico True.

New Mexico True: Inspiring Pride and Unity within the State

“With New Mexico True we were able to provide templates and uniformity where smaller destinations can leverage the New Mexico True brand, and then those budgets help drive impressions for all of us,” said Latham, adding that the state has invested approximately $35 million into developing the brand since 2012, alongside another eight to ten million provided by industry partners.

Then, in 2014, the New Mexico Tourism Board elected to create content of its own, educating potential visitors about various niche activities while encouraging New Mexicans to explore their home state further.

“We felt the stronger approach was to make New Mexicans have this overwhelming sense of pride, so not only would they keep their vacation dollars in state but they’d invite their friends and family to come and visit.”

Video Storytelling with New Mexico True Stories

So in 2014 the tourism board published its first video in a series called New Mexico True Stories, profiling local champion MMA fighter Carlos Condit.

“The original attempt was to profile the people and passion that you can’t find anywhere else but New Mexico in these one to three minute video profiles,” said Latham.

“As the series has evolved it’s taken on a completely different purpose, which is to brand the state within these niche audiences as a destination for high altitude training, or unique culinary events, or bird watching or fly fishing or extreme skiing.”

Since that first profile the tourism department has produced 12 high quality videos, each focusing on a niche interest or unique attribute of the state with a distinctively cinematic feel. Latham explains that the format was the brainchild of their creative agency partner, Talweg Creative, which was also responsible for sourcing profile subjects.

The instructions passed onto the creative agency required them to meet three criteria in each video:

1. Is the subject proprietary?
2. Does it speak to a niche interest that will motivate travel?
3. Will it also inspire local pride and advocacy?

One instalment titled Aunt June profiles a 93 year-old green chile farmer from Hatch, New Mexico, which Latham describes as the Napa Valley of chile. While most of the videos are promoted on social targeting niche interest groups, Aunt June didn’t need any extra buzz.

“Before one penny went into promoting it, New Mexicans just blew it up. It has this outrageous engagement on social media because it’s such a point of pride for New Mexicans.”

Aunt June has been viewed 1.68 million times, with nearly half a million engagements on Facebook alone. Thus far New Mexico True Stories has achieved just under 12 million total views. Coupled with other efforts under the New Mexico True banner, Latham has reason to believe it’s had a real impact on both economic activity and combating misconceptions about the state.

How New Mexico True Has Changed Tourism in the State

“Over the past six years we’ve seen remarkable increases in the amount of visitors to New Mexico, and the amount of money they’re spending,” she said. “We’ve gone from about 5.1 billion to 6.3 billion since the launch of the New Mexico True brand.”

The New Mexico Tourism Department also recently participated in a halo effect study to measure how the campaign is changing the overall perception of the state.  

“Overwhelmingly, people who had an awareness of New Mexico True advertising had a higher likelihood of having a better perception of New Mexico as a place to do business, go to college, relocate, buy a second home or retire.”

Latham adds, “We know we are having a huge impact on perceptions of New Mexico as more than just a place for a vacation, but as a place to invest and relocate.”

While the New Mexico True campaign has been a success Latham says there was a lot of political pressure at the start as a result of the significant investment made by the state. She explains that such pressure can be detrimental to the creative process, as the best ideas typically require a little bit of risk taking.

“I would say trust your gut, and don’t be scared to try something different,” she advises, adding that the value of a strong creative agency partner cannot be overstated.

 

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Recommended Reading:

We’ve all felt it — that irresistible pull a fantastic photo or video has to draw us in and make us crave the experience it features.

Visuals have huge influence over the decisions we make. And this is especially true for travel.

Whether we’re planning where to go, what to do, or where to eat, travelers directly draw inspiration from the photos and videos they see online.

The DMOs that are excelling are taking advantage of this, as visual influencers. Being a visual influencer means captivating and attracting more travelers through visuals, as well as being the go-to authority of your brand story.

Here are 10 examples of DMOs who have elevated their brands into visual influencers, by using visuals in creative and impactful ways.

Visual Influencers in Websites

1 | Visit the Faroe Islands

They might’ve been one of Europe’s best-kept secrets, but through extraordinary visual marketing, the beauty of the Faroe Islands is now evident to anyone who visits their website.

The site opens to a dramatic, sweeping video that instantly draws you in. Every element of the site – including the navigation – is highly visual.

And the gem of the site is, of course, Sheep View, their virtual reality tour in 360 video (which we have given much love to on this blog). Sheep View gives you a visual experience so immersive, you don’t even need to leave your seat to experience a bit of what’s waiting for you in the  Faroe Islands.

2 | Visit Fort Worth

Visit Fort Worth does an awesome job of showcasing relevant photos to travelers at the right time. A great example of this is with their neighborhood guides.

Each neighborhood has its own web page on the Fort Worth website. And at the top of every page is a unique gallery of social images, all curated from that specific part of town.

By sharing these visuals of what’s happening on the ground directly on their website, people don’t have to default to investigating photos separately on Instagram to get a good sense of each neighborhood.

3 | Visit Telluride

Visit Telluride does an amazing job of giving real-time visual information to travelers — almost like providing a virtual window into their destination.

For visitors to a ski destination like Telluride, weather conditions are super important. Understanding this, a lot of DMOs will list their current temperatures on their website. However, Telluride takes this one step further, by providing a live feed of their destination, so that people can see what the weather is like, first-hand.

Their live cameras capture conditions on the mountains and also throughout town.

4 | Travel Manitoba

While written articles are typically the focus of a blog, visuals are just as important. Manitoba Hot, Explore Manitoba’s blog, has perfected this balance.

Throughout their articles, they sprinkle in multiple galleries of user-generated content, not just as “decoration” but to really support and complement their posts. For example, in their visual “Pumpkin Spice Tour” blog post, their visuals are really the star, while the words work to guide and draw connections between the visuals, and elaborate on each location.

Loving these sites? Read this article for more examples of outstanding DMO websites.

Visual Influencers in Travel Video Marketing

5 | Visit Iceland

As one of the travel industry’s great success stories and now attracting thousands of visitors each year, Visit Iceland developed a video campaign to encourage responsible tourism.

The Iceland Academy is a series of videos that teaches visitors about cultural norms and traditions, so tourists can be informed and respectful while enjoying their visit. The videos take place against some amazing scenic backdrops, so they remain inspirational while being educational, and are hosted by humorous and light-hearted locals.

Visit Iceland does a great job of using video to effectively influence their audience, even when it comes to more difficult conversations.

6 | Destination Canada

Destination Canada acquired rights to thousands of UGC photos and videos from Instagram to create an incredible video series called Found in Canada to target the U.S. travel market.

With these authentic visuals, they created fast-paced, high-energy, attention-grabbing content. Each video features tons of photos and videos that showcase different parts of the country through the eyes of excited locals and travelers alike.

Many of the videos have between 1-3 million views – so their content is clearly hitting the mark. This isn’t a one-off viral hit, it’s a proven formula for video content travelers want to watch.

7 | Explore St. Louis

Explore St. Louis’s social hub, STL.Live, is an engaging microsite that provides an amazingly immersive visual experience, combining a living mosaic of hundreds of user-generated visuals, with videos from influencers.

There are four sections: Beer, Music, Culture, Food. Each takes visitors to a custom page of relevant visual content – like a photo album built around the topic. Here, visitors can explore a mix of social photos or watch videos Explore St. Louis produced with local influencers and talent, specifically on that topic.

Because the both the videos and social photos are from real people, the microsite feels very authentic. It’s like getting a snapshot into the city, through the eyes of hundreds of locals.

Visual Influencers in Social Media

8 | Visit Colorado

Visit Colorado is just one example of a DMO that’s been very successful in finding high-quality social photos of their destination, and using it in their marketing.

Because their #ColoradoLive hashtag is extremely popular, they use CrowdRiff to sift through the noise, unearth the best visual user-generated content, and acquire rights to them.

With a collection of rights-approved social photos, Visit Colorado is able to incorporate more authenticity in their visual marketing. A great example is this ad they created:

CrowdRiff customers find that ads featuring user-generated photos have a 3X higher click-through rate than those that don’t.

9 | Tourism Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a lesser known travel destination in Canada, but they’ve done a great job of opening people’s eyes and minds to the variety of experiences people can have there — through visuals.

Rather than simply re-posting any pretty traveler photos on their Instagram, Tourism Saskatchewan carefully curates photos to create a moody, beautiful depiction of their province.

Additionally, Tourism Saskatchewan co-created the “Saskatchewanderer” program. Every year one lucky person is selected to travel the province and share their experiences on social media.

The Saskatchewanderer program creates a lot of high-profile conversation around their brand online. First the Saskatchewanderer who is posting amazing visuals from all over the province, and then Tourism Saskatchewan jumps in to amplify that voice and spread the word of this individual’s fantastic travel experience.

10 | Destination British Columbia

We couldn’t talk about visual influencers without a shout out to Destination British Columbia for their interactive visual trip planner, the BC Explorer.

The BC Explorer is a direct response to the traveler trend of visual decision making. Powered by Instagram content, sourced and rights-approved with CrowdRiff, the BC Explorer lets travelers explore UGC photos to draw inspiration, learn more about what’s depicted in each photo, and then create custom itineraries based on their favorites.

The BC Explorer is a trip planner that connects visual inspiration to action.

Reach more travelers by becoming a visual influencer

Travelers are making decisions like where to go, what to do, and what to buy based on the visuals they encounter every day.

Take advantage of visual decision making by becoming a visual influencer, and marketing with less words, and more visuals.

Need some pointers? CrowdRiff’s visual marketing platform helps DMOs market to travelers more effectively with visuals and become better visual influencers.

Anchorage’s greatest strengths as a travel destination also poses its greatest challenges.

The surrounding Alaskan state is world-renowned for expansive landscapes, outdoors adventures and stunning wildlife, with the city acting as a primary hub for those arriving by train, plane or cruise ship.

But as the home of so many attractions is scattered over such a sprawling landscape, visitors have come to think of Alaska as a place best explored thoroughly in one long single trip.

Alaska is seen as a “once in a lifetime” adventure

It’s frustrating for James Minton, Visit Anchorage’s Vice President of Communications, to know that no matter how spectacular the experience, most people only plan one visit, and then cross it off their list.

He points out how the average traveler from California — one of Anchorage’s primary markets — typically visits Hawaii multiple times, yet still cites the distance as a barrier to visiting Alaska more than once, even though Anchorage and Honolulu are roughly the same distance from LAX airport.

“People usually plan Alaska for a long time, do everything they can while they’re here, and feel like they’ve done it all and don’t need to come back, which is something we’re trying to change.”

Minton expands, “For our primary markets in the West Coast, this is a place where people could pop up for a long weekend.”

According to the State’s research, however, only a few actually do. Factoring out those who are visiting family and friends and business travelers, less than a quarter of that Alaska’s leisure travelers are return visitors.

But changing that narrative isn’t easy, says Minton, who sees Alaska’s reputation as a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If travelers come that way for a long time they tell their friends and family that they had a great time and couldn’t imagine doing it any other way,” he said, suggesting that this has been cemented in many people’s minds as the only way to experience Alaska.

Giving visitors tools to spread the word, in the moment

Knowing that 66.4% of American travelers decide where to visit based on recommendations from friends and family, Minton sought to encourage more dialogue between those visiting Anchorage with those back home. He explains that destination marketing organizations typically seek to facilitate that conversation through social media, but with an average visitor age of 53, he thought his target audience would prefer a more analog solution.

“We thought about what would happen if we gave them a vehicle to connect with friends and family, with the passion of being in the destination right now,” he said.

“We realized this is an audience that’s at the time of their life when the idea of sending a postcard to your grandkids — if nothing else than for the retro quaintness of it — would play out well.”

In order to make a postcard campaign successful, however, Minton wanted to ensure that it was completely seamless. As a result those who came to the visitor center in town or the airport could pick up as many free postcards as they would like, either to keep or mail themselves. Visit Anchorage offered to mail out any postcards that were filled out on the spot for free, and even provided postage for cards that weren’t their own.

Designing the postcards

Once the idea was set in motion Minton says Visit Anchorage went through a number of design iterations trying to find the right balance between their own branding and the space designated for messages.

“It’s really easy to take up a lot of room with your own logo and website address and the caption of the photo and the stamp and return address, but there’s only so much space on these things. You need to keep the postcards looking organic and not overly branded.”

Minton eventually concluded that Visit Anchorage’s branding was the least important element of the card, designating only a small sliver for it in the final design. “We want grandma to be able to write to her grandkids and actually say something, not just sign her name,” he said.

Visit Anchorage did, however, intentionally ensure that the name of the city was awarded some prominent space on the front of the postcard. “We’re trying to make sure the name of the city, Anchorage, enters into the conversation beyond the generic destination of Alaska,” he said.

The final design features eight different images that rotate between seasons, showcasing the element of the Alaskan wilderness that research has found to be the most popular that time of the year.

Exceeding expectations

“We tested it to see how it went, and it went crazy; we were totally surprised,” said Minton. “We printed at most 3,000, and bought 500 stamps, because we didn’t want to be stuck with stamps that would sit in the visitor center for years, and had no idea it would take off like it has.”

In fact, Visit Anchorage has now produced 60,000 postcards over the past 15 months, and distributed 18,000 free stamps.

While he can only speculate Minton believes the campaign resonates for reasons that differ between demographics. He suggests that the older demographic enjoys the nostalgia of the campaign while millennials appreciate the few opportunities their given to connect with friends and family outside the digital world.   

Minton, however, doesn’t want to leave the impression that Visit Anchorage doesn’t also have a robust digital marketing campaign. With a total media budget reaching approximately $600,000, however, he says the approximately $10,000 spent on postcards and stamps is likely to go further than much of the rest of his ad dollars this year.

“This small audience of 60,000 out there that received these cards got a stronger impression, because the messages on it goes further than the dollar we’d spend to get them to click on an add in Google. Getting somebody that’s here giving an authentic message, we do some of that through their social feeds, but this really lets the traveler speak to their loved ones in their own voice.”

What’s next for Visit Anchorage?

Minton says his next challenge is figuring out how to scale the campaign, which will likely involve distribution partners beyond the two visitor center locations, such as hotels or cruise ships, but that is yet to be decided.

Having recently signed up with CrowdRiff, Minton says there is also an opportunity for greater user-generated content integration in the future, either through licensing content or by developing a system that allows users to turn their own photos into postcards.

“You can imagine how much competition there was 20 years ago trying to cut through the clutter in people’s direct mail,” he said. “Nowadays, their email and social feeds are bombarded by people talking to them digitally.”

“These old school tactics are a great way to cut through the clutter, especially if you can find a way to make it organic.”

 

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If you’re interested in integrating user-generated content further into your marketing, like Visit Anchorage will be, this eBook is a good place to start:

The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha is a very impressive structure — in both its architecture and especially in its quirky new personality.

The 3,000 foot curved suspension bridge is one of the first of its kind to connect two states, Nebraska and Iowa. Suspended by two large towers, the bridge dangles more than 50 feet above the Missouri River, providing spectacular views on both sides.

But people didn’t really understand this beautiful piece of urban architecture’s intended purpose when it first opened in September of 2008. The $22 million bridge was often referred to as “the bridge to nowhere,” drawing criticism for the lack of development where it ended in Iowa.

“Locals thought it was meant to be a bridge to something, but more and more have gone down there and realized it is the thing,” said Deborah Ward, the Vice President of Marketing for Visit Omaha. “It’s not supposed to take you from one place to the other; it’s the destination.”

Bringing Bob the Bridge to Life

Instead of hyping up the bridge’s own appeal, however, Ward decided that she was going to let the bridge speak for itself, literally.

“A bridge that you can Tweet with and Instagram with and talk back and forth with is something that no other city is doing, and it’s really hard to do something completely different. It was also risky because we didn’t know if it would work. Would people really engage with a bridge?”

In 2015 Ward and her team considered the sort of personality traits they wanted to give Bob the Bridge, describing him as “larger than life” with a dry tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and an honest, tell-it-like-it-is demeanor.

“I said I want him sort of edgy and fun. That was a way to start the creative process to build Bob’s personality.”

In 2016 Visit Omaha crafted a press release in the same tone introducing their newest resident, Bob the Bridge. “The media really responded very well to it,” said Ward.

She adds that in spite of the initial criticisms, Bob’s new personality — coupled with news of visitors travelling from far and wide to visit the bridge — changed locals’ perceptions of him as well.

How Bob the Bridge Won the Hearts of Locals and Visitors

Today the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, better known as Bob, is the host of an ongoing video blog, has his own Twitter and Instagram accounts and is prominently featured on Visit Omaha’s Facebook page.

It’s not just his online personality that’s gotten a lot of buzz, however. Bob’s real life visitors are also encouraged to interact with the bridge and post the experience on social media.

“Bob made up a term, ‘Bobbing,’ which is when you stand in two states at the same time and take a selfie,” said Ward. “We put a sign up at the state line, which crosses right through Bob, and we told people ‘it’s called Bobbing, trust us, it’s a thing.”

Visitors are then encouraged to post their photos using the hashtag #ItHappensOnBob. “We’ve had the Harlem Globetrotters, we’ve had the Rockettes, we’ve had all sorts of people Bobbing,” adds Ward.

To keep a two-way conversation going between Bob and his visitors, the marketing team at Visit Omaha makes sure he’s always responding to Bobbing travelers on social media. Using CrowdRiff, the team tracks and monitors new #ItHappensOnBob photos that pop up, and regularly send out tailored comments from the bridge himself.

Though he was introduced to the world nearly two years ago Visit Omaha continues to find new and interesting ways to keep the campaign fresh. Recently Visit Omaha introduced a 0.9-kilometer “marathon” across the length of the bridge. Visitors are encourage to take a selfie with Bob and present it to the Omaha Visitors Center to receive an official 0.9K marathon sticker:

“Since May we’ve had more than 550 people from at least 37 states come and get their marathon stickers.”

Leveraging User-Generated Content to Keep Bob’s Energy Alive and Exciting

The team curates their favorite social photos and videos from 0.9k marathon challengers and showcases them on Bob’s page of the Visit Omaha website. These user-generated visuals are updated regularly through CrowdRiff, so that interested visitors can see real-time photos of Bob and his fans at any given time.

Though he has less than 1,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram, a majority of them have been added since January. At the same time Bob’s video blog posts have been viewed over a million times, and he’s not slowing down his playful antics anytime soon. In fact, he recently asked San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge out on a date.

“Our Bob campaign is really resonating with people, we can see it in visual terms. That user-generated content is what keeps Bob alive, and helps us share his personality with others.”  

Bob is quickly becoming a mainstay of Omaha’s tourism appeal. Can you imagine what’s next?  Maybe a “Bob festival” where invitees might include  Bob Dylan, Bob Saget, B.O.B,  and perhaps even a special guest appearance by Jeff Bridges.

Bob thinks they may be related.

Header image courtesy of Visit Omaha.

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Further Reading:

“Arts and Culture” is quite an umbrella term — covering everything from cuisine and music, to architecture and lifestyle.

And because it includes so many aspects of your destination that are often intangible, it can sometimes be difficult imagining creative ways to promote arts and culture, in a way that can inspire a traveler to visit.

That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the creative ways 5 brands are doing just that, to hopefully inspire your future campaigns and content.

Here are 5 different ways brands promote arts and culture in their destinations.

1 | Explore St. Louis: STL.Live

STL.Live is a microsite where visitors can explore the cornerstones of the St. Louis scene: food, beer, music, and culture… but with a twist: through the voices of its locals.

Built using CrowdRiff’s API, each page of the site has a vibrant, living mosaic of user-generated content, curated from social media. When you select one of the interests, you’re brought to its page, where you can immerse yourself virtually in the local scene through all the photos people have taken here.

To layer another element, STL.Live has videos featuring local musicians and influencers, discussing what they love about their city.

It can be hard to convey something as abstract as “culture”. However, Explore St. Louis has really hit the nail on the head with the 3000+ user-generated visuals they use to tell their story, so that it feels comprehensive, authentic, and immersive.

Read the story behind STL.Live here.

2 | Visit Seattle: VISITSEATTLE.tv

When people think Seattle, they typically think Starbucks, Space Needle, or Microsoft.

What people don’t think about is that it’s also the music city that gave birth to Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis; it’s a city with a robust and diverse food industry; and it’s situated in America’s second largest wine-producing state.

So to unveil the true culture of their city, Visit Seattle partnered with a variety of media partners (like VOX, NBC, and Sundance TV) to create video content and launch their online video channel, VISITSEATTLE.tv.

Through stories from locals in these videos, Visit Seattle is able to peel back the layers of what aspects of Seattle’s culture make it unique. The series called +Play follows a group of children as they explore and guide viewers through Seattle museums. Another series, Sounds by the Sound, features local musicians performing in scenic locations around Seattle.

Their approach has been so successful, Visit Seattle TV reached over 40 million minutes of viewing time in under two years!

3 | SFMOMA: See them Both campaign

Though not technically a destination, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is targeting San Francisco travelers with its intriguing See Them Both campaign.

SFMOMA knows tourists come from all over to experience the City by the Bay. So to introduce San Francisco tourists to its modern arts scene, the See Them Both places photographs of real-life attractions next to their artistic representations, found in the SFMOMA collection.

By comparing their art to familiar icons, SFMOMA is giving meaning to something that might’ve once felt abstract or irrelevant. These side-by-side comparisons will be promoted as ads on travel websites and social media, as well as on billboards in popular tourist spots around San Francisco.

So in addition to targeting travelers in the planning stage, SFMOMA targets the people who have already made there way there, but may not have been exposed to the arts scene in San Francisco.

SFMOMA has really embraced the aspects that make San Francisco unique and tied it back to its art, in a way that is eye-catching, bold, and visually exciting.

4 | Love Beverly Hills: Curating authentic imagery from locals

To give visitors an authentic picture of their high-end destination, Love Beverly Hills incorporates galleries of high-quality UGC visuals from social media throughout their website.

These social images complement the existing visuals on the various key pages of their website — like Restaurants, Shopping, and Things to Do — to paint a bigger picture of the energy of Beverly Hills.

And what might be surprising for some is that these social images are truly very on-brand. Beverly Hills’ reputation doesn’t just come from its DMO — it comes from its locals. Love Beverly Hills doesn’t have to tell people they’re a destination of luxury because their locals are already telling that story, through the visuals they take and share.

This way, when travelers explore authentic social photos in the galleries Beverly Hills features (right next to their own branded photos), they get a diverse snapshot into the lifestyle and culture their locals define.

5 | Destination DC: Eat Where the Chefs Eat

Washington DC is famous for its monuments, museums, and politics — but they wanted a chance to show that there was more to their culture than that.

That’s why to show off their rich dining scene, the Destination DC marketing team created the video series DC Chefs Dish. The team worked with the tight-knit culinary community to offer travelers the inside scoop on where to grab the tastiest bite in the city.

Each episode features a different local chef, who takes viewers on a tour of the culinary hotspots in their favorite neighborhoods. And by having different people host each video, they not only get a different personality for each, but are able to showcase the diversity of DC’s culinary culture.

And as it turns out, everyone loves food videos. The D.C. marketing team was hoping for about 375,000 views and were understandably thrilled when they received well over 1.6 million (with an impressive 60% average completion rate!).

What You Can Apply to Your Tourism Marketing Strategy

Here are some key learnings from these 5 brands:

1. Bring together the voices of your local community. People have wildly diverse experiences of your destination. Bring together those conversations (either social photos, or creating new video content) to paint a more comprehensive picture of what arts & culture looks like to different locals. 
2. Take the backseat and let other people tell your story. Just like Visit Seattle, it’s ok if your brand doesn’t take center stage — it’s the people who define your destination’s culture, so let them tell it like it is! Let authentic stories of your brand come from individuals, and connect with a traveler in a way a large organization might not be able to.
3. Create an irresistible a visual experience. SFMOMA’s clever use of visuals in See Them Both is striking and memorable, and STL.Live’s visuals are so immersive that you cannot but help click into all the user-generated content they present. Take a leaf from their books and excite your audience with a visual experience they can’t ignore.

Arts and culture in any destination is defined by its people. So loop them in and let them show potential visitors what you really have in store. Hopefully some of these examples and takeaways have sparked some ideas for your own tourism marketing!

 

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Further reading: 

From the grass growing beneath their feet to the flags flying above their head, everything in Lexington, Kentucky is dedicated to its horses.

It all relates back to the limestone shelf that sits under the state of Kentucky, which is credited for giving the grass its blue tinge and for helping its horse population develop strong bones. Located smack dab in the middle of bluegrass country sits a city that’s home to 450 horse farms, a statue of a famous horse that bears the city’s name, as well as about 80% of all history’s Kentucky Derby winners.

Lexington Kentucky, the Horse Capital of the World

Lexington Kentucky is so devoted to its horses that they’ve even put one on its flag, colored blue in a nod to the unique land they graze on.

“The city has totally adopted it,” says Gathan Borden, the Vice President of Marketing for Visit Lex. “We have a total love affair with horses.”

While Lexington is also home to a burgeoning craft beer and foodie culture, as well as just a short drive from just about every bourbon distillery in America, the “Horse Capital of the World” naturally tries to find ways to promote its own unique X factor.

Sharing the city’s love for its horses with outsiders — who may only have a casual relationship with horse racing — has always been a challenge, but Borden and his team recently devised a way to put audiences right in the saddle, and the result has been a clear winner.

“One of the trends that we’re trying to follow along with in tourism marketing across the board is how to get more personal with the end user of the video.”

He continued, “For us, right now, we’re into this content game where we’re using locals and influencers to tell the story of Lexington from a first-person point of view.”

This past February, however, Borden and his team decided to look to its city’s most famous influencers.

Turning the cameras over to Lexington’s thoroughbred horses

“We wanted people to know that horse farms are actually fun. Horses are really fun animals, so wouldn’t it be cool to see what a horse sees on its daily journey?” he said. “We thought it was a unique perspective you couldn’t get anywhere else in the world.”

After coming up with the concept Borden and his agency partners, Cornett, strapped GoPros to the horses at a local farm using harnesses originally designed for dogs, though he says they fit the horses surprisingly well. What resulted is a series of videos, published to their Facebook page in June, filmed entirely by horses.

The videos include some regular horse activities, like grazing and running through an open field, but one of the series’ four videos stands out to Borden the most. In it a young horse is seen jumping and running in circles around a horse-pen.  

“That foal is actually being filmed by its mother. It might be a stretch, but travel is all about creating memories, and when families come they’re always filming their kids enjoying the destination, so having a mother horse film their offspring is pretty exciting for us.”

After publishing the videos to YouTube as well as Facebook, and promoting them with a modest social media campaign, they soon became one of Visit Lex’s most successful and least expensive projects to date.

Creating a big impact out of a smart spend

Borden says filming and editing totaled less than $9,000, plus an additional $5,000 spent promoting it through Facebook. When the first video was published it received over 167,000 views alone, with the entire campaign totaling more than 280,000 to date. As a point of comparison, Borden says a previous campaign of four videos cost over $32,000, and wasn’t nearly as successful.

The campaign also attracted the attention of local newspapers, including the Lexington Herald Leader, equestrian publications like HorseChannel.com and advertising industry publications like AdWeek.

“To me that shows that money is the last thing you should worry about. As long as you’ve got a good idea, that’s all you should worry about.”

Visit Lex’s next equestrian marketing ventures

Borden is hoping to follow up the latest campaign with something similarly simple and direct, again putting the viewer in the subject’s horseshoes, but hasn’t yet settled on exactly what that will look like.

“Maybe we film them in the fall and the winter time, the same horses, like we’re creating a trilogy of movies,” said Borden. The team has also considered 3D video, though the cameras are more difficult to stabilize on horseback than the GoPros.

Whatever which way Visit Lex decides to follow up their latest campaign, expect it to put the viewer in an immersive environment, riding along with the city’s most beloved residents.

 

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The energy and excitement of a big event can be magnetic.

If you think about the music festival Coachella or sporting events like the Super Bowl, there’s no mistaking it. People will travel for events they know will give them an unforgettable experience.

But your event doesn’t have to be as well-known as the Super Bowl to start drawing in travelers.

If you can manage to generate excitement and conversation around them, your destination’s special events can act as an anchor to draw in masses of people to come experience your city.

Let’s take a look at how how 4 DMOs are marketing their destination’s biggest events, and take inspiration from their creativity.

1 | New Orleans TMC: Mardi Gras

The colorful costumes, flamboyant floats, and soulful sounds of the annual Mardi Gras festival have become synonymous with New Orleans itself – and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Commission doesn’t miss a chance to get visitors excited to celebrate!

From articles to videos, their blog GoNOLA, creates a ton of content, on every imaginable topic related to Mardi Gras, for people to explore, learn about and get excited for the festival. They even put together a Mardi Gras playlist of the music you can expect, to set the mood for potential visitors and give them a taste of the vibe beforehand.

Because there is so much content, it’s easy to binge on — in other words, people can easily get lost in video after video, and blog post after blog post — and the variety of topics they cover make it easy to dive right in, no matter what your interests are.

Key Takeaway:

Create an abundance of content specific to your event! Position yourself as a true insider’s guide and give your travelers more resources to learn about the experience that awaits. The more they immerse themselves in content about your event, the more they’ll be invested in it.

Need ideas? Take a page out of GoNOLA’s book and showcase the stories of the people who make your festival come to life, like in their Making of Mardi Gras video series.

2 | Visit Albuquerque: Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

For 45 years and counting, Albuquerque has drawn people near and far to experience its magical Hot Air Balloon Fiesta.

With hundreds of balloons floating through the October sky and a scenic backdrop of the Sandia Mountains, this fiesta is one of the most photographed events in the world!

So, annually Visit Albuquerque decides to take advantage of this event’s photogeniecy, with a huge photo contest.

Visitors who share photos of the Balloon Fiesta can use the #PictureABQ hashtag on social media, for a chance to win a grand prize of a free hot air balloon ride.

Then, Visit Albuquerque curates their favorite photos with that hashtag on a gallery on their website so that anyone can view all the best photos in one place.

As the “Hot Air Balloon Capital of the World,” Visit Albuquerque also makes use of these extraordinary user-generated images all year round on their website, social media, and other marketing channels.

Key Takeaway:

Hosting a social media contest like this provides DMOs with two major benefits: it generates social hype around your event and results in loads of visual user-generated content that you can use year after year to show people authentic images of your event.

If you want more tips from Visit Albuquerque themselves read this! An Actionable Guide to Running a Social Media Contest

3 | Tourism Toronto: Pride Toronto

Pride Toronto is an annual celebration of diversity in the LGBTQ community, and regularly draws over a million people to the city. Throughout June, there are a variety of themed events that happen all over downtown Toronto, from the Dyke March, parties, and the main Pride Parade.

Further than the fact that the festival is great for tourism, it also aligns with Tourism Toronto’s brand values of acceptance and diversity.

To convey that message of their event to travelers, Tourism Toronto has created some exceptional video content, looping in powerful stories from real people. Check out this WorldPride 2014 video to see what we mean:

The comments section of this video is full of people saying, “I wish I could go,” and, “This made me start tearing up.”

Key Takeaway:

By sharing authentic narratives that provide context and put a human face to their events, destinations can nurture more personal, emotional connections with their audience, which give them another meaningful reason to come to your event.

4 | Niagara Falls Tourism: Canada 150

This July marked Canada’s 150th birthday, and Niagara Falls is keeping the celebration alive. As home to one of Canada’s most iconic landmarks, the region of Niagara Falls has tied their brand strongly to Canadian pride and culture.

So to commemorate this event, Niagara Falls Tourism changed their main website visuals to Canada150 themed photos — all of which are in fact rights approved social media images.

User-generated visuals are powerful because they show what another traveler has experienced in your destination and at this event. It’s the voice of a person, and not a brand.

That’s also why when visitors land on the Canada 150 page for information on shows and events, they’re greeted with a CrowdRiff gallery full of festive social visuals.

Featuring over 55 photos and videos from happy visitors, the gallery is also tailored with custom CSS to match the Niagara Falls Tourism brand to a tee.

Key Takeaway:

User-generated content is now such high-quality that it doesn’t have to only act as a social media image. You can take the influence of your event’s user-generated content further, like on your website, as Niagara Falls Tourism has done.

The Main Event is About the People

If there was one key takeaway to summarize the creative marketing of all of the events here today, it’d be this:

The most powerful way to promote your event is through the people who experience it.

So whether you’re featuring locals in videos, encouraging photo sharing on social media, or curating the best user-generated images to showcase, the voices of people speak the loudest.

Use that to your advantage when you’re promoting your events, and you’ll have a great time meeting new visitors during your destination’s best celebrations.

Feel like incorporating UGC into your tourism marketing? 

While subtitles and even a voiceover are capable of delivering the same message, there’s no substitute for speaking to someone directly in their own language.

That was the rationale behind a series of language-specific tourism videos produced by the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau and their partners in 2014, when they began targeting international visitors with content specific to each market.

Expanding to the International Market

At that time the city’s local airport, Logan International, began offering direct flights to new markets overseas. According to David O’Donnell, Senior Manager of Media Relations for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, the city was eager to greet their new visitors before they even got on the plane.

“Five years ago we had about 37 or 38 direct non-stop routes to international destinations. We now have 54, and by the end of 2018 it will be closer to 60. We didn’t have service to China or Japan until the last five years or so, and now we have a few different routes to China and one to Tokyo, so international markets are becoming increasingly important.”

O’Donnell explains that while international travelers only comprise about 8% of overall visitor traffic, they account for approximately 14% of tourist spending. “That’s because they stay longer, they stay in hotels and they usually have more disposable income that’s appropriated specifically for travelling,” he says.  

So with more direct flights to emerging markets like China and Brazil, as well as Western European markets like Germany, France and the U.K., O’Donnell and his team decided to allocate a part of their budget to promoting the city abroad.

The Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau could have saved time, money and effort by repurposing the same campaign for each market; however, they felt it was necessary to produce a unique series of videos for each.

Creating Language-Specific Travel Videos for International Visitors

Together with the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism and Brand USA, which is the destination marketing organization for the United States, they studied the specific needs they studied the specific needs, interests and motivations of each of four key overseas markets, and ultimately created unique video series in Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese and “U.K.-English”.

“A lot of [the content] had to do with the data and surveys we got from the Department of Commerce, what people indicated were the reasons for their trip and the top activities they enjoyed while they’re here.”

O’Donnell expands, “So that’s why we chose things like shopping for the Chinese video or culture for the U.K. video or more emphasis on restaurants and food in the Japanese video.”

Furthermore, while the international city is home to students from nearly every corner of the planet, its tourism bureau went a step further by flying in a host for each series.

Why Boston CVB Chose International Hosts Over Bilingual Native Bostonians

“There’s tens of thousands of Chinese students in Boston, and perhaps that person would have been effective in reaching the China market, because they could relay what it’s like to live in Boston, but we were looking to target the visitor that’s trying to determine whether they want to visit Boston, versus San Francisco or Philly or somewhere else.”

While there are plenty of international students from each market that could have hosted the videos in their nature tongue, O’Donnell says they chose to bring in first-time visitors for the same reason they chose to make unique videos for each market; they wanted to communicate an authentic experience.

“We’d rather the hosts have an experience where Boston is new, so there’s something spontaneous and visceral about their experience,” he said. “If we took someone that lived here — we have plenty of students from Brazil and China and Japan and the U.K. —they already know the city. We wanted the audience to see it through the eyes of someone that’s seeing Boston for the first time.”

That also explains why, in spite of not having a language barrier to contend with, the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau felt it necessary to include a UK-English series as well.

“It’s not translated or subtitled — you see someone from your country that speaks the native tongue without an accent telling you about Boston as a destination.”

The Multi-Language Videos Brought to Life

Boston-China Culture from GBCVB on Vimeo.

The resulting videos were published on the Bureau’s website, and also circulated through Brand USA channels. You can find them all here. All twelve videos, including three from each of the four markets, have been watched a total of 165,000 times combined, but O’Donnell says they’re just getting started.

Boston-UK Indulgence from GBCVB on Vimeo.

Though the videos were produced in 2014 and published in 2015 they continue to play an important role in the organization’s marketing efforts in overseas markets to this day. “They’re really important to bring with us when we go on sales missions or to international trade shows,” adds O’Donnell.

When promoting Boston abroad he explains that there’s no substitute for being able to show each market a video in their native language that speaks to their country’s specific interests.

 

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