#BVIparty

The Challenge

The British Virgin Islands is a well known luxury sailing destination. The UK Tourist Board was looking for a travel PR campaign to raise awareness of the Island’s credentials as a ‘foodie’ destination. This was particularly significant in the run up to the BVI’s 60th Emancipation festival, where colourful food, drink and dance festivals were held across the islands. ADPR’s brief was to establish the BVI as a holiday destination for British ‘foodies’, whilst increasing UK website traffic to the BVI website. It was also to help the BVI reach potential new travellers and amplify the celebrations surrounding the Emancipation Diamond Jubilee festival. This case study emphasises the importance of public relations in the tourism industry.

The Solution

In order to meet the brief, ADPR designed a multi-faceted campaign using a variety of different PR tactics, focusing mainly on using key digital channels.

A Twitter competition was launched, aimed at UK foodies, whereby users tweeted their own Caribbean cocktail recipe alongside the hashtag ‘#BVIparty’ to give them a chance to win a luxury holiday to the British Virgin Islands.

Working with the Tourist Board, a website landing page for the competition was created, complete with engaging content focusing on the Emancipation Festival. This also included full terms and conditions for the competition.

A blogger relations campaign was undertaken to encourage key food, drink and travel bloggers from across the UK to share the competition on their blogs and social media channels, as well as encouraging them to enter the competition themselves.

Editorial was secured in target media with key messages promoting the Islands as a food and drink destination, whilst promoting the 60th Emancipation festival.

A post-campaign cocktail recipe PDF download was created detailing the competition winner’s recipes and seeded out through social media channels.

An important part of travel and tourism PR is creating and maintaining consistent engagement. Throughout the campaign, ADPR managed the competition on a day-to-day basis by engaging with entrants and further encouraging entries to keep the buzz alive.

The Results

ADPR used a range of digital analytics to measure the campaign achievements against the objectives, including Twitter Analytics, TweetReach, Social Mention and Google Analytics.
UK website traffic to the BVI Tourist Board website increased by 263% over the course of the hashtag competition.
85% of all website users accessed the BVI Party landing page, during the course of the competition.
464,000 Twitter accounts reached.
1,092,000 total Twitter impressions.
240 target food and drink bloggers were actively involved in sharing the competition.
1,370 Twitter users entered the competition.

 

For further information on the importance of public relations in the travel and tourism industry, check out our ultimate guide to travel PR!

If you’d like a no-obligation discussion about your marketing communications, please get in touch with us on hello@adpr.co.uk or call 01460241641.