VisitBritain has partnered with American Airlines and British Airways in a USD 3.7 million campaign to inspire more Americans to travel to Britain. The ‘British Famous’ campaign, announced yesterday, and running throughout 2017 features British comedian Diane Morgan in a series of four videos as she attempts to ‘make it’ in America by transforming herself into what she believes Americans love – a self-help guru, an action star, a hipster foodie and a rock star – while promoting England, Scotland and Wales along the way.

Two of four videos in the series are already live. The first one features Diane as a self-help guru in Wales and a ‘rock star wannabe’ in Manchester. Two others, one as her being an action hero in Scotland and one featuring her as a foodie in London will also be released soon. The objective (apart from spreading some British humour) is to drive traffic to BritishFamous.com which highlights destination content and fares and offers from both American Airlines and British Airways.

Paul Gauger, VisitBritain Interim Executive Vice President Americas, said: “Just when you thought you knew Britain, we’ve teamed up with American Airlines and British Airways to showcase that there is so much more to discover across regional Britain, and to introduce great offers into the market, inspiring people to book a trip right now. It’s a great time to visit Britain.”

Rob McDonald, Head of Global Marketing from British Airways said: “British Airways is proud to be part of a campaign that connects Americans with the best of British talent, whether that’s people, places or entertainment. Britain enjoys exporting comedy over the pond, so it was a natural choice for us to bring a little humor to this tourism campaign. We hope Americans will be encouraged to take a trip and explore Britain for themselves, perhaps getting into the spirit departing on British Airways and returning home in familiar comfort with American Airlines.”

Fernand Fernandez, Vice President of Global Marketing from American Airlines said: “American Airlines is a proud partner of the ‘British Famous’ campaign which showcases some of Britain’s most unique and exciting visitor destinations. American operates up to 25 flights a day from the U.S. to cities across Britain including London, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, providing the perfect opportunity for U.S. travelers to explore the ‘British Famous’ destinations for themselves.”

It is the first time that VisitBritain has partnered with American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, on a marketing campaign of this scale. It is also the first time the three organizations, each contributing $1.25 million to the ‘British Famous’ campaign, have worked together to promote travel to Britain. As part of their joint business agreement, together, American Airlines and British Airways offer more routes and flights into the UK than any other airline partnership.

There were 2.7 million visits from the U.S. to Britain from January to September last year. The number was up 3 percent compared to same period in 2014 with spends going up by 9 percent. GBP is also weaker against USD compared to last year with (1 GBP=1.4742 USD in January 2016 vs 1.2258 USD in January 2017) thus making it more attractive proposition for travellers from the U.S.

You can find more details and the other videos when they are released at BritishFamous.com

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This has been an exciting year, for the travel industry as well as for us and that means we had plenty of stories to share. Newer brands made as many headlines as the established names and there were many highs and lows.

Looking back at this year, we have created a round-up of our most popular stories to refresh the events just in case you missed them.

#1- Plenty of investments

Many travel startups got a strong start to the year 2015 with heavy investments by both foreign and domestic investors. While the investor activity slowed down near the end of year, there were some newsworthy investments earlier. We compiled an infographic of the funding raised by the popular travel startups in different categories. Read full story.

#2- Twitter lessons from AirAsia India MD & CEO

Mittu Chandilya is the young Indian at the helm of AirAsia in India. While working his plans to make India operations the largest of AirAsia subsidiaries, he also actively engages with the customers on social media to ensure quality of service and customer satisfaction. We spoke with him to learn a thing or two about using social media right for an airline brand. Read full story.

#3- Year of budget stays

Budget hotel startups were the highlight of this year. This segment saw the entry of multiple players trying to revolutionise the way we look at the low cost hotels but at which some of them picked up pace, it was clear that the OTAs won’t be happy. They were gaining the power to leverage volume to their advantage, something that wasn’t seen in the hotel space at this scale until now. Read full story.

#4- OTAs hit back

Like we said, the OTAs didn’t appreciate the idea of letting the budget hotel aggregators feed on them. Before the startups could do serious damage, some major OTAs blocked them cutting one of their major source of bookings. Read full story.

#5- TripAdvisor takes a swing

It is not at all easy for the OTAs. The hoteliers don’t like them even when they drive large share of bookings. Not only the budget hotels but their friend TripAdvisor also entered the same playground. Lower rate of commissions and better visibility were enough incentives for smaller players to skip their name and shake hands with TripAdvisor. Read full story.

#6- Conversation with Winnie Tan, Tripzilla

The Singapore based company started in 2010 and quickly went on to become the favourite of outbound travellers in the region. Along with that they are also a good example to look for on how to use content right to inspire travellers. Recently they also launched a flight metasearch engine which gives the OTAs a pass and offers only direct deals. Read full story.

#7- Stayzilla shifted focus to alternative stays

India based accommodation booking platform Stayzilla took a strong focus on homestays and other alternative stays options this year. With the message of ‘Make room for something new’, they are actively inviting the people to start adopting the fast approaching shared economy trend. Read full story.

#8- Marketing lessons by the industry experts

There is something seriously wrong in following the patterns. There is no one strategy that can fit all brands and the marketers should stop pushing the same buttons. Marketing experts like Taranjeet Singh, Country Business Head, Twitter India and Terrence Voon, Director, Marketing Activation, Singapore Tourism Board shared some strong pointers for promoting a travel brand. Read full story.

#9- British Airways social media blooper

British Airways made lot of news this year, social media campaigns, new Dreamliner place and more. But one social media mistake made the strongest headlines for them. British Airways got strong backlash on social media after they sent a predrafted tweet to cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and stayed for quite a while in the twitter trends. Read full story.

#10- Technologies for the road

Driverless cars, especially the Google ones were also in the headlines every now and then. If and when they come in, the travel industry will see major transformations. While we were waiting for these autonomous cars to arrive, we also listed down some other technologies that are coming to our cars soon. Read full story.

We have got lot of exciting things lined up for the year 2016 and for a start, we have already announced Startup Knockdown Mumbai and there will be more coming soon.

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With another month coming to end, we have more interesting stories to share. This month we saw some major acquisitions being announced. In a bid to go strong against Airbnb, Expedia announced the acquisition of HomeAway while Marriott announced the acquisition of Starwood Hotels to create the biggest hotel chain. We have created a round-up of some of our most popular stories this month just in case you missed them.

#1. Marriott International to acquire Starwood Hotels

With a goal to create the largest hotel company in the world, Marriott International declared to purchase Starwood Hotels and Resorts for USD 12.2 billion. Starwood is a popular brand among young travellers and has got strong reward programs. After the acquisition is complete, it will have 5500 properties and more than a million hotel rooms under 30 brands. Read the full story Marriott International to acquire Starwood to boost global presence.

#2. Predictions for industry trends from Phocuswright Conference

The industry is changing fast and with large number of experts under the same roof, events like Phocuswright Conference help us update ourselves with the trends. There were discussions about activity space, Chinese market, big data and lot more. We compiled a list of top tweets shared during the event that sum up the state of travel industry. Read the full story 9 Tweets from Phocuswright Conference that sum up the state of travel industry.

#3. Conversation with Maunik Thacker, Senior Vice President of marketing at Marina Bay Sands

In a very short time period of 5 years, the Marina Bay Sands hotel has become the top venue for business events in the region. With correct positioning and by tapping into right markets, it enjoys close to full occupancy all year round. We had a chat with Maunik Thacker who shared the secrets of hotel’s immense success. Read the full story Maunik Thacker, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Marina Bay Sands shares the hotel’s success mantra.

#4. Domestic carriers can offer ‘Zero bag’ fares

DGCA has allowed domestic carriers to roll out ‘Zero bag’ fares. Under this, they can offer discounted price for tickets for travellers who are travelling without any check-in luggage. This would also allow them to charge penalty against the baggage for tickets booked under ‘Zero bag’ fares. Read the full story New DGCA regulation allows domestic carriers to offer ‘Zero bag’ fares.

#5. British Airways receives huge backlash over Twitter

British Airways stayed on top of Twitter trends for the bad reasons. After messing up a Twitter reply to Sachin Tendulkar, widely regarded as the greatest cricketer of all time. The fans actively tweeted against British Airways for being irresponsible and giving pre-drafted replies to the star cricketer. Read the full story This tweet by British Airways to India’s God, Sachin Tendulkar has put them in Hall of Shame.

#6. Goibibo’s ex-COO joins MakeMyTrip

Soon after parting ways with Goibibo, Deepak Tuli joined MakeMyTrip as Senior Vice-President-Growth Business. He was one of the co-founders of Goibibo and was functioning as the COO with the OTA. With MakeMyTrip, he will be developing new strategies to grow business in accommodation segment. Read the full story Goibibo’s ex-COO Deepak Tuli joins MakeMyTrip as Senior VP.

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British Airways has been quite instrumental when it comes to their overall social media strategy. Some of their social campaigns across YouTube and Twitter have received love from fans not just in India but all across the globe. But as they say one bad day in the office can outshine the best of your marketing efforts and put you in the news for all the wrong reasons.

A twitter response which looks to have been made by an executive handling customer service queries for British Airways has put them in a Twitter storm all over India. Within no time, British Airways started trending in India on number 1 position.

British Airways, Trending on Number 1 position in India

It all started with this tweet by cricketing legend, Sachin Tendulkar. Naturally, he seems to be frustrated with poor response from the airline.

and then… British Airways came up with the biggest social media bloopers of all time. God save theintern!

The last thing you would expect from global twitter account of a premier airline like British Airways would be to mess with India’s sporting icon Sachin Tendulkar. As we write this, British Airways is in the middle of a twitter crisis with all sorts of hate-tweets coming in from Sachin’s fans.

Tit for Tat time

Bring back the Kohinoor someone…

.@British_Airways First you don't return kohinoor, Now @sachin_rt luggage also!! How much we should tolerate?!

— Indian Nazi (@IndianNazi) November 13, 2015

and this for a reality check!

.@British_Airways This might help. @sachin_rt pic.twitter.com/iQhyICSZ83

— Advanced Maushi (@AdvancedMaushi) November 13, 2015

On the lighter side

I appreciate the fact that British Airways will only return Sachin Tendulkar's baggage if he admits that his middle name is Ramesh.

— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) November 13, 2015

This might put a smile on the faces of even the BA team.

BREAKING:
Arvind Kejriwal writes to David Cameron, seeks control of British Airways

— The UnReal Times (@TheUnRealTimes) November 13, 2015

Mistakes can happen with anyone, and in our opinion no mistake is big or small. The key is how fast can you learn from such experiences. For all brands, the important lesson in crisis management is to always think before you formulate your tweet even if it is a response.

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Remember the days when after school, you would wait for the evening for your grandfather to take you out for a walk? Now British Airways is giving you the chance to take him for a walk along the King’s Road with its latest campaign. With the #wingstoadream contest, they are inviting you on a journey with your grandparent through the streets of London to create new memories. They are giving you a chance to live the good old times again with them.

This Wednesday, British Airways announced the addition of a new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to its fleet. It will take off for Delhi on October 25, 2015 and Delhi will be the very first city to welcome the Dreamliner across British Airways’ global network. The #wingstoadream contest is in order to celebrate this new addition to the British Airways family.

Through the #wingstoadream contest, British Airways will be giving away tickets to the winners and one of their grandparents for the first flight of the new Boeing from Delhi to London. The flight is scheduled for October 26, 2015.

The contest is pretty simple and to take part, the participants just have to share a picture of their grandparent on British Airways’ Facebook or Twitter account. The contest went live near the end of last month and they are accepting entries till the end of day today (October 5, 2015). That is a short window as they started posting about it on the evening of Sept 29 only. But then the entry process is simple so it won’t take long for you to submit your entry. One participant is allowed just one submission in the contest.

British Airways spokesperson Moran Birger, British Airways’ regional commercial manager, South Asia said: “We have been flying to India for over 90 years and continue to seek opportunities to engage with our customers in unique ways. We urge everyone in India to actively participate in this contest and have the opportunity to create everlasting memories with their grandparent.

“Delhi is the first city globally for British Airways to welcome the brand new aircraft that is fitted with a brand First cabin. We, at British Airways, are constantly looking for opportunities to provide our Indian customers excellent value for money with an unparalleled service that they have come to expect from us.”

The Boeing 787-9 is longer than the 787-8 variant thus more space inside the cabin. It also has longer flight range as compared to the 787-8. It entered commercial service last year only with All Nippon Airways followed by Air New Zealand.

You can find details of the #wingstoadream contest here. British Airways doesn’t use multiple social media accounts to cater to different countries which might have limited the reach of the contest. You can share images to their Facebook or Twitter.

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