Tourism Authority of Thailand’s (TAT) governor Yuthasak Supasorn and Expedia Group’s director of market management Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn, yesterday signed an MoU to boost tourism to secondary cities in the country, aligned with the TAT’s direction.

As part of the MOU, the collaboration will include the sharing of traveller-centric insights and trends that will boost TAT’s capabilities to plan effective promotional campaigns to attract more travellers and encourage longer stays in Thailand.

From left: Yuthasak Supasorn (TAT) and Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn (Expedia)

Both parties are also expected to embark on joint destination marketing campaigns to spotlight Thailand’s hidden and unique tourist attractions in its secondary cities, promoting the variety of lodgings to Expedia Group’s 675-plus million monthly visitors globally.

Expedia Group will also launch key programmes in destination marketing and skills transfer to the local hospitality industry in secondary cities. Workshops for local hotel partners will include ways to leverage Expedia Group’s Partner Central platform to accelerate skills development and build revenue and hotel management capabilities among local SME hotels.

Other aspects of the cooperation include a joint corporate social responsibility campaign aimed at enhancing environmental consciousness among hotels in Thailand and reducing the use of single-use and general plastic items in their properties. This is targeted at reducing the environmental pollution and damage resulting from tourism growth.

Pimpawee said, “A large majority of accommodations in secondary cities are still primarily offline which means international travellers cannot find or book them easily. This results in missed opportunities for hoteliers, as they are not capitalising on the growth of inbound travellers.

“We will be launching a series of initiatives to educate them on the value of online distribution. They will also have access to our partner-facing tool, which allows them to effectively manage their rates and availability, online content and guest satisfaction. By improving the digital skills of the hospitality sector, we will play a pivotal role in boosting the local economy.”

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Tourism Australia has launched a new tourism promotion campaign ‘UnDiscover Australia’ in India and South East Asia specifically targeting high value travellers in India, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The campaign challenges perceptions and stereotypes of what Australia offers as a tourism destination by showcasing unusual, unfamiliar and unexpected attractions and experiences. It is being backed by Australia’s state and territory tourism organisations, airlines, and a range of other key distribution partners.

There is a website dedicated to this campaign that highlights all the different experiences travellers can have on their trip Down Under. From Places to Go, to Things to Do, and even Youth Travel, the website is a comprehensive platform for all content that anyone might require to plan their vacation. Additionally, it also has a Plan Your Trip section that lets travellers find agents who can help them book their trips.

Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tourism Australia said, “This campaign will shine a spotlight on some of our undiscovered and hidden holiday gems, showing there’s much more to an Australian holiday for Indians in addition to experiencing our well-known icons. Yes, you can watch a game of cricket at the magnificent Adelaide Oval, but are people aware that they can also do an amazing rooftop climb offering 360 views of the city? Or that there are plentiful immersive experiences amidst untouched natural landscapes in close proximity to our vibrant cities. It’s surprising experiences such as these that we will be seeking to highlight through this campaign,” he said.

The UnDiscover Australia campaign will be executed in two phases in India – September to November and January to April to coincide with the holiday planning periods for the peak travel season during the year-end and Indian summer respectively. The campaign will also be amplified during the India’s cricket tour of Australia.

India is currently Australia’s fastest growing market for arrivals and spend, achieving a fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth. Arrivals from India to Australia grew by 19.6% for the year ended June 2018 with an influx of 335,100 visitors, compared to same period last year, making India the 8th largest inbound market for Australia.

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With international inbound to Turkey looking up once again, Turkey will be rigorously reactivating its trade engagements in emerging markets like China and India. Starting from September, Turkish Tourism will embark on a series of promotional campaigns and destination marketing activities in Indian market. This is in sync with the 100-day Action Plan unveiled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month aimed at transforming Turkey economically. In the tourism sector, the Action Plan has set a target of 40 million international inbound by end of this year.

Foreign tourist arrivals in the first six months of 2018 increased by 30% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching around 16 million, as per official statistics. Tourism revenue in the first six months of this year rose from USD 8.7 billion to USD 11.4 billion.

The 100-day Action Plan underscores the importance of emerging markets like India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., said H Deniz Ersoz, Culture & Tourism Counsellor, Embassy of Republic of Turkey in India. The tourism department has been asked to undertake dedicated activities in these markets to increase the inbound from these emerging markets, he added. He said that these markets are important for Turkish Tourism for “diversification of products” as unlike European visitors who are more “sun and sand” oriented, visitors from these markets are keen on exploring the life and culture of the country.

Talking about plans for the India market, Ersoz said that Turkish Tourism hasn’t done much in the market since last couple of years other than attending few important trade exhibitions. However, starting from September, Turkish Tourism will start joint promotional campaigns with leading tour companies in the country. This will include some dedicated special campaigns to attract the weddings market, he said. Turkish Tourism is also in the process of finalising two roadshows series in October and November this year covering major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and few Tier-II cities. The tourism agency will also conduct three familiarisation tours in 2018, Ersoz said. While one will be dedicated to wedding planners, other two will be for corporates and media. MICE, he said, is a key segment and there has already been big group movements to Turkey from India.

India inbound to Turkey grew 100% between January and June this year compared to the corresponding period last year. “We hope this year will be best year as far as visitor numbers are concerned from India. We are hoping to receive two lakh Indian visitors this year,” Ersoz said. The highest Indian numbers to Turkey was in 2015 with 1.32 lakh visitors. “Around 15 big Indian weddings are confirmed in 2018,” he informed.

“Our focus is to showcase Turkey beyond Istanbul. The messaging would be to look beyond Istanbul.” Ersoz said that 90% of the hotels on the Mediterranean coast work on all-inclusive packages. This is yet not known in India market. Therefore, efforts would be to make this messaging spread across the trade in India.

Commenting on the Turkey-India bilateral on tourism, he said that effort is on to revive the Joint Working Group mechanism on tourism between the two countries. He said that the last meeting of the group was held in 2006. “I had meetings with Ministry of Tourism officials in India on reviving the mechanism to explore scope of mutual cooperation in tourism. We are exploring a (Joint Working Group) JWG meeting in Istanbul sometime in October- November this year,” he added.

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In a bid to attract travellers to God’s Own Country during the famed monsoon season, the Kerala Tourism Board has rolled out a quirky campaign, ‘Come Out and Play’. With a focus on tapping tourists from potential domestic markets, including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi & NCR, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal, Kerala Tourism is leaving no stone unturned to woo travellers.

The objective of the campaign is to divest vacationers of their ‘career selves’, their ‘formal adultness’ and their preoccupation with devices, careers and the routine of everyday life. The campaign idea mainly focuses on ‘play’ in the context of families, and in-turn it reconnects them. Based on this idea, a television, and print campaign has also been conceptualized.

In order to promote the campaign and bring more travellers to its shore during summer holidays, Kerala Tourism has been utilizing various promotional tools in the best possible way. Besides TV and print campaign in the national markets, the campaign has been running in cinemas across the target markets along with radio and digital campaign.

A social media contest is also running simultaneously across their platforms, where willing participants are being asked to engage in any outdoor activity like hopping on one leg, slow cycling and crossing a log bridge, and posting the same on social media with the hashtag – #ComeOutandPlay. Lucky winners are being rewarded with campaign merchandise as well.

Kerala Tourism has also expanded the promotion activities by way of mall branding and taxi branding in West Asian countries. In countries like Singapore and Malaysia, promotional activities including out-of-home and airport mall branding have been carried out. A report, which talks about the culture, heritage and traditional cuisine of Kerala, also mentions the authentic Ayurvedic treatments available in the state, which becomes an add-on to the state’s existing tourism promotions.

Kerala had garnered Rs 8,392.11 crore as revenue from close to 11 lakh foreign tourists who visited last year. The state had also hosted approximately 61 lakh tourists during monsoon season in 2017, which was an increase of 5 lakh travellers over the monsoon season of 2016.

Over the years, the state has managed to trump most others in the country through its plethora of unique and inspirational campaigns. Kerala’s performance across social media channels has also remained impressive, with it adding another feather in its cap by bagging first place in a ranking done by Facebook based on total engagement with tourists that included reactions, shares and comments on the page. Kerala Tourism’s activity has been focused and proactive, and it has been able to keep travellers from India and abroad engaged with interesting and innovative posts on various projects and activities undertaken by the department.

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The onset of 1st April every year presents an opportunity for brands to ‘trick’ their consumers with generous doses of mischief and pranks through humorous and almost-believable campaigns. Brands capitalize on the event with many things – ranging from fake products and offers, to contests and basically anything that would help them with engagement.

This year was no different, as many brands jumped into the fray with some unique and clever deceptions. We bring to you a list of all the major April Fools Day campaigns from travel brands on social media this year.

Ixigo’s special ‘kavach’

Ixigo is one company that has never shied away from making a fool out of consumers on this special occasion. Over the years, they have mastered the art of deception and this year, they went a step ahead by announcing the launch of a new smart lock for travellers called Ixigo Kavach. Apparently, this smart lock automatically gave thieves electric shocks when pilfered bags were taken more than 5 meters away from their owners.

The brand didn’t wait for April 1 to announce the campaign, and instead tweeted the launch on March 29, making it all the more believable. While most people were smart to catch on to the fact that this might be a joke, the brand was lauded for its hilarious efforts.

Ola’s fake news

Ola has had some of the most elaborate pranks. In 2015, it claimed to launch a helicopter service called Ola Air, while in 2016 it had said it had launched Ola Rooms, a concept through which people could sleep in cabs. This year, Ola announced the launch of Ola News Network, or ONN, which it called India’s fastest news-on-the-go. It said ONN would utilize Ola’s driver partner network to report news, and that its drivers would double up as news reporters.

Ola was consistent with its posts on social media regarding the launch and people were quite happy to finally see some real on-ground reportage. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Oyo’s cryptic moves

Hospitality giant Oyo went all out with the blockchain theme by announcing the launch of its very own cryptocurrency called Oyo Smart Coin, which would be used by its vendors, hotels and customers to seamlessly conduct transactions among themselves. Oyo even had a dedicated site and whitepaper for Oyo Smart Coin. They even had a registration forum with people lining up to get their hands on the latest currency. Kudos to the efforts at making the prank so elaborate and detailed.

Zoomcar’s home-like caravans

Zoomcar was yet another company that tricked people into believing that they had started rentals of caravan-like vehicles. With a promotional video and a hashtag #Zoomcaravan, the brand urged people to try out its latest offering and take the caravan around places, sleep in forests or the foothills of mountains, banks of lakes or unending tea gardens. One glance at the replies and it is evident that people fell for the ruse, with most consumers asking Zoomcar for details and showing excitement about the launch.

Emirates’ sky views

This prank from Emirates was as big and elaborate as anyone would rightly expect from the Middle-Eastern airline. They announced a new ‘SkyLounge’ – part of a plane where the entire cabin is windows. The airline posted renderings of the lounge to show how it would look like from inside and outside.

The announcement was no more than just a prank and even came with a punchline: the SkyLounge will be introduced on the “Boeing 777X fleet.” Emirates is known to share pranks on April 1st. Even last year, the airline pranked internet users with its life-changing plan to launch the world’s first triple-decker that will feature a swimming pool, game room, gym and a park.

Also read: These travel brands are raising the bar for April Fool’s Day pranks.

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Majority of Indians kickstart the final month of the year with festivities, music, and a pristine location that we’ve all become so familiar with – Goa. While everybody loves the popular beach town, not many people know their way around it. Latching on to this insight, budget hotel-room aggregator OYO launched its #StayYourWay campaign, creating a handy guide to give visitors to Goa a uniquely beautiful bird’s eye perspective of one the world’s best-loved beach destination.
OYO has partnered with award-winning London-based illustrator, designer and artist, Rod Hunt Illustration, to create an interactive map that is part information and part art. When a traveller chooses to #StayYourWay in Goa, they can navigate their way using this interactive map, explore Goa’s best-kept secrets that are just a few strides away, and also find a stay at the nearest OYO Home, another category that the aggregator has launched this year.

To boost the campaign’s reach, OYO launched a couple of contests for its followers across social media platforms. By answering a few simple questions about Goa and its locales, participants stand a chance to win many prizes, including the coveted iPhone X.

The interactive map has been chalked out in much detail and is easy to navigate. Irrespective of whether you are familiar with the city or not, the map provides a much-needed guide of popular eateries and beaches. The main focus of the map, however, is on the more than 500 OYO Homes that dot the entire coastline. With this, the company has done well to tap into the growing number of travellers who now prefer homestays that offer a local flavour of the destination in terms of cuisine, experiences and location.

Apart from the map, OYO has also published blogs, as part of the campaign to familiarize people with Goa, and lay out detailed description of their properties. The company’s proposition to help travellers stay on their own terms by choosing between a variety of OYO Homes – from a rustic farmhouse to a beach-facing villa – not just serves as the perfect starting point to know Goa a little better but also strikes the perfect chord with millennial travellers. Additionally, to make the most out of this place, OYO has also prepared an itinerary of sorts that lists out things people can do in their properties.

While theoretically the campaign seems well-planned across platforms, covering all the essential touchpoints, social media traction paints a slightly different picture. OYO’s posts have received a lot of ‘likes’ on Facebook, but the comparative engagement on the contests is lower. These numbers are even lower on Twitter and Instagram. The content on posts is too verbose and doesn’t appeal in a way that would pull people to participate. So, while OYO has done its best to put out as much information as possible, the content doesn’t do justice to the idea.

Nevertheless, the map remains the highlight of the campaign and serves well to paint a very helpful picture of India’s favourite holiday destination. What do you think?

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Today, most of the travellers look up for images & videos to get a sense of the real beauty of a destination. The use of visuals is a vital component in any travel brand’s marketing strategy to showcase how they are different. With over a billion users, YouTube videos are now being watched for hundreds of millions of hours generating billions of views every single day. From DMOs to Hotels to OTAs there are some classic case-studies on how the travel industry is using YouTube for customer engagement.

We’ve filtered out 5 of the most awesome YouTube travel campaigns in 2015 that stand out for their creativity, content and virality elements.

1) Singapore Invites: Singapore Tourism Board

Singapore Tourism Board came up with a unique travel campaign called ‘Singapore Invites’ which gave people an opportunity to live their Singapore dream. To win a dream experience in Singapore, the interested participants had to share the names of the persons they wanted to invite and how they wish to experience the destination with them. STB would then assist 25 wished to come true! This campaign was quite successful. You can read more the campaign here.

2) Countryside is great: Visit Britain

To attract travellers from around the world, British Tourist Authority had collaborated with national parks, The Forestry Commission, The Canal and River Trust, Hertz Cars and many other national tourist boards to run its £3 million ‘Countryside is GREAT’ campaign. It showcased the different regions of Britain, where to find great experiences and how to reach there. As per an article, the digital and print campaign reached 15 million people in Germany and 65 million in USA.

3) A different Paris: Airbnb

Airbnb, the alternative stay platform had joined hands with TBWA/Singapore in September last year for its YouTube commercial ‘A Different Paris’ to target Asian travellers. The ad which was shot in Sydney, showed a young Asian woman reminiscing her last visit to the French capital. Three different versions of the ad were released on the YouTube channel of Airbnb, garnering a combined total of 1937055 views.

4) A week in Turkey: Home Turkey

‘Turkey: Home’  campaign was carried out by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism to promote the country and grab the attention of international tourists. This digital campaign ran successfully on multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Instead, its Facebook page was chosen the “Best Branded Facebook Page” as the campaign had reached 4 million subscribers on all social media platforms.

5) Benfica safety video: Emirates

Flight attendants from Emirates in this YouTube video, just demonstrate that sometimes travel brands can go on a completely different route to engage with their online audience. Minutes before the soccer match b/w Benfica & Sporting Lisbon at Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, 8 crew members from Emirates walked on the pitch for mock pre-match instructions in a manner similar to the flight safety announcement. Released towards the end of October 2015, the video has over 2,000,000 views till now.

You can find more interesting campaigns by travel brands here.

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