eTravel Project

Video from iwikiphone.com

This coming October 13-14, I will be attending the 10th edition of the e-Tourism Summit at the Marriott Marquis in NYC with the Monaco Government Tourist Office. I am very excited to meet colleagues of other tourist offices across the US and share best practices. The program and the list off attendees sound interesting. I plan to tweet a lot, the hashtag for the event is #etsnyc. Follow me at www.twitter.com/etravelproject.

Interesting news from GoSeeTell Network: US/CA tourism organizations that have a presence on Twitter has grown to over 300. More than 70 destination accounts have over 1,000 followers.

For a complete list, please visit GoSeeTell.com

[youtube width="325" height="244"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcXM5LdgWp4[/youtube]

Brand: ENIT (Italian Tourist Board)

Execution: A one-minute youtube video that displays numerous Italian tourist highlights: from the Coliseum to Sicily, from Florence to Naples to name a few. ENIT (the Italian Tourist Board) commissioned a 10 million euro ($13 million) international advertising campaign called Italia Much More to reinvigorate its stagnating tourist industry and attract more international visitors.

Description: The video is divided in three parts (Rome, Venice and Naples) that can be shown separately.  Each one of these segments is introduced briefly by a specific target market (even though it does not look that clear): Rome by a group of friends, Venice by a couple, Naples by a family. At the end, the video directs people to the www.italiamuchmore.com web site, which is just a landing page where you can watch the video and where you can find the links to the US, German and British Italian tourist boards.

What We Like: Italy is Italy and every screenshot you use… It is going to be beautiful.

What We Don’t: However, there is more of what we do not like here. The video is overloaded with sequences of sightseeing that are distracting. In spite of the fact that the three different parts of the video are introduced by 1) a group of friends, 2) a couple and 3) a family, the message to the audience is diluted. The whole thing does not speak to the senses. It does not connect to any specific lifestyle since it is more “look at me and I cool I am” sort of thing rather than see what we could experience together.
The landing page where the video directs looks on the cheap and does not invite to any call to action, but displays the URLs of the markets this campaign pursues. Plus, it is not search engine friendly: the title displays ENIT (I challenge any American, German or British visitor to guess what ENIT stands for) and does not use meta description, metanames and metatags in the HTML source.

Conclusions: A wasted opportunity for Italy. Much less of the sightseeing would have been better too.

[youtube width="300" height="230"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioiECWRcD68[/youtube]

Brand: Curaçao Tourist Board

Execution: A funny television spot of  thirty seconds invites people to run away for a treasure hunt to Curaçao [pronunciation: kyur uh sow], the largest island in the Netherlands Antilles group.  The Curaçao Tourist Board is giving away seventy trips and $500,000, a real travel bailout.

Description: The 30-second video has the format of a news broadcast with an anchorman. Suddenly, people flock in front of the camera to flee for the treasure hunt and the anchorman follows as well. The headlines at the end show a web site where to go and ask for information.

What We Like: The video is funny and looks like a consumer generated streaming video. It speaks to the harsh economic situation and introduces the topic of travel – a luxury during these times – ironically. We love the clear call to action at the end of the spot and that the video can be embedded for viral marketing.

What We Don’t: It misses a bit on the branding opportunity. There is brand interaction only if people go online to www.curacaotreasure.com and fill in the form for the sweepstakes.

Conclusions: A sticky, well-executed campaign.