Even through all the massive upheavals and changes of the last few years, the creativity of the tourism industry could not be curbed. Museums and attractions continue to adapt, excel, and dazzle. The most innovative tourism marketing campaigns don’t just succeed in selling tickets to one particular venue or event. They set the tone for the future of the entire industry.
Here are some of our favorite marketing moments of the past few years, and the biggest themes we’re seeing in tourism marketing in general. If you’re looking for ideas for your own tourism campaigns, we hope you’ll consider these to be inspirations.
Tourism campaign theme #1: Back in action!
When the pandemic began in 2020, museum attendance dropped by 77% worldwide. Even as visitors eagerly returned to the world of travel and adventure, it wasn’t always as easy as simply saying “Welcome back!”
People were (and to some extent, still are) nervous about their health and safety, so the brands and venues addressing concerns head-on have an advantage. They send a reassuring message that they have the wellbeing of visitors in mind.
Here are two of the best late-pandemic tourism campaigns that addressed safety and wellbeing:
1. Israel’s “Welcome Back to Israel!” tourism campaign
Israel isn’t just a country with thousands of years of rich cultural history. Early on in the pandemic, the country distinguished itself as one of the most vaccinated on the planet.
While this campaign video, with its upbeat background track, shows people enjoying themselves, you’ll note that they’re conspicuously outside: at the beach, rollerblading, walking through marketplaces and historical sites. There’s no beating around the bush with this message.
The narrator notes that Israel is “one of the safest destinations in the world,” offering fully vaccinated people a “green passport” so they can freely enter indoor spaces and return home without quarantining.
2. New York City’s “NYC Reawakens” tourism campaign
In this earnest video, NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon and restaurateur Danny Meyer talk candidly about New York City’s return to tourism. The city that was hit hard in the early days of the pandemic is “re-awakening all around us” and “very much alive and thriving,” according to Dixon.
The video shows fast-paced clips of people on the streets, on the subway, and in restaurant parklets, with a special focus on welcoming back international visitors: “We’re going to show them a whole new side of New York they never even knew existed!”Make it your own: The pandemic is not over, but cities, countries, museums, and attractions that have the right policies in place are safely welcoming back visitors who’ve been cooped up for a long time. Don’t shy away from this subject in your marketing campaign. While these examples are about entire places, even the smallest venue can take advantage of the “welcome back” theme.
Tourism campaign theme #2: Escapism
Look, it’s been stressful. We’ve all slogged through the last few years. You deserve to unwind! So, what do you want? This is the question asked at the beginning of Greece’s recent tourism marketing campaign.
3. Greece’s “All You Want Is Greece” tourism campaign
The question is asked, and the answer is supplied: “All you want is Greece.” Hedonism is given the respect it deserves in a series of five short videos promoting the many beauties of this Mediterranean country.
Make it your own: Having fun and getting away from it all will never go out of style, but in a time when we’ve all been suffering just a little more than usual, it’s a particularly apt marketing message. Emphasize the ways in which your venue helps visitors escape – either because they get lost in the fun or because you offer a serious opportunity for R&R.
Tourism campaign theme #3: Climate action!
Fun is great, but what we do today affects tomorrow. This is an environmental truth, but it’s also the first line of a moving marketing campaign video from Scotland, one of a handful of recent tourism campaigns tackling the theme of environmental awareness and respect for the land.
4. Scotland’s “Yours to Enjoy. Responsibly” tourism marketing campaign
“Let’s keep Scotland special,” urges the narrator of this peaceful video, which urges the visitor to “Take only pictures, and leave only footprints,” while simultaneously showing the visual splendor of the northern country and its culture.
5. Portugal’s “Hello World – It’s Me, Tomorrow” tourism marketing campaign
A hopeful-sounding child’s voice opens this video about the beauty of Portugal’s landscape – its patterns and textures, and its hues “from blue to green, and all the colors in between” – as the camera pans over stunning vistas.
Make it your own: While tourism campaigns have historically been about the visitor experience, these examples pivot to being about the land, and their message is a beautiful one.
Environmentalism isn’t just a trendy marketing theme; it’s extremely important to the tourism industry. Marketing campaigns that are transparent about this fact win points with travelers for being candid and real.
At the same time, you don’t have to make a hard sell about coming to visit. Just offer a glorious glimpse at what a visit now and in the future could be like.
Tourism campaign theme #4: Irreverence and humor
We collectively spend more time online than ever in history and let’s face it, we could all use a good laugh. Why not take advantage of these fundamental properties of being human in the 2020s?
Social media is obviously one of the best ways to promote your attraction on a budget and reach a potentially enormous audience, but to attract attention in a crowded online space, you need a creative idea.
6. The Black Country Living Museum’s TikTok tourism marketing strategy
TikTok lends itself to irreverence, and the Black Country Living Museum is good at TikTok. The museum in the historic Black Country of Dudley, England, often teaches mini history lessons with actors dressed in Victorian garb juxtaposed against modern hip-hop music.
7. The Met’s “MetTwinning” tourism marketing campaign
There’s been a social trend recently of people imitating classic works of art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (“The Met”) capitalized on this rage with its #MetTwinning social media campaign.
The campaign has been very successful, and The Art Newspaper commended the Met for using smart marketing to gain hundreds of thousands of followers and a huge bump in engagement throughout the lockdown days of the pandemic. Other museums, like the Getty Museum, followed suit.
Make it your own: Social media is the ideal forum for irreverent, humorous tourism marketing strategy, and it can be quite low effort in terms of production cost to produce fun original content. Lean into the more social-savvy members of your team for original ideas for fresh content.
8. The Royal Ontario Museum’s Tinder experiment
Gaining a younger audience is a priority for a lot of museums, and the Royal Ontario Museum cracked the code with their Teddy the T Rex campaign on Tinder.
To promote the museum’s Friday Night Live event (#FNLROM), the marketers in charge signed Teddy up for a pretty cute dating profile with a bio that began: “I’m a prehistoric, bipedal carnivore from the Cretaceous period with a big head and short arms…” It was a great PR stunt on a novel social platform.
Make it your own: You might be giving it your all on the core social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, but there are other digital places and spaces where younger audiences congregate. Apps like Tinder have huge built-in audiences. Look for innovative ways to take advantage of them.
Tourism campaign theme #5: Podcasting
Podcasts have become a mainstream media platform for all kinds of subject matter, from true crime to science to storytelling. And podcasting makes a great marketing campaign since its inherent format – dropping episodes weekly or monthly and teasing them as they go – is a natural fit for long-term marketing.
9. The International Spy Museum’s SpyCast podcast
Washington DC has a lot of great museums, but one of the coolest (and most unique) is the International Spy Museum, devoted to documenting the tradecraft, history, and contemporary role of espionage.
Puns make great podcast titles, but this podcast goes way beyond a quippy name. Another Washington DC museum, the National Gallery of Art, podcasts an exploration of where sight and sound meet, focusing on artwork within the museum’s collection and how we experience that art through our own human senses.
In one recent episode, Mexican guitarist Sonia De Los Santos performs her song “Sueña,” an ode to the beauty and necessity of dreams for the future, as she is inspired by the Renoir masterpiece Young Spanish Woman with a Guitar.
Make it your own: All it really takes to launch a podcast is a little bit of relatively inexpensive recording equipment, but the museums that seem to have the most podcast panache start with a unique, thematic idea and take it from there.
Tourism campaign theme #6: Gaming
In marketing speak, gamification means “turning marketing into a fun game.” A lot of museums and other types of attractions have begun to incorporate gaming into their marketing to appeal to younger people reared on video games. And they’re winning.
11. The Louvre’s “Time Princess: Story Traveller” collaboration
Imagine traveling back in time to interact with the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo.
Gamers travel to a historical era, interact with historical women of note, try on clothes and jewelry inspired by the artworks in the museum, and learn about the museum’s treasures along the way.
12. The Australian National Maritime Museum’s online game
“The year is 1830. You’re the Surgeon Superintendent aboard a convict vessel transporting its human cargo from Britain to the far reaches of the known world – Van Diemen’s Land. You’re charged with delivering several hundred convicts to the colony in the shortest time with minimum loss of life. This is the way to make money and further your reputation and position. Are you up to the task?”
The Australian National Maritime Museum honors the culture of the sea that surrounds this island nation, serving as custodians of historic vessels and a cultural hub for Australian maritime heritage and contemporary stories of the sea.
Their online game The Voyage helps tell the story of early 19-century convict voyages from the UK and Ireland. When the game was launched in 2016, over 63K people played the game that year, and UK schools adopted the game for educational purposes — talk about getting in front of a younger audience. And you can still play the game today!
Make it your own: Gamification is daunting for a lot of museum marketers because it takes some technical chops. Be like the Louvre and team up with an existing app or another technology partner to bring the idea to life. Your brand plus their technology know-how could be a beautiful marketing partnership.
Tourism campaign theme #7: Civic pride
Civic pride is a huge motivator for people to go out, and some tourism campaigns focus almost exclusively on attracting locals.
13. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan’s “Tie-Dye July” campaign
In New York City, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan partnered with Rit Dye and Bombas to invite local families to “Tie-Dye July” events.
Every Saturday in July 2021, families were invited to come make a tie-dye creation to take home – a nice way to support local families who’ve been cooped up for a long time, and a smart way to loop in partners with deeper marketing pockets.
14. The New York Historical Society’s “History Responds” campaign
Just a few blocks away, the New York Historical Society has been curating an ongoing exhibit collecting materials related to the COVID pandemic, with a focus on New York that’s dear to the hearts of local citizens.
As part of its “History Responds” initiative, the museum reached out to New Yorkers for seemingly mundane artifacts such as flyers that reference the pandemic, COVID-19-related mass emails, face masks with slogans, and protest signs. This ambitious effort has been praised in the press, including the New York Times and ArtNet News.
Make it your own: What makes your museum or attraction important specifically to locals? Play up the exhibits, events, and aspects of your brand that are particular to a place. Hosting events specifically for locals, and offering locals a discount or other special perks, are all ways to engender the loyalty of the people nearby.
Tourism campaign theme #8: Virtual visits
Finally, one of the biggest themes to emerge in museum marketing over the last few years has been the virtual visit. When visitors can’t get to you, well, go to them! A lot of museums have done this really well over the last few years, and Tiqets actually listed 90 of them in a 2020 post.
15. Keukenhof Gardens’ video series “Keukenhof Virtually Open”
A great example of bringing an in-person experience to screens around the world: the Keukenhof Flower Exhibit, which spotlights the springtime beauty of the colorful tulip fields of the Netherlands.
Make it your own:
Any museum or attraction with photogenic subject matter can put itself on virtual display. It just takes some decent video chops and a socialmedia audience to share with. Videos work well on a large variety of mediums, from YouTube to social media to email newsletters, so they tend to give a lot of bang for the marketing buck.
These are just a few of the dominant themes of tourism campaigns of the last few years. Will your museum, attraction, or tourism agency make next year’s list?
