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The effort kicks off in January 2016 across New York and Los Angeles with a digital and print campaign leading the push
Run by the United Kingdom’s national tourism agency while launched in New York on 16 December 2015 by the country’s Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, the ‘Home of Amazing Moments’ campaign—an extension of the GREAT Britain push—debuted at a reception which welcomed key US tourism trade and industry representatives.
Aiming to harness the impact of social media to inspire more visitors to explore Britain as a ‘great’ holiday destination, the complementary VisitBritain movement will employ print and digital components to deliver on the campaign’s brief to promote UK travel as well as the promise of unforgettable experiences.
The marketing exercise endeavours to captivate the imagination via personalised snapshots of special moments which evoke a sense of ‘being there’. The main objective of the drive is to encourage travellers to share the said experiences with friends, family, and their social audiences.
Meanwhile, the overall effort formally kicks off in the United States in January 2016 across New York and Los Angeles with the aforementioned digital and print campaign set to stir up a buzz over unique encounters which vacationers can only experience while on a trip to Britain.
This first phase aims to drive visitors to a website featuring images, cinema-graphs, and videos which can be shared digitally using the hashtag #OMGB (Oh My Great Britain). Participants stand to win an English getaway to Bath and stay in a historic Scottish castle. Social media influencers have also been engaged.
The initiative’s corresponding leg beginning in April welcomes netizens to upload their own encounters from past vacations in Britain to VisitBritain’s Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook channels using the hashtag above. The brand has more than three million Facebook fans, 300,000 Twitter followers, and over 175,000 Instagram subscribers.
Its research published in November found that 84 percent of the Americans surveyed used social media to plan a trip, while 70 percent said content posted online by friends inspired them to visit a place. The study also indicated that people were eager to share content if there was a high chance it would get recognised and promoted.
Further findings from the survey reflected that personal recommendations scored top out of 22 options over what influenced or inspired US respondents about where to go on holiday, and were considered more influential than travel brochures, special offers or advertising.
More than just an ideal tourist spot, the campaign also seeks to showcase the very best of what Britain has to offer as a place to both study and do business. America is the nation’s largest and most valuable inbound visitor market. In 2014, it saw almost three million visits from the U.S. and a record spend of £2.9 billion.
With more than 27 million visits to Britain between January and September, a 3% increase compared to the previous year, first nine months of 2015 have broken previous records. Tourism is Britain’s seventh largest export industry and third largest service sector. Inbound tourism is worth more than £26 billion to the UK economy.
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