The companies and organisations associated with the product clubs of the Costa Brava Girona Tourism Board are fully committed to promoting the region by actively participating in visit and discovery programmes for travel opinion leaders and professionals.
In just two months — May and June — the Costa Brava Girona Tourist Board organised and took part in 27 familiarisation trips to showcase the destination’s tourism offering. These actions were aimed at more than eighty professionals from travel agencies and event planning, journalists from the media and digital content creators from eleven countries. For its implementation, occasional support was provided by the Catalan Tourism Board and Turespaña.
The success of this vast promotional activity has been a direct reflection of a hospitality and tourist services sector that is fully aligned with the organisation’s strategy. The involvement of the associate members has gone far beyond logistical collaboration: they have pro actively opened the doors of their establishments, personalised the experiences and offered a fabric of top-quality services that highlights the true value of the destination. This solid public-private partnership has proven to be the true driving force for our brand in handling the different types of scheduled travel:
Creation of digital content and new narratives
The Girona province hosted the visits of numerous digital content creators that developed blog trip programmes focused on the destination with the goal of producing quality, segmented and current content for their followers. Highlights include visits from content creators Pedro Correia (Specialised in culture, landscape and local products) and from the instagrammers @Pasea_Madrid (specialised in culture and history, with 365 thousand followers), @Marta Abril (focused on proposals and experiences for families, with 474 thousand followers) and @LaiaCebrian (specialized in trips and a healthy lifestyle, with 192 thousand followers). At the same time, a specific programme was developed for the authors of the portal of cycling routes Komoot.com to create content about the Pyrenexus Route and the Ecovies, among others.
Impact on traditional and high-audience media
As for press trips, several journalists from local media outlets —Viajar, Travel Photo Magazine, Revista Travelling and the newspapers ABC and La Vanguardia—, as well as international ones —MountainBike Magazine, Bold The Magazine, Blick Reisen, Mountain Reporters, etc.—, carried out tailor-made programmes to produce articles and features focusing primarily on active and sporting tourism activities, to gain first-hand insight into the destination’s cultural offerings and wine and food proposals, as well as the nautical offerings of the Costa Brava or authentic experiences in the Girona Pyrenees.
Among these, two major television productions stand out: the national programme “Viajeros Cuatro”, and the German cooking reality show “Kitchen Impossible”. Special mention should be made of the 80-page feature on the destination that the Czech travel and tourism magazine, Zeme Svêta, will publish in September.
Direct marketing and professional market
Finally, as for the fam trips, eleven trips were organised for international travel agents and tour operators, bringing around forty programming professionals to the destination. Three of the trips focused on showcasing the Costa Brava’s golf offering to tour operators; Two were aimed at executives from high-end travel agencies – Kensington Tours and Unique Hideaways– and the MICE fam trip in cooperation with Turespaña’s offices in the Nordic countries is highlighted. Finally, the visit to the Costa Brava by eight travel agents from the United Kingdom and Scotland is highlighted; they took the opportunity of their stay to participate in a profitable investment workshop.
The impact of this intense activity translates into an excellent return on investment for the province. On the one hand, an immediate brand ROI is achieved through high-level prescribing in traditional and digital media, which guarantees high organic visibility and reinforces the territory’s reputation. On the other hand, the action generates a direct ROI in marketing and in increasing bookings in the medium to long term.
