[F]ollowing the success of last Winter’s Campaign to help boost visitor numbers by promoting Cumbria as an all-year-round destination, Cumbria Tourism – the county’s official destination organisation – is planning to launch its major winter marketing campaign for 2017/18.
In just 5 months between November 2016 and March 2017 the previous campaign reached a combined audience of 25 million. This included a social media following of over 18 million and over 1 million newsletters sent to our customer database.
This Winter – and with two World Heritage sites – Cumbria now has an even more compelling message to help attract visitors to explore the county as an all-year-round visitor destination during the traditionally quieter months.
The campaign will officially launch on 1 November 2017, running through until mid-March 2018 supporting the trade through to the crucial Easter holidays. The aim is to showcase the wide range of events and attractions people can enjoy throughout the winter, by sharing content, images and itineraries to inspire staycations and drum home the message that visitors are welcome at any time of year.
Cumbria Tourism is working with Cactus Creative on the visuals, to incorporate the new World Heritage Site status and build upon the success of its award-winning #theplacetobe campaign which has been promoting the Lake District, Cumbria, nationally and internationally.
They have also are also confirmed the return of ‘Love Cumbria’ the Winter Rewards Card offering a string of discounts at popular tourist attractions, cafes, restaurants and activities. The card will be promoted and available to buy through Cumbria Tourism’s golakes website, PR & media, digital marketing, print and press partnerships. In addition to this, businesses will be given the opportunity to benefit from the card scheme and sell the Love Cumbria card for themselves, or offer the card as a gift to their customers when making a booking.
Other key elements of Cumbria Tourism’s five-month winter marketing campaign will include:
- An engaging winter breaks section on the destination website golakes, which attracts 5 million web users annually. This will include a range of tailored itineraries which Cumbria Tourism members can download and use for their own marketing activity.
- New media partnerships with key national publications
- A series of targeted e-newsletters to Cumbria Tourism’s visitor database of 168,000+ people.
- Complimentary messaging to Cumbria Tourism’s 237,000+ followers on social media.
- Complimentary PR activity as part of our ongoing work with VisitEngland.
Jim Walker, Managing Director of Cumbria Tourism says; “Our 2016/17 winter campaign was in essence a pilot but thanks to wide support from tourism businesses it reached a combined audience of 25 million and invited them to visit, or become aware of our brilliant all year-round visitor destination. Winter months can be more challenging for tourism businesses and this campaign, designed on behalf of our 2,500 members, offers practical marketing support to boost business through to Easter 2018. Importantly, winter business strengthens the Cumbrian economy and sustains more year round employment for our residents.”
Further details about Cumbria Tourism’s winter marketing campaign will be announced in the coming weeks.
