Flanders Holidaying Country

How we persuaded Flemings to put their own region on the travel bucket list.

Creative concept

Content strategy

Campaign development

PR

Social & influencer marketing

Content production

Digital production & development

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The challenge: No need to look too far.

Flanders. A great place to live. But going on holiday there? Well, would we not rather go for a weekend in the Champagne region?

Within the heart of Europa, and surrounded by other major travel magnets, it is not easy to persuade Flemings that ‘close by’ can be really great too. Yet, national tourism is a crucial source of income for the Flemish travel industry. Just try and keep that income up in a fiercely competitive industry, and when you know that a return flight to Barcelona will only set you back EUR 29.99. And then, all of a sudden, we were hit by the COVID crisis… Our biggest competitor was no longer Barcelona, but ‘staycation-at-home’.

Our approach: A completely new way of looking at things and a huge amount of content.

Firstly: To persuade people that it can also be ‘WOW’ here. To work on that underdog position. There is no reason whatsoever to underestimate Flanders as a holiday destination.

Secondly: A well-thought-out content and marketing approach. Travel happens on-line. So, you need a presence there. Even as a public organisation. Content. Every day. Concrete, and ready-to-consume inspiration. Making friends by adopting a friendly tone of voice. After all, your friends will come back time and time again. Ensuring that you can be found by the search engines when people feel that first spark of inspiration. Always ON. Engaging the industry itself to act as your prime ambassadors. And thus to sculp the Holidaying Region of Flanders into one friendly and leading brand for all your holidays in your home country.

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The campaign: #welcomeback!

Tourism without tourism? No fun at all. #Welcomeback. #We have missed you. We launched a major poster campaign combined with an emotional television advert (thank you, singer-songwriter Ibe for the music and Wim Opbrouck for the vocals) to let the whole of Flanders know that the entire tourism industry was ready to welcome everybody back - fan or no fan. The industry shared this message on a huge scale. During the ensuing summer, we bombarded anyone who was fed up to the teeth because they had not had their holiday with large-scale tailor-made content. Even potential customers who would normally book a standard package holiday with waterslides and flumes, or those who would only go for the trendiest places, were shown the way towards the perfect holiday offer. Weekly e-mailing, SEA strategy, target group segmentation, getting influencers on board, PR, radio, television, media partnerships, and content creation in collaboration with all the tourism services in Flanders. Even on the French-speaking side (Destination la Flandre!). We used data dashboards to monitor the campaign on a daily basis. That is how we forecast the intention to travel, and we adjust the campaigns accordingly.

Results: Plans to travel in Flanders are on the up.

Year upon year, we note a rise in the branded search for Flanders as a holiday destination. This shows that people have changed their mindset. Unfortunately, foreign tourists have stayed away during the past COVID crisis, but more than 32% of home-grown tourists have compensated for that to some extent this summer. But the most striking and sustainable fact is that the travel plans of Flemings are going in the right direction. More and more tourists are also saying that they will continue to travel in their own country in the future.