2012 best marketing award entry

Transcription

1 2012 best marketing award entry Amber & Relax Castle & Adventure Sea & Emotions GDAŃSK CONVENTION BUREAU

2 Introduction to our Challenge Where did it all start? What were the challenges? The annual reports on local meetings industry run by Gdansk Convention Bureau showed that every year the volume of business meetings in Gdansk was raising (from 1434 meetings in 2009 to 3223 in 2010). There are more and more conferences, congresses and incentives held in Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia, known collectively as Tri-City or Gdansk and Pomerania Region. So do reveal ICCA and UIA reports. The number was big but still not enough comparing to other Polish secondary cities. Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw were developing faster. Gdansk Convention Bureau when trying to find a reason for this trend asked Partners (DMC companies, PCO, meeting planners) why are we getting more and more recognized destination? What happened within past two years? What was our strongest argument to invite meeting planners? Is it just the economy that made secondary cities more popular? As a convention bureau we were more than happy to see the trend but we needed to find a reason for the growth and use it in our campaigns and most important activities to strengthen Gdansk among the competitors. The research between our Partners showed that meeting planners are getting really demanding. We went through all the BIDs we lost lately and looked for a reason. We studied our Baltic and Central European destination competitors. Also domestic ones. We knew that associations and corporates do not only look for a good conference facilities. Especially when we're all experiencing tough economic situations. They need destination that offers them more than just a proper service. We asked ourselves: What do we bring to the business? How good is our service? Are we innovative enough? We needed to make planners sure that Gdansk & Region is not only a fantastic meeting destination offering professional conference and hotel facilities our goal was to make sure that delegates and visitors not only learn something in Gdansk but they also feel, experience and taste the City. We had to differ from our competitors. Find our unique selling points and these needed to be unique in the eyes of the customer not just us. We often tend to think that USP are obvious for everyone but it's not true. GDAŃSK Meeting planners do not know all secondary cities. They usually assign Gdansk with rich history, Solidarity movement and Poland but that's it. We understood that the only way we can promote destination right was to make our activities more consistent and build an image of Gdansk more coherent. 1+1 > 2? Synergy - WHY NOT? We cannot promote every venue, DMC, PCO separately. Gdansk Convention Bureau gathers over 110 professional enterprises. What we could do is build the environment to cooperate and create offers based on Gdansk&Region uniqueness. One of our aims was to involve GCB partners (both public and private ones, hotels, conference venues, PCO, DMC and others) in our marketing and promotional strategy, following principle that we all work for Gdansk & Region success.

3 Objectives To achieve our goals we had a very collaborative approach. We talked to the industry. Convention bureau team and its Partners went through hundreds of Incentive Offers, Conference social Programmes, top conventions that took place in Gdansk. We created a regional dialogue to understand better how we can promote Gdansk from the City, venues, providers and clients perspective. We noticed that certain elements/motives of Gdansk/Region are promoted every time. After brainstorming with our partners we chosen four most characteristic products connected with Gdansk & Region. These became our unique selling points: SOPOT GDYNIA Amber - a fossilized tree resin sap, which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Not without a reason Gdansk is a European and World Capital of Amber. You can find it in jewellery, fashion, history and art. Amber is one of the most desirable and recognized souvenirs from Gdansk. Sea not every destination can be proud of its seaside location. Quite a number of Gdansk & Region attractions are connected to the Baltic Sea and its wide sandy beaches (cruises, diving, regatta, ship races, VIP dinners at spit, etc.). Solidarity - social movement, (1980s) it was a civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. Gdansk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Walesa this is where freedom of Central Europe began. Gdansk is a city of Change. Castles e.g. Castle of the Teutonic Knights in Malbork (UNESCO designated) is the largest castle in the world by surface area, and the largest brick building in Europe or Gniew Castle are not only the World Heritage, fantastic tourism attractions but also great conference venues. We developed the 4 business tourism products and created emotional slogans: `Solidarity & Freedom` `Amber & Relax` `Sea & Emotions` `Castle & Adventure` We already had the unique selling points 4 business tourism products - but then we needed to include them in Gdansk Convention Bureau promotional activities and have been encouraging local partners to create products and services related to the above four.

4 publishing The Good Practice Booklet - first that kind in GDAŃSK Poland in which we described what tourism products are, categories of these, GCB objectives and tasks in promoting business tourism products, good examples of shaping tourism products abroad and in Pomerania; promoting the idea of Four Business Tourism Products Programme among local meetings industry. 2. Second step: online tool to upload offers related to four business tourism PROJECT We aimed to: various partners into cooperation (show them benefits both financial and non-financial of taking part in the project) annually our organization runs a competition for the best tourism product in Gdansk; keep our partners involved in GCB activities all year round ; inspire local suppliers to create new products and services ; implement 4 business tourism products in Gdansk Convention Bureau marketing activities. involve Key steps: We divided our 4 business tourism project into 2 steps. 1. First step products; inviting our recommended PCOs, hotels, restaurants, conference venues to take part in our campaign; organizing workshops for meetings planners to train local stuff in order to achieve our goals; thematic study tours and fam trips for meetings industry professionals; press campaign; promotional films. Results: we run 4 workshops about tourism products in which 120 local meeting planners took part; conference Gdansk & Region where business meets 4 business tourism products was held. Over 60 local meeting planners, agencies and top media joined the conference; we made 4 promotional films available on Gdansk Convention Bureau social media channels about tourism products (more than 2000 views!): Sea&Emotions FFL1Qx2irDCVazxlo1lw&index=1&feature=plcp Solidarity&Freedom elmfu choosing the products Unique selling points (after consultations with our local partners and meeting planners from all Poland); launching a tender to establish main Partner of the campaign the Leader who helped us to develop the Fours Business Products Program (website tool, promotional campaign etc.); Amber&Relax elmfu Castles&Adventure elmfu

5 more than 200 people took part in events organized by local DMCs/PCOs that were based on 4 tourism products (feedback from the industry); The Good Practice Booklet was published through all GCB channels; more than 20 articles on professional websites dedicated solely to 4 tourism products campaign in Gdansk and The Good Practice Booklet ; we created a special online incentive database and a search tool of all the offers dedicated to the unique selling points of our region: `Solidarity & Freedom`, `Amber & Relax`, `Sea & Emotions`, `Castle & Adventure`, where meeting planners and conference organizers can find useful tool in their everyday work, where everyone can find incentives, team building offers and inspiration that makes their business events more attractive. For now, more than 40 top offers referring to sea, amber, solidarity and castles was collected. We are the only convention bureau in Poland which has that kind of database and we still get new ideas from our local partners; our partners could place offers in the categories: incentives, gastronomy offer, souvenirs, gadgets, infrastructure and others. Thanks to that they could be present on our website with their offers and promote them more effectively. We received 40 offers in our database from more than 20 local partners; few examples of our recommended PCOs activities connected with 4 tourism products: Teja Tur DMC Amber&Relax Sea&Emotions Solidarity&Freedo Castles&Adventur Amber Party City game In pursuit of amber Cruises in the Gulf of Gdansk City game Gdansk road to freedom Knight's garden party City game Malbork medieval adventure in the castle Knight's life (an open-air game) Grupa Travel DMC JOY TRIP DMC - Diving for treasure hunters City game Gdansk Shipyard where the history started Grupa Travel DMC JOY TRIP DMC City game Amber Master Cruises for the anglers Visiting the shipyard

6 More: Amber Menu by Malinowy Ogrod Restaurant, The Lech Walesa Apartment in Hotel Gdansk, Marine style interiors of Hotel Yachting, School of cooking in Malbork Castle, Presentation of amber workshop by the Gallery Styl and many other. SOPOT we run 5 international study tours in Gdansk for 42 meetings planners from UK, Germany and Scandinavia, each one had different theme (Amber, Solidarity, Sea or the Gothic Castles) we focused also on domestic planners. 10 top event agencies in Poland visited Gdansk & Region to discover a new image of the destination. We presented them a full programme that they could offer later to their potential clients; we created a mobile app for the planners which will be encouraged by our business tourism products and then will consider Gdansk as a potential destination for their events. The app was designed for four mobile systems: Android, ios (iphone), Blackberry and Windows Phone. The app allows delegates to communicate within the business event, they will be able to view all information prepared by the organizer eg.: detailed agenda with the possibility to personalize the programme (choose your own path from parallel sessions), urgent changes in the programme, information on sessions and keynote speakers, and more. The app is offered free of charge for meeting planners; the industry got curious about the campaign. More and more enterprises were engaging them in daily work. Even the new convention & exhibition hall in Gdansk got inspired and was called 'AMBERexpo'. That strengthened the image of Gdansk as the World Capital of Amber; our website views increased from to within 1 year! In 2011 we had over 180 publications in domestic and international portals. In 2012 we got that many within 6 months! new social media channels were developed to meet the planners: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, Foursquare, Slideshare and Linkedin. We learned that organizations responsible for destination marketing cannot underestimate social media! It costs you time and people dedicated to it but no money. It's worth it! 445 followers within a year on Facebook! GDYNIA every show (EIBTM, IMEX) Gdansk design its exhibition stand according to another business tourism product, eg. IMEX 2012 it was Solidarity, EIBTM 2012 Sea & Emotions; strong partnership between convention bureau and its members was formed; we raised the awareness of Gdansk as a business destination; Gdansk & region were positioned as a trusted top Polish business destinations offering professional events service; last but not least IN 2011, 5086 MEETINGS WERE HELD IN GDANSK AND POMERANIA! IT'S A 57% GROWTH!

7 What is innovative and creative about the campaign/project? What ICCA Members can learn from the project? this is first that kind of joint campaign created by convention bureau in Poland with cooperation with local partners based on selected and unique products strongly connected with Gdansk & Pomerania Region, top conference facilities, great flight connections, its not enough! Our project utilizes what is unique in our Region. We believe that it is easier to stand out from the competition when we focus on selected products and create campaign based exactly on them, than to promote the destination like other convention bureaux do. it is easier to create lasting memories when you concentrate on chosen products leisure tourism products can easily be promoted as business ones (something we often forget about) campaign assumes long-term cooperation among our partners. The aim was to create something which will be used not only incidentally during conferences but become permanent part of Gdansk & Region promotional campaign. it combines business tourism products from different categories (gastronomy, inside décor, gadgets and many others). We think comprehensively. try to focus on the most important and recognizable elements of your destination. When you find them, be consequent in creating all offers related to them. engage your partners from the public and private sector in creating the offers. BUDGET: 4 business tourism development programme 4 promotional films Multimedia presentation on products characteristics 4 workshops on each product Press Conference The Good Practice Booklet Online tool to submit offers Campaign Identity (logos, layout) PLN / EUR

8 what about the future? GCB Team Third stage of the project will take place in and it includes: Gdansk Convention Bureau will continue the thematic study tours for PCOs from Poland and abroad, We will be organizing road shows in Europe dedicated to the 4 business tourism products (first one to be held in October 2012 in Munich) We already established an cooperation network between others destinations that runs similar projects We will involve Gdansk Ambassadors in the world-of-mouth promotion of business products We will create a mobile event app for meeting planners with all the offers connected to four tourism products. Gdańsk Convention Bureau / Gdańsk Tourist Organization 28/29 Dlugi Targ Str., Gdansk, POLAND convention@gdanskconvention.pl