Tourism marketing campaign brings £400,000 of visitor spend in 2016, with a further £1.49m of potential spend to come
Northumberland Tourism’s ‘It’s In Our Nature’ marketing campaign which ran in Spring/Summer 2016 is estimated to have already boosted the Northumberland tourism industry by £400,000.
Research into the impact of the marketing campaign, which featured The Alnwick Garden as the main sponsor, shows that the people who visited after seeing the campaign spent an average of 4.8 nights and £643.39 in Northumberland. 69% percent of respondents said they are planning to visit, but have not yet. 45% of those who visited said the campaign ‘definitely or probably’ turned the probability of their visit into certainty. Extrapolating these figures means there is still another £1.49m of potential visitor spend to come, as a result of the campaign.
Campaign activity included digital advertising, out of home digital display screens, features in the Sunday Telegraph, Guardian Travel and the Herald in Scotland, all of which pointed to a microsite on visitnorthumberland.com. Created for the campaign, the microsite featured specially created content and was supported with PR activity, social media using #ItsInOurNature and a series of 10 blogs.
Total advertising spend was less than £12,000 for the campaign, yet despite this Northumberland Tourism were able to deliver a return on investment for the county of over £35 for every £1 spent. This continues their trend of successful low budget marketing campaigns, after their 2014 Dark Skies campaign won a CIM Northern Marketing Award for Best Low Budget Campaign.
Jude Leitch, director of Northumberland Tourism, said:
“We are very ambitious in our plans to build a flourishing visitor economy that will contribute significantly to the prosperity of Northumberland. The figures announced today are an encouraging insight into the year-on-year development of Northumberland as a valuable tourism destination. They are part of an overall positive trend showing that the visitors we are attracting are staying longer and spending more than in the past. These increases support significant numbers of jobs, as the tourism industry in Northumberland is our second biggest employer.”
Their next campaign further builds on the success of their award winning campaign. ‘Northumberland, the land that’s just as good with the lights off’ has just launched and features stunning images of Northumberland’s dark skies, as well as promoting what you can do during the day during an out of season stay.
Visitors, businesses and residents alike can share their Autumn/Winter experiences using #NlandStars on social media.