Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Public Relations Campaign

Visit Austin Celebrates National Travel & Tourism Week 2020

About This Entry:

Every year, U.S. Travel leads National Travel and Tourism Week (NTTW) to celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of the U.S. travel industry. The theme of NTTW in 2020 was #SpiritofTravel to honor the incredible spirit and resilience of the travel industry in the face of the pandemic.

To celebrate the #SpiritofTravel, Visit Austin engaged our local community and future visitors through a variety of daily virtual activities on our social channels and on VisitAustin.org, highlighting live music, local businesses and makers, cuisine, culture and more. Our objectives were to provide aspiring Austin travelers a way to experience the city from home and to support our local industry when they needed it most.

Visit Austin reached a local and national audience with this campaign through email, organic social and local media.

Visit Austin’s NTTW Events:

• Monday, May 4: Cooking Demo with Chef Rick Lopez of La Condesa
Partnered with Chef Rick Lopez to teach viewers how to make ceviche and experience a taste of Austin from home as part of our “Best Seat in the House” video series.

• Tuesday, May 5: Order Local during #TakeOutTuesday
Encouraged the Austin community and our social media followers at home to order carryout or delivery, or purchase merchandise from local restaurants to support the service industry.

• Wednesday, May 6: Local Makers Sip & Shop with the Austin Visitor Center
Hosted a virtual Sip & Shop with the Austin Visitor Center to promote Austin goods available at our online store (austingiftshop.org) and create awareness around supporting local makers.

• Thursday, May 7: Improv Showcase with The Hideout Theatre
An evening of free live improv featuring performers from Austin’s The Hideout Theatre, live streamed from Visit Austin channels.

• Friday, May 8: Chicken S#!t Bingo with Last Stand Brewing
Hosted virtual Chicken S#!T Bingo with local musician(s) and a local brewery known for this beloved Austin game.

• Saturday, May 9: Livestream Concert Benefiting Austin Musicians
An epic evening of live music featuring a cast of Austin musicians paying tribute to Willie Nelson, with donations benefiting the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM).

Campaign Strategy:

Every National Travel & Tourism Week event involved Visit Austin partnering with one or several local partners and included a give-back component. We intentionally created these events to support a variety of industries within the travel & tourism space: small businesses, live music, restaurants, arts and more.

As part of our virtual sip & shop event, we teamed up with R/GA and local restaurants to create the Austin Table Cookbook, a digital book of recipes from some of Austin’s most-loved restaurants. We launched the cookbook during NTTW on our online store (austingiftshop.org). 100% of every cookbook purchase went directly to participating restaurants.

For our livestream benefit concert, Visit Austin partnered with Austin Texas Musicians, a nonprofit supporting Austin musicians, to produce the livestream. The performances were filmed by artists at their homes and were streamed on Facebook via Visit Austin, with co-hosts Austin Texas Musicians, HAAM, The Long Center and ACL Live.

Using the national #SpiritofTravel campaign toolkit as inspiration, Visit Austin created our own look & feel for our Public Relations campaign to create consistency across all of the different events we were promoting and partners we were working with. We also created a custom website hub for this campaign that housed all of the event information, livestreams and more information about our local partners.

Campaign success was measured by website traffic and engagement, organic social impressions, livestream attendance and engagement, local business referrals and retail sales (where applicable).

Results:

With travel having slowed down significantly by May 2020, Visit Austin saw NTTW week as an opportunity to ignite and nurture the #SpiritofTravel within the local community and Austin fans. By bringing people together through these virtual Austin experiences, we were able to create an immediate impact for the local community and businesses that make Austin such a special place to visit and call home.

NTTW Campaign Results from 5/1/2020 - 5/9/2020:
-642,634 organic impressions (website and social)
-870 direct referrals to local businesses
-2,086 total views of our cooking demo across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube
-19.8K reach / 10.5K views / 6.7K engagement for livestream benefit concert
-92 orders on austingiftshop.org totaling $3,328 in sales on day of sip & shop event
-1,343 total online store visitors on day of sip & shop event
-72 Austin Table cookbooks sold on day of sip & shop event ($29.95 each)
-The Austin Table Cookbook garnered coverage from local media partners like Austin Monthly and Austin 360, as well as national publications like Adweek

Visit Austin was able to make an impact with a very limited budget:
Campaign Cost: $3,500.00
-includes compensation for musicians and on-camera talent, donations to participating local businesses and their staff, and event prizes. Creative was handled in house and all promotion was organic.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Very innovative way to promote the city by doing virtual activities and tours. The cookbook is great.

It's great how they not only let people experience the city and their key activities, but also found a way to create value for businesses.