April 13, 2020 – Will travel vouchers save Croatian tourism? A look at how one travel agency’s campaign is fighting to salvage the season.
HRTurizam writes that the tourism sector has been quietly talking about travel vouchers as one of the solutions to save this tourist season, i.e., to somehow activate tourism in the local population for at least some cash inflow and save what can be saved.
Additionally, in Croatia, the “Week’s Vacation is Worth It” campaign is ready, as well as a Cro card from the Ministry of Tourism, as projects that can be activated as soon as we overcome the coronavirus crisis.
Although we do not know how these vouchers might look and or should be realized, one example comes from the DMC agency Pointers Travel from Osijek, who launched the positive Trust and Friendship campaign for the recovery of Croatian tourism. In this campaign, they want to intensify their marketing activities domestically and in foreign markets when COVID-19 measures begin to decline.
The special feature of the campaign is the introduction of a voucher to help the entire tourism sector.
Vouchers allow buyers in Croatia and worldwide to help caterers, hoteliers, private renters and other tourism participants with their purchases when they are most needed.
The goal of the Trust and Friendship voucher is to initiate a cash flow to the economic sector in tourism and ensure fresh cash with advance payments – all to help the tourism sector overcome the coronavirus crisis.
Specifically, vouchers can be redeemed in a minimum of one year from the date of purchase, and when using the voucher, the buyer realizes a minimum of 25% higher value.
In addition to vouchers, Pointers will promote the whole campaign on social networks and post more than 200 videos and VR360 content from Croatia, placing promotional videos of destinations and the reportage “Piece of Croatian Paradise” through local TV stations already involved in this action. They will also communicate with travel agencies in the surrounding countries by sending smart catalogs of Croatian destinations.
“We actively engage the entire tourism sector, our followers, tourists, guests and all partners, locally and globally,” points out Krunoslav Weinpert of Pointers, adding: “All marketing and promotional information online is done by Pointers at no financial charge, thanks to our partners for their trust and contribution to the situation in our business sector.
We invite you to contribute to this action by supporting the Croatian tourism sector, promoting it, sharing this information, and inviting the tourism sector to contact us to post their Vouchers online.”
Optimism can be seen in the growing interest in video and VR360 content on their online channels.
“The statistics of our online channels show us that in these times of crisis in the world, regardless of the current situation, the interest in reviewing video and virtual reality content that represents Croatia is increasing every day,” Weinpert points out, adding: “Concrete figures give us hope and show that tourists, both domestic and foreign, have not given up on beautiful destinations in Croatia and that we should not give up promoting the tourism sector at this time either,” Weinpert points out.
“The goal is to sell as many vouchers as possible in advance to ensure cash flow in the tourism sector. Also, we have distributed all our destination video materials to local TV stations that have already started broadcasting them, in order to start tourist activity in Croatia at least, since the focus will definitely be on the local guest,” concludes Weinpert.
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