Aruba Tourism
Raising more than a smile for the ‘happy island’
12.5211°N, 69.9683°W
Overview
When you think of Caribbean islands, Aruba probably isn’t the first name that springs to mind. Less than 20 miles long and just six miles across, this “beautiful speck of powdery-white sand” is popular with American tourists, but less well-known in the UK. The Aruba Tourism Authority wanted to change that.
But helping Aruba stand out amongst 32 other Caribbean tourist destinations was only part of the challenge. Aruba Tourism Authority wanted to grow its email database, but, naturally, in a way that remained compliant with strict new
GDPR regulations. As this was the first project of this type, since the EU directive had come into force, everyone was keen (and slightly nervous) to see its potential impact on results.
Our three objectives
Our approach
Our first job was to raise awareness of, and interest in, Aruba as a must-visit destination for UK audiences. In this case, to 45+ year-olds with an interest in luxury travel. We focused our efforts on the key themes of wellness, food, friends and adventure, by showing what makes this Caribbean island so special, through the eyes of those who know it best – the locals.
This required blending social media tactics and existing high-quality content to tell the story of Aruba through the perspective of native islanders (in this case, two individuals and one family). By connecting with these ‘guides’, potential travellers could experience the island like a local.
…to get a jump on 2019
Our second job, and one of our greatest challenges, was to increase the size of the Aruba Tourism Authority’s mailing list, but we had to make sure we collected data without breaching the strict GDPR guidelines. Our solution was to create an eye-catching incentive – the chance to win a seven-day trip to Aruba – to drive traffic to the competition landing page we’d created. There we’d aim to capture high-quality data (all double opt-ins, of course).
We also worked to extend the reach of the campaign by securing coverage with relevant bloggers and influencers. These articles focused on promoting Aruba as a destination for well-being and happiness, which dovetailed perfectly with its ‘happy island’ image.
“This is our first data capture campaign since GDPR’s implementation. Once again, Navigate over-achieved on all KPIs and we were very happy with the level of compliant data, for us and our campaign partners.”