Client
Founded in 1887, Geneva Tourism & Conventions Foundation is the public tourism organisation in Geneva. For over 120 years, it has helped position the city as a world-class location for visitors to Switzerland through business activities, supporting local tourism and promoting events and festivals throughout the year.
Challenges
Geneva’s reputation precedes it — a historical hub where business and politics are the order of the day, all set against a magnificent mountainous backdrop. This business focus keeps hotels filled with business travellers during the week, but from Friday to Monday occupancies are disappointingly low. This is also mainly due to the fact that Geneva is not a popular tourist destination.
Geneva Tourism was tasked with increasing overnight stays during this weekend period. To do this, it needed to expand the image of Geneva in the minds of potential visitors; showcasing the highlights, attractions and benefits of the city as a cosmopolitan city break destination rather than merely a place to do business.
Strategy and Successes
Digital Dialog has been working with Geneva Tourism since 2014 to position Geneva as a prime city break destination, designing and developing numerous targeted campaigns.
As Geneva Tourism’s digital marketing agency in the UK and Europe, much of its work involved changing perceptions, building awareness and increasing overnight stays. Examining diverse segments of potential leads who might not have previously considered visiting Geneva, Digital Dialog presented the sides of the city that would most appeal to them.
Those who expect only luxury and ski resorts are shown the city’s affordable summer activities and cultural highlights. Those who imagine a city built just for men in suits are presented with its glamorous shopping opportunities. Digital Dialog creatively uses its insightful research and array of digital marketing tools to efficiently drive customer engagement and convert leads.
Objectives we’ve successfully achieved for Geneva Tourism include:
Creating Overnight Stays / Package Sales
This goal is at the core of every Geneva Tourism campaign and the main metric by which success is gauged. The Motors Show campaign resulted in a 50% increase in package bookings over the previous year.
Event Promotion
Major events such as the Geneva Motors Show and the Fêtes de Geneve are huge tourist magnets for the city. Digital Dialog design attractive overnight packages with multichannel promotion to use each event as a tool to meet the main goal of increased hotel stays.
Lead Generation
Fun and engaging social media marketing such as competitions and quizzes turn observers into leads.
Brand Awareness
Content Marketing
Tourism Product Sales
Increased sales of tourism products such as the Geneva Pass, the city pass which combines numerous perks, have received focused campaigns in online and print media.
User Generated Content Development
Digital Dialog promote user-driven content such as photo competitions such as #SummerInGeneva to increase social media follows, user engagement and brand awareness. Let’s remove this point from here as it will be covered under summer in Geneva further down...
Campaigns
So Glam in Geneva
For this campaign aimed at sophisticated 30+ women, Digital Dialog highlighted Geneva as a chic yet fun destination; perfect for shopping and cocktails with girlfriends. Every stage from initial strategy, to competition app design, to social media campaign was designed with two sets of visual messaging to best appeal to both UK and French women.
Geneva Motor Show
The Motor Show is a major event in the Genevan calendar and one that takes place outside of the main tourist season. To leverage the Motor Show into Geneva Tourism’s main goal of increasing overnight stays, Digital Dialog has been a key partner in promoting their special offer package every year since 2014. Each year’s campaign has resulted in an increase in packages sold compared to previous years.
Summer in Geneva
Geneva doesn’t instantly spring to mind as a summer destination for most — the snowy Alpen backdrop doesn’t help. In this campaign, Geneva Tourism wished to present the sunny side of the city, and its wealth of cultural and leisure activities. Digital Dialog produced a wide-reaching social media campaign and competition where users could submit there #SummerinGeneva photos. The user-driven campaign improved both Geneva and Geneva Tourism’s reputation, as well as increasing number of social media followers, user engagement and visitors to the city.
5 Star Hotel Lead Generation Campaign
It’s no secret that Geneva has a reputation as an expensive city — this perception can cause friction in leads. So how to get potential visitors to live the high life? This campaign offered them a taste. Frequent visitors to 4* hotels were offered a chance to try out a 5* hotel in Geneva at a 4* price; increasing both leads and bookings.
From the very first project with Digital Dialog, they have been a trusted partner quickly demonstrating that they understood our business needs. They are passionate about our projects and produce strong strategies alongside measurable results. Undoubtedly you’re in safe hands with Digital Dialog.
Digital Marketing Manager
