Jamaica Tourism Board

65:1

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

+30%

YOY Passengers Demand

Overview

The “Great Jamaica Winter Sale” had a goal to grow bookings and revenue during the winter travel season. To inform the campaign’s tactics, the team tapped into Expedia Group Media Solutions’ targeting capabilities and leveraged Expedia Group’s proprietary, first-party search and booking data in the Caribbean.

The Opportunity

The Jamaica Tourism Board (JTB) is a destination marketing organization that aspired to win wintertime business in the Caribbean for Jamaica. To accomplish this, they sought to increase bookings and revenue for the island nation during the winter travel season.

The Solution

Nestled in the warm waters of the Caribbean, Jamaica is uniquely positioned as a top destination for U.S. travelers wanting to escape the cold of winter. To engage these travelers, the JTB worked with Expedia Group Media Solutions and local hotels, thereby extending the reach of their messaging, in a co-funded marketing effort called a Co-Op Campaign. The co-op incorporated pre-campaign data and analytics insights, targeting, and digital media display components. Running across Expedia.com, the campaign delivered the right message in front of the right travelers, at the right time.

Pre-campaign data analysis showed that the holiday season, extending into January, is the most popular time for travel and travel purchases to the Caribbean for U.S. travelers—Jamaica’s top market of origin. Analysis also showed that targeting travelers in key U.S. regions had potential to increase bookings and revenue. Likewise, reporting on Jamaica’s competitors indicated that destination targeting would be useful. Putting these insights into action, the campaign began targeting shoppers who had previously, and were currently searching for, “Jamaica” and the “Caribbean” in regions with strong potential for growth in the U.S.

Harnessing the cooperative funding and extended reach of the Co-Op, the campaign employed the expertise of two internal Expedia Group teams: The Campaign Management Team, a group designed to help determine creative messaging, and Lodging Partner Services (LPS), a group created to coordinate offers with hotels. With the campaign management team’s development of visually appealing messaging and LPS’s dynamic offers on the search results pages of vacation packages, hotels, and flights, the cooperative display campaign launched across Expedia.com. Capitalizing on the trend of gifting travel during the holiday season, the display campaign utilized such strategies as a site takeover of Travelocity on Cyber Monday.

The Results

With the co-funded efforts of the co-op campaign, the participating hotels saw increased bookings and revenue. Specifically, the campaign drove an incredible return on ad spend of 65:1 and a 30 percent YOY increase in passenger demand for the island destination.

One campaign official noted that, “The team at Expedia goes above and beyond! They take on the extra that produces extraordinary results, and we have the production numbers to speak for the success of this campaign.”