This week at explore ‘19, we presented our annual Partner Awards for campaigns launched in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and South America that demonstrate ground-breaking innovation, originality, and success in travel marketing and advertising. Our awards were presented alongside Expedia Group’s EPIC Awards, which honor organizations that exude the values of Engagement, Partnership, Innovation, and Collaboration (EPIC), and continue to explore new and creative ways to work together to inspire travel.
The winning Expedia Group Media Solutions campaigns include:
North America Hotel Campaign of the Year: Atlantis Casino Resort Spa
Atlantis Casino Resort Spa’s goal was to not only increase room revenue but also generate awareness around its resort offerings including restaurants, spa, and entertainment. The campaign centered on marketing the casino resort through a full-funnel approach and resulted in a 7:1 ROAS and a nearly 55% year-over-year growth in demand.
North America TravelAds Campaign of the Year: The Venetian Resort Las Vegas
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas identified a unique opportunity to drive demand differently than prior years. The resort turned to Expedia Group Media Solutions to develop a targeted strategy seeking to improve conversion as needed by the resort. Delving into the data and opportunity, the partners excitedly brought to life an innovative campaign through TravelAds which created meaningful impact with significant results improving overall performance year over year. This partnership was thoughtful and nimble to the needs of both businesses and would not have been as successful without the dynamic creativity of both the resort and Expedia Group Media Solutions.
To overcome recent challenges from its top traditional feeder markets, Tourism Fiji and Fiji Airways wanted to spur visitor growth from other key markets: the U.S. and Canada. A Hotels.com brand collaboration with Captain Obvious asks the question, “Is Fiji Real?”, inspiring and engaging travel shoppers to choose a Fiji vacation. Since the campaign’s launch, the full funnel approach has resulted in a 15% and 10% year-over-year increase in passenger and room night demand, respectively, for Fiji.
The Aruba Tourism Authority teamed up with Expedia Group Media Solutions to help increase awareness of Aruba and its positioning as a major destination in the Caribbean for U.S. and Canadian travelers. Display advertising, takeovers, and dynamic media applications supported the program throughout the year, resulting in an incremental lift in conversion for the destination.
Airline Campaign of the Year: Air Canada
Seeking to increase bookings and educate travelers on Air Canada’s growing international route map, the airline teamed up with Expedia Group Media Solutions to design a fun, innovative, customer-centric microsite called the Air Canada Adventure Atlas on Expedia. Through the site, users can explore the Air Canada global route offerings with searches based on travel style, experiences, destination or price point. The microsite also offers opportunities to team up with tourism partners in a creative, valuable way and promotes over 200 Air Canada destinations in markets all over the world. Since launching in April, the Adventure Atlas campaign has produced outstanding results, including a 438:1 return on advertising spend (ROAS) and a 65% year-over-year increase in demand in Canada. The destination partners benefit from the value of a larger media buy pointing to the innovative microsite, yielding impressive exposure.
Latin America TravelAds Campaign of the Year: Hard Rock Hotel
Being in a competitive market, Hard Rock Hotel Cancun turned to TravelAds Sponsored Listings to showcase the unique characteristics of the hotel and communicate its value proposition to guests without having to lower rates. With the ability to customize ad copy with TravelAds, they highlighted the hotel’s unique luxury and all-inclusive experience, focusing on different areas such as access to spa treatments, golf, and area tours. Campaign consistency during the year increased production and brand awareness, driving a more than 400% demand increase and a 25% year-over-year lift in click-through rates.
Car Rental Campaign of the Year: Dollar Rental Car
Seeking an out-of-the-box solution to increase market share and differentiate its brand from industry competitors, Dollar Rental Car collaborated with Expedia Group Media Solutions on an Orbitz brand-sponsored campaign, allowing Dollar to showcase brand affinity toward family travelers. In addition to the car rental company’s standard use of display advertising, the campaign incorporated email marketing, social, and sponsored content to reach travelers in engaging ways.
Central and South American Campaign of the Year: LATAM Airlines
As Latin America’s largest airline, LATAM Airlines wanted to drive flight bookings to Chile and showcase the unique experiences available in the destination. The airline teamed with Expedia Group Media Solutions to create an interactive and educational campaign microsite, highlighting various outdoor activities and experiences, while incentivizing potential travelers with a raffle prize for air travel to Chile. The campaign generated significant results, including an outstanding 177:1 ROAS.
Caribbean Campaign of the Year: Discover Puerto Rico
Following the 2018 hurricane season, Discover Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico’s tourism board) collaborated with Expedia Group Media Solutions to highlight that the destination was open for business and ready to welcome travelers. The “Discover Puerto Rico” campaign spotlighted the country’s unique and diverse culture, including its beaches, music, activities, and food through a combination of display ads, takeovers and email marketing. From July 1 to September 30, 2019, the campaign produced a 90:1 ROAS on Expedia.com, 140:1 ROAS on Expedia Brands Portfolio and generated over 80 million impressions.
Mexico Campaign of the Year: Día de los Muertos
Destinations, hotel, and travel brands Aeroméxico, Barceló Hotel Group, Seadust Cancun Family Resorts, and the Mexican Caribbean collaborated to highlight and raise awareness of the vibrant Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday activities in Mexico, while also encouraging exploration of the country’s diverse regions. Through a custom microsite with Day of the Dead-themed illustrations, images, and video content, visitors could explore and learn more about the unique festivities and traditions, discover regional foods, search for hotel and accommodation deals, and book activities.
Latin America Most Innovative Campaign of the Year: The Excellence Collection
The Excellence Collection turned to Expedia Group Media Solutions to drive demand for its high-end resort properties in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, and support a rebrand in the second half of the year. The team developed a custom microsite that highlighted the top food and activities at each of the properties through videos and imagery, and was supported through social media influencers, email marketing, display advertising, TravelAds, and native products.
North America Most Innovative Campaign of the Year: Tourism Toronto & Air Canada
Toronto, the city known as Canada’s Downtown, is the entertainment, food, business, culture, attractions, and sports hub of the country: the very best of modern Canada can be experienced there. Tourism Toronto and Air Canada partnered together to give U.S. travelers, flying to or from Europe or Asia, the opportunity to maximize their vacation experience by adding another country to their travels. The Toronto Stopover Program has become the ultimate travel hack for the curious traveler.
Latin America Hotel Campaign of the Year: Palladium Hotel Group
Palladium Hotel Group collaborated with Expedia Group Media Solutions to increase visibility of its hotels in Mexico, Jamaica & the Dominican Republic in key markets through a comprehensive marketing campaign. The awareness campaign included display advertising and TravelAds support throughout the year across Expedia Group points of sale in the U.S., as well as TravelAds Direct, which drove highly qualified traffic to the partner’s brand website. Since September 2018, the campaign has delivered a 30:1 ROAS.
Year after year, we work with incredible advertising partners from around the world to engage travelers across our platform and we look forward to continuing this work with forward-thinking digital marketers. Check out all of our global award winners from 2019 and stay up to date on our latest news, research, and case studies by subscribing to our blog, or by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
