Wednesday 8 June 2011

Facebook Travel Promo: Win a Free Caribbean Holiday in Barbados

In our ongoing involvement with Facebook as a travel marketing channel, we are running a Sweepstake on our Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia Fan page. The sweepstake offers a free holiday to one winner. All are invited and the rules are simple: anyone interested in winning a Free Caribbean Holiday at Yellow Bird Hotel in Barbados can simply 'like" our Barbados Page and enter the competition.






The entry deadline is June 30th, at which time a winner is chosen by a random number generator. The winner will get 5 days accommodation, sponsored by Yellow Bird Hotel.

The Sweepstake is advertised on Facebook for the entire month. Kathy-Lynn Ward, COO of AXSES, says, "We are running several ads, all targeted to markets in Canada. Some ads are far better that others and it's quite a job to manage the variables such as demographics, interest, geographic targets, images and text to capture what is working. We are learning a lot about advertising on Facebook, which we will translate into a real advantage for our travel customers."

The objectives of the Campaign are:

1. Generate more Interactive Fans for Barbados.org From a marketer's perspective, a Fan is someone who may follow you on Facebook, is receptive to your news, announcements, events, etc, and who will often tell their friends what you are doing. When you post to your Fan page, the post can be displayed on all followers' walls, which means it can be seen by their friends.  Fans are customers and prospective customers, influencers and interested parties: They represent a high-interest client base that you can keep in contact with. Getting more fans is a high priority in social media marketing.

Running a competition on Facebook is a a good way for any hotel and tourism organization to increase fans and interaction. Competition gets good play within the Facebook community and are spread around by word of mouth. But one has to subscribe to the Facebook guidelines on how to run a competition,  choose a winner, etc.

2. Test Facebook as an advertising media. We are evaluating what works and why. And, most importantly, want does not work. Our intent is to provide consultation to travel campaigns and offer advice and services on how to effectively use Facebook in Travel.

3. Expand AXSES Facebook marketing. We believe we were the first travel company to build a direct booking application for hotels and tourism who wanted to quickly and easily build a Facebook reservations Fan page that allowed fans to see current seasonal rates, specials, photos, brand content and to be able to get an instant quote and book online. We are integrating the arcResBookings application with a full marketing platform for Facebook.

4. Evaluate other social media and marketing channels. In addition to Facebook advertising, the campaign also includes promotion on other social platforms and traditional websites and distribution channels. The performance of these channels vs. Facebook will be evaluated.

5. Make more people aware of the special and unique features of a Barbados Holiday.

The marketing is fully funded by AXSES; Yellow Bird Hotel provides the accommodation.



The Next Step -

Please follow us to learn the results and insights we learn from this campaign. We will be putting this to use by creating packages and a template for marketing hotels and tourism using Facebook and other social media. We are offering consultation, services and technology to help tourism use social media:  see  http://SocialMarketing4Travel.com


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