Case study Winter sports press Event
In addition to the European City Breaks press event we have also initiated another thematic press event: the Winter Sports Press day. Ski holiday destinations, relevant tourist boards, tour operators, transport companies were invited to participate in this media event so they can promote their destination/product to travel press. This event has already been organised 7 times in two very appropriate locations: indoor ski hall/ice skating rink De Uithof in The Hague and Snow World indoor ski hall in Zoetermeer.
Objective
The idea of this event was to let providers of winter sports holidays promote their packages, brands or destinations directly to a large group of Dutch press all at the same time in one location. By organising this event, participants were able to get in direct contact with the press and they on their part had the opportunity to find out more about the latest trends, winter sports activities and the most interesting destinations for their audience.
The key of success to this event was that a large group of representatives and media were all together at the same time at the same location. With today’s work pressure and overflowing agendas, a day like this is a relief to most as they can meet many different parties at one event.
Strategy
Events such as these take months of preparations. Here you can see step-by-step how we operated.
- Set up a list of all winter sports destinations in Europe and those outside that are popular amongst the Dutch winter sports holiday takers. In addition we also created a list of other possible participants such as transport companies and Dutch winter sports tour operators.
- Create an overview of all relevant events taking place during the year around which we would avoid hosting our event. Naturally such an event would not take place during the Winter Olympics for example. Based upon these known events, we tried to pick the most suitable date for hosting the event.
- With this event being such a specific niche event, we decided that a suitable location would be a necessity. Therefore we choose for typical winter sports locations De Uithof and Snow World.
- Afterwards we invited national, regional and local tourist boards, train companies, airlines and Dutch tour operators selling winter sports holidays to participate in the event.
- In the weeks leading up to the event, the Dutch press was informed about the event and were again invited personally.
Results
The Winter sports press event has been organised 7 times already indicating the success of the event. Over the years an average of 25 companies participated in this event and approximately 50 journalists came along
This event resulted in several individual press trips and a great range of exposure for the participants in several media. Magazines such as TravelPro and TravMagazine – travel industry related magazines – featured an editorial article about the event and afterwards many travel reports were a result of this event.
Next year we are hoping to organise the event again but this time we want to add another nice segment in the winter period: Winter Sun Holidays. This is of course another very important segment during the Dutch European winter season and it will provide media with even more angles to visit the press workshop. We will now also invite our extensive database of bloggers to come along as well.
Video's
Impression Winter Sports Press Event - Baltus Communications from Baltus Communications on Vimeo.
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