Visit Isle of Wight (VIOW) – the Destination Management Organisation tasked with attracting more visitors to the Isle of Wight – has announced significant investment in a major new marketing campaign aimed at driving pre-season visitor numbers.
The spring campaign, which highlights the Island’s appeal as an out of season destination, will also showcase its range of new products, including Acoustic Isle (13th-23rd March) – a brand new music event which will build over the next three years to provide consumers with an excuse to visit the Isle of Wight and turn a trip into a full-blown musical holiday.
VIOW, the Isle of Wight Council and its industry partners is investing £175,000 (total fund £210,000) into a new 3-month marketing campaign, launching this month. In addition to consumer press and radio advertising, the campaign is also supported by a £45,000 media partnership with VisitEngland (VE) focusing on what England is most loved for including the English Seaside and the English Countryside.
The VE themed campaigns which start this month will run on the radio, in newspaper supplements and via social media and PR. A series of holiday supplements and competitions with themes from ‘Rural Escapes’ to the ‘Great Outdoors’ will appear in The Independent, The Telegraph, Time Out, the London Evening Standard, Woman & Home, Essentials and Chat – and help drive traffic to VIOW’s award-winning website which sees up to 100,000 unique visitors a month.
Tourism officials also hope to attract thousands of new visitors from the Greater London area with an advertising blitz on the London Underground which will see posters plastered all over stations at Victoria and Waterloo as well as high visibility coving panels.
This March, a succession of national and regional radio and newspaper ads will invite people to “Unplug, take a break and re-connect with nature’s soundtrack on the Isle of Wight”, while 40,000 copies of a newspaper-style gig guide will be distributed off-Island and will also be available at cross-Solent terminals as well as pubs, hotels and Island tourist information points.
David Thornton, Chief Executive, VIOW, says:
“We saw good growth in the late spring and summer last year, and whilst visitor numbers have been challenged by the poor weather over the winter, we have still performed far better than the mainland seaside resorts.
Article continues below this advertisement “This latest campaign push has been slightly delayed whilst we waited for the dreadful weather to subside, but now it’s great to see the Isle of Wight message appearing in the national press and across the London Underground network.”
Following discussions with VIOW, South West Trains has announced that it is extending its Winter Smiles campaign – a £10 day return train ticket offer from London to Southampton, Portsmouth and Southsea – from Monday 24th February until Sunday 16th March 2014. More details about the offer can be found at www.southwesttrains.co.uk/wintersmiles.
