ABOUT

OVERVIEW
The Regional Travel Fair is a Philippine government-initiated travel and trade event organized by the Tourism Promotions Board Philippines (TPB) since 2018, in partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT), through its Regional Offices.

In 2020, with the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic worldwide, the tourism industry was
pushed to innovate and elevate its marketing strategy and sought ways to improve delivery of
its products and services to consumers, digitally. Due to this, the RTF launched its virtual editions then transitioned into hybrid format (physical and virtual) from 2020 to 2021 with positive reception from the industry.

Now that the Philippine destinations are gradually opening to tourists and protocols are easing up, the 10th edition of the RTF on October 2022 was expected to be bigger as it featured the rich culture and heritage of the CALABARZON Region.

However, the TPB was only given a little marketing budget and only 1 month to promote the 10th Regional Travel Fair. It needed a way to effectively connect with its target audiences and and efficiently choose and execute media buys in relevant media channels to surpass sales of previous editions of RTF.

SOLUTION
The success of promotion efforts relied on two things: the campaign messaging and the digital channels for the ad placements.

To connect with a wide audience in such a short period, we focused on two key messages: revenge travel and huge discounts. These are seen as the best communication lines that would resonate with segments of the market that have been longing to get out of their homes and start exploring the top tourist destinations of the country.

In the selection of channels to run ad placements, we considered three questions:
a. Where can we find most of our target audiences?
b. Which channels present the most effective way of letting our target audiences know why they should participate in the 10th Regional Travel Fair? and;
c. Which channels can best drive those who cannot be physically present in the 10th RTF to participate in the activity virtually?

By answering these question, we were able to distribute ad content in three digital channels:
1. Advertorial on PhilStar Life, a leading online publication targeting young professionals;
2. Programmatic ads on high-traffic websites, which redirects target audiences to the virtual platform for the 10th RTF; and
3. Facebook ads which let us target audiences through demographics and psychographics.

RESULTS
The 10th Regional Travel Fair Digital Promotions Campaign succeeded in its goal of making domestic travelers aware of the staging of the travel and trade event.

Aside from that, the following results have also been recorded:
1. Advertorial was published in PhilSTAR Life of the PhilSTAR Group: earned 138,000+ impressions
2. Programmatic ads were placed with Innity Network of websites: earned 924,000+ impressions
3. Converted 1 video and 5 static image TPB Facebook posts about the 10th RTF into social media ads: reached 5,200,000+ people (earned 5,400,000+ impressions)
4. 10th RTF sales totaled to Php83,000,000 or 49% higher than the sales generated during
the 9th RTF

Beyond these mandatory goals, the campaign also generated these additional feats, directly attributed to the advertorial with PhilStar Life:
Audience Satisfaction: 93.5% of surveyed audience agree that the advertorial provided them with useful information on what to expect in the 10th RTF / 88.0% of surveyed audience agree that the advertorial helped convince them to participate in the physical and/or virtual staging of the 10th RTF
Recall: 94.5% of surveyed audience say they recall reading the advertorial
Credibility: 91.0% of surveyed audience say they deemed the advertorial credible since it was published by a reputable media organization
Interest: 83.5% of surveyed audience say they look forward to more travel and trade events organized by TPB after reading the advertorial