Maine Office of Tourism reorganized

Starting this month, past (2010-2016) Director of Tourism Carolann Ouellette will return to that role, after heading the Office of Outdoor Recreation since 2018. Steve Lyons, Director of Tourism since 2017 and more recently also Acting Director of the Film Office, becomes permanent Film Office Director.

The Maine Office of Tourism (MOT) is an office within the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development that is responsible for supporting and expanding the State's tourism industry and promoting Maine as a tourist destination.

The Maine Film Office is a division of MOT that markets Maine as a filming location and works to increase film production in Maine and encourage production companies to hire crew and source goods and services locally.

The Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation is a division of MOT that was established to grow Maine's outdoor recreation economy and work with public and private sector partnerships to build the state's outdoor recreation brand.

New Bedford Tourism rebrands, launches "Explore" campaign

The City of New Bedford MA has launched a new "Explore New Bedford" campaign featuring a new logo (above) by Medium Studio - intended to reflect the city's diversity, inclusivity and variety of tourism offerings.- and a nice video on Google Drive.

The new campaign features people from across Greater New Bedford showcasing a variety of things to see and do around the city.

See the video here: drive.google.com/file/d/1A...CVEwazZYkkNkTzPlq8Jqt/view

New website ExploreNewBedford.org by PSG Media is scheduled to go live tomorrow Friday 22 March 2024.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said:

“This new campaign puts the City in a stronger position to capitalize on regional travel and show off the City’s progress in a more advantageous way.”

Be sure to watch the video. Any DMO can learn something from it.

Rhode Island launches "All That" tourism campaign

New RI tourism campaign "All That" was produced for Rhode Island Commerce by Florida-based Zimmerman Agency as a $482K piece of a $2.2M advertising contract awarded in June 2023.

The campaign, which highlights RI's diversity of tourism offerings, is being kicked off on network TV's The Jennifer Hudson Show. Other media used will include billboards, social media, digital and broadcast ads.

Centerpiece of the campaign is 6 videos with scenes of Providence, Newport, Castle Hill, Block Island, Narragansett and other tourist spots.

Print ads feature photos organized around themes like food, history and outdoors.

The launch video posted on Vimeo has as of right now (28 February 2 PM) received 4 comments, all of which are negative.

Will the new campaign outperform "Cooler & Warmer", "Fun Sized" and the "stuffies"? Stay tuned.

Comedian and tennis star make a hit tourism ad

A 4-minute video ad on YouTube for Grand Tour Train of Switzerland by Oscar winning director Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech", 2010) and starring tennis great Roger Federer and comedian Trevor Noah is a big hit beyond the tourism business, with 82M views and nearly 2500 comments..

The ad feels like a documentary about two guys who try to create a tourism video about a train ride but screw it up by getting on the wrong train. Not like an ad at all.

Federer is a Switzerland Tourism Ambassador and has also made ads with Robert DeNiro and Ann Hathaway.

Be sure to watch the video.

Tourism Ireland launches major 2024 ad campaign

Tourism Ireland has begun rolling out its major 2024 ad campaign to Britain, the US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

It's anticipated the campaign will produce almost 100M ad impressions during the Christmas-New Year period.

Target cities and media by market:

• Britain: TV and BVOD ads, some running on ITV around entertainment and sports programming - 6M ad impressions; ads in 6050 cinemas reaching 3M consumers; YouTube ads with 3M impressions
• US: Network TV ads running in 11 cities - including Denver and Minneapolis which will have new direct flights to Dublin in 2024 - on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox
• Germany: TV ads including around Christmas movies on ZDF, RTL and Sat.1; also on CTV; ads in 808 cinemas in 540 cities reaching 1.5M people
• France: Ads around travel programs Echapees Belles and Les Nouveaux Nomades ; ads in cinemas around Paris and in cities with direct flights to Ireland including Nantes, Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, Carcassonne, Montpellier and Rennes expected to reach over 4M people
• Spain: Partnership with Movistar+ to create a new TV show Presenting: The Craic Show - Irlanda Legendaria hosted by comedians Joaquin Reyes and Patricia Conde
• Italy: Ireland ads running on 32 outdoor digital screens in the Gae Aulenti district of Milan, also online, with 6.1M ad impressions

Pre-COVID, in 2019, Ireland welcomed 11.3M overseas visitors who spent nearly 6 billion euro.