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Visit Portugal: Bringing travelers to your destination [Case Study]

October 29, 2021

How Kiwi.com cooperated with Visit Portugal tourism board to boost destination awareness and support booking conversion

The last couple of years have been the toughest ever seen for the entire travel industry. Businesses initially focused on surviving the impacts of the pandemic, then, as country restrictions were lifted and travel confidence started to grow, it was all about encouraging travelers to come back. Travel companies started to improvise by offering discounted offers, deal packages, extending the usual seasonal holiday dates, and even opening up the destinations for alternative visitors like digital nomads. 

Tourism boards also started to actively promote their destinations, aiming to entice those holidaymakers back by focusing on easy reach and affordable travel prices. As an example, the Portuguese tourism board Visit Portugal got together with the travel tech company Kiwi.com to promote the European destination, boost awareness, and bring in more travelers. Over a period of July till October 2021, related to an easing of restrictions, a campaign run by Kiwi.com resulted in over 600k social impressions to put Portugal back on travelers’ minds.

Setting the objectives of the campaign

Visit Portugal is the official website for Portugal as a tourist destination, and was developed by Turismo de Portugal, I.P., the national tourist board. The board’s goal is to develop integrated international projects to promote Portugal for tourists. It involves supporting a common interest of Turismo de Portugal and the regional destinations and tourist operators. Visit Portugal directly influences tourist demand, increases revenues from tourism, and indirectly boosts the profitability of the sector.

A channel of promotion chosen by Visit Portugal was a cooperation with Kiwi.com designed to boost destination awareness, offer travel discounts, and support booking conversion. The multi pillar marketing campaign consisted of producing smart banners for Kiwi.com search pages, offering discounts, active Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and email remarketing.

remarketing email Kiwi.com
Remarketing email promoting Portugal, source: Kiwi.com

promo banner Kiwi.com Visit Portugal branded banner on Kiwi.com website, source: Kiwi.com

Results of multi pillar tourism board campaign

The Visit Portugal campaign was set to run for several months, from late July 2021 until October 2021. During this time Kiwi.com set up attractive banners of the destination on its search pages to encourage customers to click through and explore the opportunity of booking a trip to Portugal. The tourism board selected several countries to activate the promotion including Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The smart banner was set to promote Portuguese destinations from given locations of customers searching for a trip. Across this time period visitors to Kiwi.com from the three markets selected saw the promoted destination over 600,000 times.

In addition, discounts were activated offering Kiwi.com customers a reduced price for trips to Portugal, including certain airlines and routes. The promotion was also supported by Google advertising and marketing emails promoting the destination, including remarketing. In almost three months more than 500,000 emails were sent out to the targeted markets.

Visit Portugal commented, “We are glad we had a chance to get together with Kiwi.com and think of ways to promote our destination. It allowed us to target avid travelers ready for adventure and inspired them to include Portugal on their bucket list. The marketing campaign also resulted in completed bookings and we can’t wait to welcome travelers back.”

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