October 7th, 2024
How Travel PR Can Rebuild Trust After a Crisis
A news story, broadcast on regional TV here in the North West, recently focused on the lack of visitors to Southport, following the July 2024 attack and riots. Given that Catapult PR specialises in both travel PR and insurance PR, the loss of attraction struck a chord at two levels.
Wearing our travel and tourism PR agency hat, I recognised that Southport desperately needs a creative and strategic PR campaign that will help rebuild trust in the resort but also engender a desire to visit. We have created plenty of campaigns like this and it is perfectly possible. Let’s discuss how.
Index
- The essential ingredient for successful travel PR: ideas
- How to combat a destination’s loss of attraction
- Shifting perceptions of a tourism destination (and farm tourism)
- What Southport needs to do for its PR recovery
- Creating travel PR initiatives that drive footfall
- Promoting and repositioning Britain’s seaside resorts
- Reducing reliance on leaflets and destination websites
The essential ingredient for successful travel PR: ideas
Scratching the surface with the ‘average’ sort of travel PR campaign, revolving largely around offering journalists free visits and organising media competitions, is not going to cut it. That’s not what we do here. That’s ground zero for us – the very basics. We go way beyond this, generating creative ideas that make people sit up and take notice. It’s the reason we’ve won so many top awards for travel PR. And it’s that approach, and bigger ideas, that will be needed, if the loss of attraction is to be tackled.
To run with this sort of bigger, bolder idea often requires the client to get out of the mindset of doing more of the same. Whilst ‘standard’ PR activity is a comfort blanket for the risk averse, it can actually waste money and create a lack of differentiation with competitors. For some, however, it’s easier to just trot out the same sort of activities as everyone else. It ticks a ‘marketing box’, even if it achieves very little, or only a fraction of what could be possible.
How to combat a tourism destination’s loss of attraction
With our insurance PR hat on, we can see that Southport’s predicament is a clear case of ‘loss of attraction’. However, most businesses would not be covered for that on their insurance policy. They may have property damage cover but, if their property is not physically damaged and simply impacted through perceptions and a lack of inclination to visit, it’s not going to help. They are unlikely to have terrorism insurance and, even if they did, the riots have not been classed as terrorism. Neither has the attack.
That means that it will have to be a case of self-help or utilising any funding that becomes available through Sefton Council, or other bodies, really well. Therein lies the real issue ahead.
Shifting perceptions of a tourism destination (and farm tourism)
Rebuilding a brand after a crisis needs a complete identity shift, in most cases, so any PR and content needs to be exciting and engaging. I think back to the campaign Catapult PR carried out for the North West Farm Tourism Initiative, which was all about transforming perceptions of farm holidays after the Noughties’ foot and mouth crisis. We really achieved that in a very tangible and measurable way, but only because we were bold with our initiatives. We went for it and convinced the client that they needed to allow us to run with big ideas.
Enter our ‘Mootown Classics’ playlist, the ‘Farm Stay Man’ doing his take on the Milk Tray Man and a geisha teaching farm tearooms how to serve green tea, not to mention the launch of a cluster group of farm shops. It was with some satisfaction that I read the headlines of ‘Cumbria is the New Paris’ and Cool Cumbria; Down on the Luxurious Farm. Making the top story slot on BBC News 24 and generating worldwide coverage was also hugely satisfying. Being runner-up for a national CIPR Excellence Award in the travel and tourism category was the icing on the cake. More rewarding was the fact that we saw the bookings and footfall soaring, alongside the awareness of what a farm and rural holiday can offer to individuals, couples and families.
What Southport needs to do for its PR recovery
So Southport CAN shift the associations that have emerged because of the senseless attack and subsequent riots. However, the tourism and retail sectors need to pull together and have a clear (and exciting) PR strategy to buy in to. They need to have someone, experienced in travel PR and a repositioning exercise like this, analyse the town’s offering and then create ideas – and potentially new product development – around it. That’s what we do for many of our clients, going way beyond just talking about initiatives and actually suggesting and developing them.
There will be no point frittering money away on expensive and yet futile actions that do not address the core needs of the visiting tourist, day-tripper or shopper. It’s going to take a rethink and a PR campaign that can brand Southport in a compelling way, to get that ‘must visit’ desire going. It will mean assessing what the likely tourism avatar looks like, engages in and expects, and then developing product to suit.
Creating travel PR initiatives that drive footfall
Fundamentally, the PR needs to take Southport beyond the ‘trust rebuild’ stage. Trust is the belief that someone or something will act/operate in a dependable way. Does dependability drive tourism footfall? It might restore it but it’s not going to solve any long-term issues with regard to a steady decline of visitors.
The easy thing to do will be to just pour more money into what has happened previously and hope that’s the panacea. It won’t be. If there is a lack of creativity and ideas behind what is going on, it just won’t work. I’ve seen it so many times but, thankfully, also been able to prove the power of creativity and ideas, when generating the outstanding outcomes that our clients have enjoyed.
Promoting and repositioning Britain’s seaside resorts
This is a massive opportunity, on the ‘out of adversity comes triumph’ spectrum. It’s a watershed from which to become bolder, take the required risks, and bring everyone together in one shared mission. It’s truly time to act and reverse decline, by finding new ‘tourism-bites’ – a term we have coined here at Catapult PR for the exciting little things that are hidden secrets or lesser-known facets of a tourism experience.
It’s essential – especially given the situation that was described on TV – that Southport and Sefton get it right. Seaside towns in Britain have already lost a lot of their shine for the British public. They need to work extra hard to attract the tourism pound, even without having to combat loss of attraction. In this case, the challenge is going to be significant but one thing is sure. Trust is the foundation of any rebuild and the one marketing tactic that can build trust, as well as shifting perceptions, is PR. Go beyond that, with a creative, attention-grabbing approach and it could be a massive success story in the making.
Reducing reliance on leaflets and destination websites
Tourism destinations and coastal towns on many parts of Britain’s coastline need to adopt the same approach and stop relying on leaflet racks and destination websites to bring people in. Our Heritage Buzz research survey, available here as a free download, demonstrated how little these are now used.
“If you build it, they will come”, as the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams, says. But you have to construct it from scintillating PR and content and be prepared to think big. That doesn’t mean splashing the cash. It means, as my Cambridge supervisor once told me, jumping off the side of the pool and going for it. It requires a modicum of bravery.
I’m here and happy to talk to any tourism destination that wants to do that through PR and content Just email jane@catapultpr.co.uk
