Antigua’s Tourism Ministry Launches Tripadvisor Campaign

The Ministry of Tourism has embarked upon a new worldwide campaign to promote Antigua & Barbuda via the web and has chosen to form a partnership with global travel site Tripadvisor.

This follows the continuing trend towards an aggressive online marketing strategy, to increase awareness and arrivals to the destination.

The upcoming promotion, which will run throughout the fall and winter travel season of 2012-2013, will target travellers planning trips to the Caribbean with strategically placed banner ads on Antigua and Barbuda related pages, as well as on the pages of other competitive destinations.

Such an undertaking makes Tripadvisor the perfect cooperation to push the campaign, since the web site’s global reach allows for coverage in the strongest traditional source markets, which include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

Minister of Tourism John Maginley is excited about the venture and said this would allow more people searching for Caribbean destinations to focus more on what Antigua & Barbuda has to offer and would assist in convincing potential visitors to book vacations to our twin-island paradise.

“Tripadvisor affords us the ability to reach travel-minded consumers focusing on Caribbean travel at that split second, when we’ve got their attention to convince them to book their vacations in Antigua and Barbuda,” he said.

According to Maginley one of the selling points of the collaboration is that they will be able to redirect customers from the pages of competing destinations to Antigua and Barbuda’s pages.

“A key advantage being that we can redirect the consumers’ attention from the pages of competing destinations to Antigua and Barbuda’s pages, this is what really seals the deal for this campaign.”

Marketing manager in the ministry Charmaine Spencer further elaborated by saying that the Tripadvisor campaign is different in that the Antigua & Barbuda ads on the Tripadvisor site will send those surfing the net for a Caribbean destination to visit, to Antigua & Barbuda’s official web site and to a booking site as well.

“The Tripadvisor campaign differs from traditional Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia because Antigua and Barbuda banners on the Tripadvisor site will drive traffic to Antigua and Barbuda’s official website and local booking engine BookAntiguaNow.com. As Tripadvisor serves mainly as an information portal to travellers ‘in the know’, the consumer now becomes our guest to expose current promotions, events, sights and tastes of our islands to ignite their interests to finalize the purchase,” Spencer noted.

With Antigua and Barbuda page views on Tripadvisor currently being reported as 1.2 million in the month of May 2012, the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority expects traffic to Antigua and Barbuda related pages on Tripadvisor and the official websites to grow significantly in the next few months.

Tripadvisor boasts 75 million reviews and opinions and operates sites in 30 countries and 21 languages worldwide.