2024 Campaign
As per last year, our 2024 marketing kicks off on Boxing Day this year with a mini-campaign, predominantly on social media, seen across the UK.
The series of four short videos will run until the New Year, focusing on encouraging people to cast aside Christmas indulgence to find #ThatIslandFeeling. The 'We do Boxing Day differently here…' idea uses footage of the Boxing Day swim and is supported by a suite of videos centred around being active.
This is immediately followed by our main 2024 campaign that will go out across digital and social media platforms, in print, out of home, digital and print, tv and radio.
While the UK remains our primary market, we are putting increased effort and resource into establishing secondary markets in both Jersey and France, bolstered by the new direct Paris route.
You can view the assets from the 2022 Boxing Day campaign here.
The VisitGuernsey App - a free resource for your guests.
Do your guests ask you for advice on what to do or recommendations for places to walk or swim?
The free VisitGuernsey App could be just what you are looking for.
The recently-included beaches and bays section includes lots of useful information including when is best to swim, tide times, what facilities there are, how accessible the beach is, how to get there, whether it is dog friendly, places to eat/drink and other nearby attractions.
In the self-guided walks section there is plenty of information to ensure that users don’t get lost, including an audio guide along with the detailed weather for the day.
Please do share the App with your guests, ahead of and during their stay to help better plan their visit. If you are a business along a route or near a beach or bay, you will also be featured as a place of interest waymarker.
If you would like a poster or pop up featuring information on the app for your establishment please get in touch with chloe.steadman@gov.gg.
Download the app: Apple App Store | Google Play Store
Q3 Travel and Visitor Bulletin out now
The Guernsey Quarterly Travel and Visitor Accommodation Bulletin is now out and available to read in full here.
While data shows some positive trends – there are more departing visitors, compared to Q3 2022, and those who are visiting are, on average, staying longer (5.5 nights compared to 5.2 nights) – there are still some challenges when comparing to pre-covid levels.
Data collected shows that the total number of passengers departing Guernsey was up 2%, compared to the same time last year, it does also show that it is 16% lower compared to the same quarter in 2019.
We still consider 2023 to be a recovery year, but we must acknowledge that some of the challenges we are now facing are the new normal. We, as Guernsey, must be smarter and more competitive than ever before in our approach.
Business travel continues to take the biggest hit which causes a drop in day trip travel (-61% compared to 2019) and, in turn, can make our ports figures seem at odds with our occupancy data which indicates that occupancy of open rooms is the same or better than the same period in both 2022 and 2019.
We are still seeing most visitors from the UK, but are focusing on bringing Jersey and France forward as secondary markets, investing more in our marketing to these destinations in 2024.
Read the full Bulletin to find out more, and please get in touch if you have any questions.
Value of UK PR
VisitGuernsey has been working in partnership with destination UK PR agencies for over twenty years and we continue to view PR as an important part of the marketing mix. PR is cumulative. It takes time to see results, but PR work has always shown a good return on investment for us.
We have a comprehensive visiting journalist programme, in which we work with local firm Orchard, and London-based firm Lotus, to develop itineraries that showcase the best of our islands to visiting journalists. This year we welcomed writers from multiple big-name UK publications; The Times, The Guardian, Wanderlust, The Telegraph, and many many more. Often these articles feature both in print and online, meaning huge reach, often into the millions.
There are many benefits to PR. It can help drive customers to your website, it can increase visibility of your products and services, and it can raise your profile. We would like to encourage you to work with us whenever possible to help build the island’s brand. Whether you’re a hotelier, a restaurateur, a guide, or an activity provider, we’re always looking for support with our visiting journalist programme, whether that’s a comped meal or stay, reduced rates, or a free tour or activity. Below we’ve linked to a couple of articles that we secured this year, which demonstrate the value of exposure PR can bring.
If you are keen to work with us in 2024, please let us know by completing this form.
The Times – Inside Guernsey’s new Renoir show, and the island spots he loved
We are currently in the process of tendering for a new French PR company. We look forward to working together with the winning business to build on the successes that we enjoyed in 2023, including the launch of the new Paris link in March 2024.
Update from the TMB
Since forming earlier this year, the Tourism Management Board has established itself as a group that represents a more rounded cross section of the visitor industry.
At the beginning of 2023, the Committee for Economic Development appointed Hannah Beacom as Chair of the newly-formed Tourism Management Board. From there the Board was established, made up of trade stakeholders, including hospitality, travel, transport and events representatives. Alongside those, a member of the Committee for Economic Development and the States' Director of Communications and Marketing.
A framework was agreed along with the promise of working more openly and collaboratively, and three guiding principles – productivity, competitiveness and stewardship. All these underpinned with encouraging a more collaborative approach from the wider tourism industry.
There followed a well-attended and enthusiastic workshop with more than 50 people representing all areas of tourism, including (but not exclusive to) events, attractions, accommodation and transport, from the Islands of Guernsey. Most recently, the Board has taken on responsibility for the distribution of grants funding – the one off tourism development fund and the annual events and activities grant, with announcements on that coming soon.
Next for the Board will be publishing their tourism strategy in Q1, 2024.
Trade Roundup 2023
VisitGuernsey has collaborated on 10 marketing campaigns or joint initiatives in 2023 with trade partners to increase awareness and spread the budget. This includes campaigns in the UK and Europe. Activities range from joint advertisements (radio, print, direct mailing, out of home) to taking part in destination training events.
New for this year, we worked with Expedia, Tripadvisor, Charitable Travel and Online Travel Training. We also attended the Holiday World Show in Dublin to support the direct service and the British Tourism & Travel Show, which is specifically for organisations and individuals looking for inspiration on group travel.
The Guernsey Trade Workshop in October was our flagship event for trade this year, where we welcomed more than 20 representatives from the UK and Europe. Feedback from delegates said that new connections and business opportunities were presented following their attendance.
Here’s a snippet of how Premier Holidays and GuernseyTravel have found this year:
"We have been delighted to see continued strong interest in the Islands of Guernsey in 2023, and this has been reflected in increased bookings across the year."
2024 European Charters
Blue Islands will be partnering again next year with Sunair and Rolf Meier Reisen to offer a charter service from Rotterdam, Groningen and Zurich. These routes provide important links and accessibility for our European visitors.
The Dutch charter service starts on 28 April until 8 September 2024. The Zurich charter will fly from 11 May to 24 August (adding an extra rotation). We look forward to welcoming everyone to the Islands of Guernsey.
2024 Partnership Packages
Thank you to those who have already been in touch to enquire and to make bookings.
By partnering with VisitGuernsey, you can take advantage of our knowledge, statistics, surveys and research as well as accessing our already engaged audiences across digital, social media and mailers.
Partnership Packages for 2024 include;
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Benefitting from featured listings on our website
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Sharing your offers on our social feeds
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Opportunity to advertise your business on a blog
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Space on our consumer emailers that are sent to our email database
Please get in touch if you have any questions and to book your package.
Thank you
A big thank you to all those who have submitted their November occupancy figures. We received 72 responses which is the highest response rate we’ve had for several months. We are grateful to you for taking the time to complete this form, which helps inform decision making and share information back to industry. With that, here is the December survey (for November occupancy).
As always, we are on hand to help and support in any way we can, so if there is anything that we can help with, please do get in touch.
We'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to working with you all in 2024.
With thanks, the VisitGuernsey team.
