Cases studies

Launching Ecuador in the French Market: How to start promoting a new destination. France – from 2005 to January 2009

• Agencies : Interface Tourism France
• Services : Consumer Promotion - Public Relations - Representation - Trade Development

Brief

“Ecuador? It’s a line, not a country!” was the typical phrase when we first began representing Ecuador. A great job had to be done…

In spite of this incredible lack of image in the French market, Ecuador has a very comprehensive tourist offer which corresponds totally to a number of French market segments, thanks to its natural variety and its culture.

Tactics

From 2005 to January 2009

The basic concept was to make Ecuador known as a great destination for nature and culture lovers. With a limited budget, the campaign mixed trade and PR activities :

• Very few French tour operators featured trips to Ecuador, something which changed radically thanks to our vast programme of sales calls and training sessions, fam trips, the organisation of and participation in roadshows and trade shows, the realisation of trade manuals etc.
• In parallel we launched a large PR campaign with press trips and press events (lunches, cocktails etc.) and created a totally revamped press kit, e-newsletters etc.
• We carried out different consumer promotions, including fairs, advertising campaigns, conferences and destination presentations, cultural events with the Embassy of Ecuador in Paris etc.
• All activities were completely focused on establishing an image of the destination; for example, the first advertising campaigns were dedicated at the “creation” of an image of Ecuador as a South-American country. The design therefore showed 4 representative pictures (of the 4 main regions), a map of South America to situate the country, and the slogan: “Ecuador, South America on the line”. Another phrase, “Ecuador, a concentration of Latin America” also was used to encourage tourists to travel to a country that offers a glimpse of all Latin America in a single journey.

Result

• There had been almost no press coverage of Ecuador prior to 2005… more than 350 articles dedicated to Ecuador were published between 2005 and 2008!
• In 3 years, more than 1.000 tourism professionals (tour operators and travel agents) participated in training sessions
• A 241 % increase in terms of the number of tour operators featuring the destination!
• Between 2005 and 2008, the number of French tourists increased by 22,87% and international arrivals by 16,9%. Between 2007 and 2008 France has provided the country's best growth rates (+11,67%, ahead of Germany + 3,3% and the UK -6,21%), when overall European arrivals only increased by 5,14% and international arrivals by 7,2%.