Cases studies

Mexico Media Relations - How to renew media interest in a well established destination by promoting new product segments. France from 2007 to 2009

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

Brief

French tourists love Mexico as a destination and have always travelled a lot to this country. However, the majority of tourists travel to the coast only looking for “sol y playa” holidays. To attract a new kind of clientele and to encourage tourists to travel to other parts of the country, the key was to use the media to create such a demand.

With a huge number of archaeological sites, various UNESCO World Heritage sites, one of the best natural settings in which to do all manner of open-air activities, incredible fauna and flora, delicious, typical gastronomy, lots of very high level tourist services and much more, Mexico could not limit itself to the “classic tourism” that the media had already covered hundreds of times…

Tactics

From August 2007 to December 2009

The objective was to change the profile of the tourist as much as possible, increasing spend during the stay and the length of the stay, focusing on high-income tourists to raise “value share” instead of “market share” and promoting new kinds of tourism (cultural tourism, nature tourism, sports tourism, Premium tourism, MICE tourism etc.) to show that Mexico has a huge variety of landscapes, activities, cultures: to really know Mexico, you need to travel there several times and you need to visit different regions.

• Organise themed press conferences
• Set up meetings and interviews with top national consumer media and the entire trade press
• Create and send e-newsletters, flashes, videos on specific segments and products, unknown destinations etc.
• Organise press trips for top media on specific topics:
  • Specialszed press on specific products: golf, sailing, luxury, hotels, gastronomy, horse-riding, water sports etc.
  • Trade press on Business Tourism in Mexico City
  • National and regional newspapers on “new” segments
  • National magazines
  • Radio & TV channels
• Organisation of press and consumer cultural events: art exhibition (about famous painters, fauna…), cocktails and musical animation using various typical national fiestas (Day of the Dead, World Music Day, Independence Day…), concerts and catering in prestigious cultural venues in Paris (Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Instituto Cervantes, Musée du Quai Branly…)
• Presence of Mexico in consumer and trade fairs such as BTExpo, Top Resa, ILTM, MCTM, Salon du Chocolat, MAP, Salon du Livre etc.

Result

• This 2 and a half year PR campaign allowed us to obtain extensive media coverage for new kinds of tourism (cultural tourism, nature tourism, sport tourism, Premium tourism, MICE tourism etc.).
• In more than 1.500 articles published during this period, the proportion of articles dealing with "Sun and Sea" tourism represented only 18%, whilst more than 28% of all articles dealt with Cultural tourism.
• Other kinds of tourism, such as MICE, Nature, Premium tourism and New Products and Special segments represented nearly 20% of all articles published.
• The PR campaign also allowed us to promote more States of Mexico with lesser known  tourist attractions. Thanks to the media coverage of these new destinations, tourists were encouraged to travel to other parts of the country.