• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, May 26, 2017

The first big holiday weekend is here. So instead of loading you up with a treatise on the GDPR, complete with footnotes, we’ll end this week on a more relaxing note: A rundown of some vacation campaigns. 

For example, Antigua and Barbuda have launched a digital campaign called “Summer Lovin’.” It will be conducted through consumer and trade touchpoints, including email, social media, offline channels and public relations.

Forget the fact that the Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be a whopper this year. The Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority (ABTA) hopes that people will be lured by the sheer beauty of the twin islands. 

In June, “The Month of Romance,” the ABTA will offer special honeymoon and wedding packages. And it will be pushing the idea of sun, sand and sea. Are you on their list? Watch out for those email marketing messages. The campaign runs to September 15.  

Meanwhile, across the pond, Tourism Ireland is reaching out to Italians, Germans and anybody else it can think of. Working with Francorosso, an Italian tour operator, it has launched a campaign consisting of email marketing, social media and videos that will appear at Metro stations, buses and airports, FFT.ie reports. 

The same agency is partnering with Shannon Airport to promote a new Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Irish Examiner says. The campaign includes “email marketing to a database of 60,000 potential visitors, directing them to a specially created section on Ireland.com,” Irish Examiner continues. And Tourism Ireland is “also highlighting the new flight from Frankfurt, and holidays along the Wild Atlantic Way, to its 287,000 Facebook fans,” the Examiner continues. 

Meanwhile, Tourism Ireland is partnering with Iberia Express and Cork Airport to attract Spaniards, using a similar digital mix. 

What’s driving this big effort? It could be that visits to Ireland have “increased marginally in the first four months of 2017, compared to the same period last year,” Business World reports. British visitor numbers have been affected by Brexit, it adds.    

But no matter: None of this takes away from the brilliance of the campaigns, or the excitement of an Irish vacation. 

Here’s hoping you have a great holiday weekend. And don’t forget what the day is about.