Brand USA Goes Digital to Attract International Travelers

Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, is using Google Maps, Instagram and Spotify in hopes of increasing international tourism numbers.

Established by the Travel Promotion Act (TPA), which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010, Brand USA has been tasked with helping the U.S. draw 100 million annual international visitors by 2021.

Naturally, the nation’s first cooperative destination marketing organization has turned to social media and the digital world to meet this mandate.

On Brand USA’s consumer website, DiscoverAmerica.com, travelers can now enter the location(s) they are traveling to and then be sent to Google Maps where numerous points of interest, hotspots, photos, travel articles, video journals and more are tagged in real time.

Travelers can then share planned itineraries, trip experiences and music playlists curated by Brand USA via Instagram and Spotify. Thumbnails of these geo-targeted Instagram images can then be uploaded onto the map.

“It’s real time, it’s localized, it’s customized, it’s authentic because it’s coming from other travelers and it’s converting across a number of our very popular platforms,” said Anne Madison, marketing director of Brand USA. “So, simultaneously, we’re getting that conversation going in numerous places where our target audiences are going to.”

But why Instagram?

Part of it is because influential travelers such as millennials are visually minded. But photos also help break through language barriers, said Talia Salem, social media manager of Brand USA.

“Something that we really like about Instagram is it speaks in a visual language,” Salem said. “With some of our challenges of speaking to a global audience, visuals are really how we tell our story in a lot of ways.”

It also helps to attract “very passionate, visual audiences,” Salem said.

“If you look at all the digital platforms, they are all moving toward that visual interest, with the exception of certain international markets that are text-heavy,” Madison added. “Even LinkedIn is trying to look more like a Facebook. Even on Twitter, where you have your 140 characters, you’re seeing more visuals. (Millennials are) a visual generation but I think that cuts across a lot of generations. You’re seeing a lot of these platforms move to this because it captures your eye.”

It also doesn’t hurt that Instagram now boasts more than 300 million users—more than Twitter—and Facebook hasn’t been attracting as many new users lately.

“Facebook is also declining in organic reads so we have to look at what channels are performing for us and where our audiences are,” Salem said.

Beyond being visually appealing, presenting America in a maps interface serves another purpose: It educates international travelers about the distance between different U.S. destinations.

“We’ve moved towards using the maps to help orient people to the U.S. because it’s very large,” Salem said. “With some of our research, we found that some people don’t understand the scale. They might think they can go to New York and L.A. in the same day. We want to make sure they have the best experience when they come here and understand how far apart things are.”

Brand USA has also been using the popular music application Spotify in a unique way.

Brand USA has not only put together several road trip ideas that span the U.S., but it has also curated an appropriate playlist for each road trip. On top of that, each road trip and playlist is specifically designed to attract target travelers from certain international countries.

For example, via its research, Brand USA found that Koreans were drawn to Texas and cowboy culture, as well as barbecue. So, naturally, Brand USA formed a road trip that takes travelers to the Texas Barbecue Trail. And, naturally, one song on the road trip’s Spotify playlist is “Bar-B-Q” by famous Texas band ZZ Top (talk about a good fit).

Through its research, Brand USA also discovered that Italians are attracted to America’s Wild West.

“There really is a connection between spaghetti westerns and our own West,” Madison said.

Under the “Explore” section of DiscoverAmerica.com you’ll also find a section devoted entirely to the great outdoors. There’s a reason for that.

“Overseas travelers are really attracted to our wide-open spaces,” Madison said. “One thing that we are really pushing this year is the great outdoors. People are amazed by the vastness of this country, they are amazed at the diversity of this country. They are amazed at having that breadth of land to drive and really just see nature. It’s why our national parks have been such a draw for people. People just don’t have that.”

Madison said the Route 66 and Pacific Coast Highway road trips have been popular in that respect.

But all of these bells and whistles—and all of this research—can only go so far. Perhaps the most important thing was making the website and the digital platform authentic.

“(The platform’s) peer to peer, so they’re getting content from their own age groups, they’re getting content from their own demographic group,” Madison said. “It makes it real and authentic to them. It makes it reliable and credible. More and more millennials are not going to trust an ad.”

Source: Travel Pulse