Real celebrates its second anniversary with new travel and tourism clients for PR in Spain. Last May, the agency begins to work with new accounts in the travel sector such as Tokyo Tourism Board, the cosmopolitan city that embraces tradition and modernity, and the Rueda Wine Route, the Castilian-Leon destination known for its wine, its gastronomy, its landscapes and their heritage. Both destinations trust Alba Prieto and Sergio Flecha to manage their communication with the media at a national level with the aim of increasing their visibility among travelers.

Other tourism clients

These two clients add to the current portfolio of the agency, which already works with another national destination such as Destino Vera, a municipality in Almeria focused on a slow tourism offer; Brindos,Lac & Château, a luxury hotel in the French Basque Country with a private lake and floating rooms; as well as Caoba Hotels, the first platform to combine unique accommodations around the world. Real, in addition, has just finished a project for Ibiza Travel that consisted of a roadshow through 6 Spanish cities and with which the agency brought together more than 400 travel agents. And in the last edition of Fitur 2023, it was the agency that once again supported the Jordan Tourism Board in its marketing and communication actions.

Optimistic outlook 

The agency’s growth is due to several factors such as professional relationships with some tourism brands, client recommendations and collaboration with other boutique agencies to manage various projects.

This is the case of Argentine Beef, a brand for which Real has carried out two actions in the national market in collaboration with the Argentine agency Licere International PR; and Destino Vera, which works hand in hand with GoodCompany, a marketing and advertising agency in Seville.

For his part, Sergio Flecha, co-founder of Real, points out: “We have had various ways of getting clients, even contacting them after seeing an ad on Instagram. But the collaboration with other boutique agencies complementary to our communication service seems like a great way to exploit and that can make us grow both in clients and in billing above what was initially planned for this 2023”.

Real Marketing y Comunicación has started working with Ibiza Tourism Office to organize and attend its roadshow that it is going to carry out in different cities in Spain, specifically Valencia, Alicante, Murcia, Seville, Malaga and Bilbao.

Ibiza, which will be accompanied by several local companies, organizes these workshops so that travel agents can learn first-hand the news of the destination and the products of each of the local companies, such as car rental, excursions and activities, hotels and accommodation, town halls, ferries…

In this way, when travelers arrive at each of the travel agencies, the travel agents will have up-to-date information on the destination and will be able to offer the best combination and the best trip to their clients.

What role does Real play in these workshops?

The organization of these events and the call with travel agents is the main job. But in a more explicit way:

• Contact the hotels and venues to check availability of dates.
• Agree with the hotels the spaces where to hold the events based on the expected attendees.
• Organize how the room has to be distributed according to the needs of the client.
• Coordinate the cocktails to be served at the event, with a nod to the gastronomy of the island.
• Propose and coordinate activations during the event for attendees.
• Invitation to travel agents from all cities to achieve maximum assistance, for which Real has included an advertisement in Agenttravel and has designed a landing page to register attendees.
• Assistance at the event to receive travel agents and to support Ibiza in all its needs.

What does it mean for Real to help Ibiza with its 2023 roadshow?

“For us, it is a real pleasure to have the opportunity to work with Ibiza. It is a very important organization at a national and international level, which gives us authority and prestige. So, we are very grateful for having been chosen for this key project, prior to the high peak season for the destination”, concludes Alba Prieto, co-founder of the agency.

Sergio Flecha, co-founder of the agency, points out “this project is quite a challenge since we have had a short margin of action, but we are happy to have proposed a push-pull strategy to obtain the best results for the destination. Helping Ibiza to organize a roadshow of these dimensions also allows us to position ourselves as a boutique agency for the provision of tourist representation services in the national market”.

Brindos, Lac & Château hotel is the latest Maison Millésime, which has just opened in Anglet, on the French Basque coast a few kilometers from the center of Biarritz. Millésime’s goal is to immerse its guests in a unique and authentic experience in each of its maisons. To do this, it acquires exceptional and emblematic locations from each region, which it then restores respecting its heritage character thanks to the extraordinary skill of local artisans.

Objectives (what did the client want?):

• Announce the opening of the new “maison” of the French group Millèsime in the Spanish market
• Brindos Lac & Château, due to its location, was also interested in the media in the Basque Country, in addition to the main ones at the national level.
• The goal initially set was to obtain at least 10 pieces of coverage in the Spanish media.

Approach (how did we help?):

• For this project we used different communication actions to get coverage in the media.
• Among the actions carried out is the sending of information to a selection of journalists exclusively, in advance of a subsequent press release sent to all journalists related to travel and luxury.
• In addition to these mailings, we carried out more than 30 personalized pitches to make it easier for the media to find the information about this new hotel interesting.
• As a complement, we manage an interview and individual press trips for 4 journalists who have had the opportunity to experience the hotel.

Brindos, Lac & Château in several Spanish media 

Results (what did we get?):

• In the 3 months of work, at Real we have succeed that the hotel has coverage in the Basque Country through an interview on Radio Euskadi and a press trip for El Correo.
• At the national level, some media that have reported the opening of Brindos are 20 Minutos, Hola Viajes, El País, Gastronomistas, Etheria Magazine, ABC, Expansión, Europa Press, El Mundo, Tendencias Hoy or Traveler, among others.
• In total, we have exceeded the initial goal set by reaching 19 pieces of coverage with a potential audience (reach) of more than 80 million impacts.
• This quarterly campaign has been selected among the best in the travel & tourism sector by TopComunicación, a key media especialized on PR in Spain, as a best practice on how to increase awareness of an unknown brand in the Spanish market.  

Getting earned coverage in the media is the perfect way to increase awareness. But not only that, this strategy supports the rest of your brand’s marketing, communication and social media actions. In this beautiful garden, appearing in the media becomes the water that irrigates everything else. And in this post you will discover what we mean.

Throughout the post you will understand how PR complements the rest of the actions you carry out and, at the end, you will find a tip on how to be inspired to propose a topic to a journalist to appear in his media.

How to expand your marketing, communication and social media strategies

Media coverage is the basis. In fact, we compare it to the water and fertilizer that irrigates a beautiful garden and helps all the vegetation to grow and spread with its help. To see it a little clearer, let us make the comparison here:

• The ground. The base, your branding, which is everything you work on at the beginning. When you conceptualize your brand and turn it over to a web page. Before you start watering you have to have this part ready.
• The grass, where people move freely and is always there, like social networks. Being in the media will bring more people to this lawn. And sharing on social networks that you have appeared in the media will give more confidence to those who follow you on Instagram or Facebook.
• Seasonal flowers, which help you quickly decorate the garden, such as digital campaigns. You can enhance many of these campaigns if you communicate them correctly, without it looking like advertising.
• Shrubs are all medium to long-term strategies, like SEO. They take time and you have to shape them until little by little you get it to be what you are looking for and attract attention. And when a digital media publishes an article about your brand and includes the link, it is helping you with SEO.
• Trees take a lot of time and effort to grow, right? Well, they are the conferences and presentations, those that come when you are already a reference and well-known in the sector. Media coverage helps you to be a benchmark in the sector and will make it easier for you to reach this point of being a speaker.

Getting earned coverage is the water and fertilizer that helps to grow and expand all the strategies that you implement in your garden of marketing, communication and social media

Tip to be inspired with PR actions

We want to share a tip that is as simple as possible if you find yourself out of ideas in the process of thinking about topics to propose to a journalist: check and read the media outlet in which you want to appear. It sounds obvious, but sometimes the simplest things escape us.

Some time ago we applied it ourselves. We wanted to appear in TopComunicación, a reference media in Public Relations and Communication. We went to see what articles they published and found a section called «Ideas: Creativity in Communication» where they presented success stories of brands that had opted for a specific type of communication.

After reading this, we were clear. We wanted to make a press release with a list of funny situations in communication agencies, like ours. Looking to make other professionals like us smile (not to sell!). The result: that press release was collected by both that outlet and another called PR Noticias, the two main communication media.

Remember we can help your brand’s awareness with PR activities in the Spanish market. We would love to ear from you.

The Jordan Tourism Board wanted to take advantage of its participation in Fitur 2022, the international tourism fair that is held annually in Madrid, for different purposes. In this best practice of a tourism representation service in Spain you will find the objectives, the approach of the agency as well as the results and the testimonials from the client.

Objective (What did the client want?):

• Schedule meetings with stakeholders, from wholesale and travel agencies, to airlines, associations and other entities in the tourism sector to see possible ways of collaboration in which to support the destination welcoming more Spanish travellers.
• Giving visibility to the Minister of Tourism who attended along with the delegation from the Jordanian Tourism Headquarters.
• Expand the new branding of the destination, “Kingdom of time”, among travellers and the Spanish tourism sector through Public Relations actions (appearing in the media).
• Enhancing relations with the tourism industry and journalists at a Jordanian-themed evening event.

Approach (How did we help the destination?):

• According to the client, at Real we started working well in advance (at the beginning of November when the fair was held in mid-January), which allowed us to contact the stakeholders when they had not yet begun to fill out their agenda and were more available for meetings, interviews, etc.
• As for the meetings, we made a wide selection of the main players in the market, as well as those that, even though they were smaller, were relevant to the destination due to their specialization in sports, nature or religious tourism, for example.
• Regarding the media, we worked in advance on a series of interviews within the framework of Fitur. Moreover, we reacted quickly on the days of the fair to attract media to the stand for interviews. We also provided support by writing and sending a press release about the new branding.

Results (What did we get?):

• The number of appointments that we attended at the stand during the fair doubled compared to the destination previous participation at the fair.
• The total number of interviews managed was 10, both with the Minister and with a spokesperson who spoke Spanish (well above what was expected by the client, who had only had one interview on the previous Fitur edition).
• Attendance at the event: a total of more than 100 people enjoyed the evening (20 of them journalists). A very relevant number considering the pandemic situation.
• Gathering interviews and the press release, the destination has obtained more than 25 impacts (posted articles) in the media and with a potential of reached persons of 95 million. Some media in which Jordan has appeared were Antena3 TV, Vanitatis, El Mundo, TeleMadrid, EsRadio or Rac1, among many others.

Testimonials (What did the client say about our work?):

Mr. Hakim Al-Tamimi, Jordan Tourism Board:

“Working with Sergio and Alba for Fitur 2022, both public relations to get coverage in the media and organizing appointments with the professional tourism sector, has been a real pleasure. On a day-to-day basis, the closeness and ease with which they carry out every detail has caught our attention, highlighting their efficiency, effectiveness and professionalism. Without a doubt, they have exceeded all our expectations, the results were better than expected, and, of course, we will count on Real again for future projects of the Jordan Tourism Board in Spain”.

If you work in a tourism board or DMO, you know that an agency offering tourism representation in Spain could bring you some benefits. Targeting a market without your own office there or opening a new market could be a great challenge. But if experts accompany you, everything is much easier. 

The founder team at Real has a huge experience working for destinations such as Jordan,  Thailand, Costa Rica, Japan, Tokyo, South Africa and Ibiza, to name a few among the 15 destinations in their credentials.

Benefits you can have counting on a tourism representation agency

You can find these benefits in the section about our service including several packages for destinations. We highlight 6 of them:

• Strengthen your position – Cultivate real and lasting relationships with the sector’s big names and you can enjoy more credibility and a stronger reputation.
• Understand the market – Get your finger on the market’s pulse and learn what’s happening and why so you can make the best decisions for your destination every time.
• Increase visits – Form strategic alliances that will bring more tourists to your destinations with specific initiatives throughout the year.
• Add other goals – Develop secondary objectives like increasing spend per tourist or drawing in visitors from more places and see the results.
• Act fast – Work quickly when it comes to putting on events, exhibitions or workshops to strengthen ties within the Spanish tourism sector.
• Your Real team – Having representation will set you apart from other destinations and we can work together to make sure your destination is on people’s minds.

Activities to target the Spanish market

Knowing the market allows you, or your tourism representation agency in Spain, to better select the activities for each objective. The main activities requested are:

• Regular e-newsletters to the trade: TO and TA / OTA
• Sales calls or visits 
• Training in different formats
• Fam Trips 
• Co-marketing or Co-branding campaigns 
• Market analysis reports
• Catalogue’s audit
• Participation in trade shows like Fitur 

Apart from those services 100% focused on the trade contacts, it is important to add other services like PR or influencer’s marketing in order to boost the awareness of a destination in the Spanish market.  

Spain’s main figures about travel

Apart from the trade and its behavior regarding marketing activities, it is also important to know how Spaniards travel, when, with who, budget, etc. as well as some last news like the main outbound destinations for Spaniards. All this type of information, along with the main macroeconomic data to understand the market, such as the average salary or the unemployment rate, is included in our Spanish market overview. A brief document including key figures for a tourism board or DMO to know a bit more about Spain. In case you want us to share it with you, do not hesitate in contacting us. We would be happy to assist.