Best Travel Social Media Campaign

In late April 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. News of the spill dominated media coverage. Soon, it became clear that Florida’s tourism industry was going to be negatively impacted.

VISIT FLORIDA worked with Miles Media to develop a plan using social media, user content, content sharing and local updates to let consumers see for themselves the beaches were clear and open. Florida Live included: Local updates on VISITFLORIDA.com by adding Twitter feeds from regional DMOs to the site. An interactive map displayed local DMO updates, beach web cams, and FWC fishing reports. Beach conditions were included when oil appeared on shore. A feed was set up to showcase images posted by Facebook fans on VISITFLORIDA.com,in real time. A video blogger traveled all 825 miles of Florida beaches and uploaded daily videos to VISITFLORIDA.com and Florida Live YouTube channel, posted images on Flickr, tweeted and blogged. Emails targeted the southeast U.S.

VISIT FLORIDA’s Florida Live was successful in combating the negative perceptions being created by the news coverage of the oil spill. Most importantly, visitation for April-June 2010 was up 3.4%. Smith Travel shows occupancy rates in northwest Florida up 5% vs. the previous year. In a follow up study, 60% of those who saw Florida Live online knew more about Florida’s beaches and felt assured they were open and safe and 31% of those who went to VISITFLORIDA.com were more inclined to take a vacation prior to Labor Day.

Contributors:

Publisher:	Doug Luciani
Account Executive:	Melissa Worden
Developer:	Aaron Ellinwood
Developer:	Wes Bryant
Editor:	Rebecca Reynolds
Art Director:	Greg Insco
ePublications Manager:	Susan Harper
ePublications Developer:	Mitch Veix
List Manager:	Joe Parisi

MILES MEDIA

Location: USA