Yesterday, I was introduced to a new campaign to increase tourism to the United States.

The material I have seen includes advertising spots, available here, which do a great job at showcasing the diversity of America.

This includes diversity of landscape, architecture, culture, people, food, love, and recreation. The spots manage to capture the essence of some of the things that truly make America great. At times, it’s sometimes hard to believe you are watching an advertisement for a country, as opposed to humanity. The spots avoid focusing too heavily on the most promoted American landmarks, demonstrating that America is about much more than a select few attractions. It’s important to note that there will be social media, signage, and print elements of the campaign as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUA1CXIku8&list=PLD062EB6722BB03A0&index=7&feature=plc

The team behind these ads, Brand USA, also has tangible, measurable goals for what they intend to accomplish. Specifically, they intend to achieve a 20:1 return in visitor spending per dollar of advertising. However, Brand USA also does not mention what the current ratio is, making it harder to determine how much of an increase they expect. Though American tourism remains strong, Brand USA argues that the share of worldwide tourism as a percentage has decreased from 17 percent in 2000 to below 12% in 2010.

Overall, it will be interesting to see how the numbers go after the 3-5 years that Brand USA estimates it will take to get their campaign fully operational.

While tourism does not precisely address some of the long term challenges of public diplomacy, Brand USA strongly presents economic interests in justifying its strategy—and that’s fine. Tourism happens to be a popular method for people to connect with the U.S., however briefly, in a way that is more meaningful than what they absorb through the news—it also has the added bonus of creating jobs here at home.

Given that Brand USA focuses heavily on people in their advertisements, I think that’s recognition of the importance of people to people communication, even in tourism.

Share on Facebook

Tweet