Destination BrandWatch: Bulgaria launches international promotion campaign

A week ago, four international television channels - Euronews, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel and Eurosport -  started airing advertisements about Bulgaria. The initiative, launched by the Ministry of Economy, is worth 7.5 million leva, financed by the Regional Development operative programme, the report said. The promotional clips will feature Bulgaria's summer and winter tourist destinations, environmental and rural tourism and the country's cultural historic heritage. The clips will be aired 3166 times in total, in two phases – from September 6 until December 26 and from January 31 until March 27 2011. It is expected that the campaign will reach about 608 million European households. The clips are in Bulgarian, English, German, Russian and French, 30 seconds in length and will be aired during prime time hours, the report said. [youtube=http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=CBncym0t6h8] Deputy Minister Ivo Marinov pointed out the campaign is focused on the image of Bulgaria. “The aim of the project is to provide information about Bulgaria as a country with huge opportunities for spending one’s summer or winter vacation, as a land of ancient culture, with rich cultural and architectural heritage, mineral water springs, and preserved nature. We want to present Bulgaria in a new way – as a year-round tourist destination,” Mr. Marinov said. The Deputy Minister also talked about the target groups of the campaign: “The biggest markets for sea or ski trips are Germany, UK, Russia, Ukraine, the Scandinavian and Central European countries. We also focus on the markets for special types of tourism, as we have included necessary information for all those target groups. Finding new markets is one of the major aims of the project. The channels are watched in the Far East and USA and this will be a way to provoke interest there. We do not have enough financing for presenting Bulgaria at tourist exhibitions there. As a result of this campaign I expect a 4-5% rise in the number of foreign tourists coming to Bulgaria. The most important thing, however, is if they would come from new tourist markets and what tourist packages they will prefer here.” Bulgaria aims at further developing in the sphere of cultural, rural, spa, and eco tourism, which includes more financially solvent tourists. That is why the television channels were carefully selected. Eurosport was chosen because most of its viewers come from the main tourist markets for Bulgaria – Germany, UK, France, and Italy. It is the same with Euronews, which has nearly 294 million viewers and is broadcast in 9 languages. National Geographic is broadcast in 34 different languages and together with the Discovery Channel it focuses on a group of people with interests in culture and history. These two channels are watched all over the world.