Experience Oxfordshire has launched a new digital campaign to support Oxfordshire’s visitor economy through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oxfordshire’s tourism industry brings £2.3 billion annually to the county, providing 40,000 local jobs and boosting economic growth – however, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused huge disruption to Oxfordshire’s visitor economy, with 86% of businesses reporting a revenue drop of greater than 50%, according to county-wide research undertaken by Experience Oxfordshire.
Experience Oxfordshire, the Destination Management Organisation for the county, is working hard to support Oxfordshire’s visitor economy during this extraordinary time. Designed to encourage positive action, Experience Oxfordshire’s new #DreamOxfordshire campaign aims to support local businesses and invite potential visitors to dream of visiting our world-class destination in the future.
The campaign targets a wide demographic of potential visitors to Oxfordshire, including local residents and both national and international visitors, and encourages them to look forward to exploring the county when social distancing regulations are relaxed.
For the moment, however, Experience Oxfordshire are also encouraging Oxfordshire residents to support and buy from local businesses. The campaign also invites those further afield to discover a range of Oxfordshire activities virtually, plan their future visit using digital resources or buy a voucher or gift card for the future.
The #DreamOxfordshire messages are being promoted across Experience Oxfordshire’s digital channels, and include:
- “Reschedule, Don’t Cancel!” Experience Oxfordshire is urging visitors to postpone their visit, rather than cancel, to give Oxfordshire’s visitor economy a lifeline.
- “Shop locally online”. Oxfordshire’s local residents can’t currently visit their favourite restaurants, but they can still taste them. Many pubs, restaurants and breweries are delivering for the first time, and we encourage Oxfordshire residents to shop locally online to keep Oxfordshire businesses afloat.
- “Loved your holiday in Oxfordshire? Leave a good review”. The #DreamOxfordshire campaign aims to boost support for the businesses that have already made visitors’ trips special, to ensure that the businesses will be there when visitors come back. This message urges followers to leave good reviews and book ahead for their next visit.
- “Start planning your escape – buy a voucher”. Our campaign also aims to inspire future visitors to Oxfordshire to start planning their trip and buy a voucher or gift card. By inspiring future visitors to dream about their visit, the #DreamOxfordshire campaign secures much-needed money for Oxfordshire’s visitor economy businesses now, and visitors can start looking forward to getting out and exploring again in the future.
Speaking about the launch of the #DreamOxfordshire campaign, Chief Executive of Experience Oxfordshire Hayley Beer-Gamage commented;
“Experience Oxfordshire’s new #DreamOxfordshire campaign is focused on highlighting Oxfordshire as a world-class visitor destination to local and global visitors, while simultaneously supporting Oxfordshire’s tourism businesses through these uncertain times. The campaign is just one of the many actions Experience Oxfordshire is undertaking behind the scenes to support our valuable visitor economy at this extraordinary time, but is also a great way of keeping up with what Experience Oxfordshire is doing via social media. The digital campaign means that we can keep adding new content and adapt to changing circumstances, gearing more towards promoting travel to Oxfordshire when destinations and travel open back up again. We would like to encourage all visitor economy businesses across Oxfordshire to use #DreamOxfordshire in their online communication so we can raise our destination profile, digital footprint and consumer engagement at this time with the aim of aiding recovery post Covid-19.”
Experience Oxfordshire is promoting the campaign digitally through PR, social media and web activity. Keep an eye out for #DreamOxfordshire on Experience Oxfordshire’s social media channels and make sure to join in the conversation by using the hashtag alongside your own positive messages about Oxfordshire.
For more information about participating in the #DreamOxfordshire campaign please contact marketing@experienceoxfordshire.org.
Graphics to accompany the #DreamOxfordshire campaign are available here.
Experience Oxfordshire are offering a range of business support and advice which can be found at experienceoxfordshire.flywheelstaging.com/partner/business-support and are encouraging businesses to contact the team on partnership@experienceoxfordshire.org
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For more information contact:
press@experienceoxfordshire.org
NOTES TO THE EDITOR:
Experience Oxfordshire is the official Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Oxfordshire. We are the trading arm of the parent charity, Experience Oxfordshire Charitable Trust, and are a not-for-profit partnership organisation that is committed to the promotion, management and development of Oxfordshire as a great destination to live, work, visit and do business and improving growth and productivity across the visitor economy.
experienceoxfordshire.flywheelstaging.com/partner
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