PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Tourism Bureau (STB) together with the French Tourist Office partnered to launch two marketing campaigns with Expedia during 2021, the first one was successfully executed in Spring 2021. The second campaign launched in November 2021 is currently ongoing throughout Spring 2022.
The current ongoing Expedia marketing campaign continues to perform good resulting in high return on ad spend with a gross booking revenue of close to USD$ 1.0 million thus far.
The cooperative marketing campaign also generated over 2000 room nights since the launch of the campaign in November 2021.
In December 2021, there was a total of 33.879 stayover arrivals, which is an increase of 151% in comparison to December 2020 stayover arrivals.
The majority of travelers turn to OTAs (Online Travel Agent) throughout their purchasing journey for trip inspiration, planning, or booking.
The objective of the campaign is to promote the Dutch and French side of the island to the United States market with the aim to inspire, engage, and covert travel consumers to book a trip to the destination by leveraging on Expedia’s extensive product portfolio.
The marketing campaign is conducted online and consists of search result banners, homepage native ads, and display banner ads on Expedia’s platform.
This is used to maximize traffic to the dedicated destination-landing page, providing travel consumers with the opportunity to book their trip, as well as view inspiring content about places to stay and things to do while on the island.
“Expedia continues to be one of the leading OTAs in the United States, and therefore carrying out a marketing campaign with Expedia will allow the destination to reach a broad range of active vacation seekers,” said STB Marketing Director Gianira Arrindell.
“Interest in the destination continues to grow, of which is evident in the high search and booking volume for the destination conducted on Expedia.
“Therefore, it is important that we continue to be at the forefront increasing destination consideration and stimulating last minute and future bookings,” Gianira Arrindell further added.
STB will continue to collaborate with OTAs, tour operators, and airlines in addition to carrying out other marketing activities to further increase destination awareness and stimulate bookings that will result in positive economic value for the destination.
