Promoting Estonia as a Travel Destination via Social Media

Helene Lukke, M.Sc.E-marketing coordinatorEnterprise Estonia, Estonian Tourist Boardhelene.lukke@eas.eetwitter.com/visitestonia

• What is Estonian Tourist Board’s marketing team focusing on?

• visitestonia.com website • Social media strategy and

implementation

Promoting Estonia as a Travel Destination• increase the awareness of potential target market tourists regarding the

possibilities and tourism products of Estonia as a tourism destination

• Marketing team: 2 e-marketing coordinators, 10 country managers, foreign representatives

• Target markets 2011-2013:

- First Priority: Finland, Russia, Germany;

- Second Priority: Sweden, Norway, Latvia;

- Domestic Tourism;

- Third Priority: UK, Lithuania; Poland;

- Developing Countries: Italy, Spain,France;

- Extra activities : USA, China, the Netherlands, Japan, the Ukraine.

Estonian Tourist Board (ETB) activitiesConsumer 75%•Campaigns•Brochures and infomaterials•PR•Tourism fairs

Trade 25%•Newsletters•Infoseminars•FAM trips•Tourism fairs

visitestonia.com website•9 languages (ENG, FIN,GER, SWE, RUS, LAT, CHI,EST, RUS (local)•database with 7000 sites•1700 infosystem users

•In 2011:

In 2015…

How to attract more visitors to come to Estonia?Social media?

Social Media Strategy – step 1 - Researches about online-behaviour in social media channels

The reason why people use social media

Reasearch: UK Social Media Census 2011

• Material driven• Impulsive• Informational driven

How popular is social media?

What happens online?

Who uses which channels?

Social Media Strategy – step 2

• Where are we? Analysis of current situatsion of ETB activities

• Where do we want to go? Analysis of best-practices in tourism

Goals of social media activities • To increase visibility and connect with people• Create a positive imago and make people talk about

Estonia• to inspire the members of target groups to search for

additional information and to make a travel decision• Create more visits to visitestonia.com

Main social media channels of ETB

Measuring the results 01.01.2011-28.06.2011 vs 01.01.2012-28.06.2012

Takeaways• A strategy is needed when many people are involved in social

media activities• Set rules for:- Who is responsible - Posting language and style- Freequancy and timing of postings- Subjects to avoid- Handling Negative Topics

• Combine social media with the main hub• People share mostly fresh news, beautiful pictures, interesting

videos, big events, funny facts, unique sites, insider tips • Experience and make it FUN

Thank You!

Helene LukkeEstonian Tourist Boardhelene.lukke@eas.ee