Visit Florida

Background

Every year since 2018, Visit Florida requested the organization of a Sales & Media Mission aimed at gathering the trade industry and top media from Mexico to educate and update. The Tourism office requested a visit to the main Mexican markets, through strategically planned events along with Visit Florida partners participating and presenting their offer to the buyers and media.

Solution

• After the pandemic in Mexico, events were complicated to carry on with the remaining sanitary measures ruled by law, we faced challenges to gather people at different events, so AVIAREPS developed the concept: “The Florida House.”
• The concept house would support maintaining a sense of security for the participants and the guests, as we followed all existing rules for public events
• Additionally, the concept was innovative and comprehensive for the tourism office regarding budget and logistics
• AVIAREPS planned strategic events per city to establish solid alliances with the national airlines, so we arranged to co-sponsor with each airline during each yearly edition
• Our “Florida House” venue would be fully branded using the different spaces available to hold different kinds of events called “Florida happenings”
• The concept also supported a key strategy for our client: INTEGRATION, as we could be simultaneously holding trade and PR events
• AVIAREPS designed and produced photo opportunities in the whole venue to support social media posting and word-of-mouth
• The agenda included media interviews, training sessions, one-to-one appointments for top sellers, trade shows, brand activations like mixology classes or a selfie museum, themed dinners and media appointments; all in one venue to facilitate partners and guests with the flow of events and time, since we know our main cities are complicated due to traffic

Results

• The Florida House Sales & Media Mission has been taking place for 2 years in a row, and now it is the model for other markets within Visit Florida
• We managed to have a strategic alliance with Volaris for the first year in this format and with Aeromexico in the second year, and for our third year with VivaAerobus
• This event increased brand awareness in the targeted markets, negotiations for campaigns, product development and incentivized sales and content creation
• A total of 800+ TAs and TOs reached in 3 markets during the 2 first missions editions
• 20+ Tour packages featuring Florida developed to present in events along with commercial allies
• Chief Editors joined and participated in events
• More than 300 top sellers participated in our appreciation events and received information about the destination
• More than 20 appointments took place during both sales missions focused on developing products and itineraries for travelers
• 60+ media attendees and 10 trade media interviews were coordinated resulting in posts and new content
• 3 Different National Travel agency associations attended our Florida House, enhancing the importance of the DMO in the market
• The targeted content creators we worked with during both FYs attended our integrated events, travel bloggers and celebrities mixed with Tour operators, OTAs, airline directors and TA leaders together
• Business stories of success after the sales mission ended like new packages, opportunities, and campaigns

Visit Florida Sales Mission

Visit Florida Sales Meeting