Pitbull promoted Florida. Jackie Chan told tourists to try Hong Kong. And now Idris Elba is helping to establish direct flights to Sierra Leone. As well as stunning hotels and a vibrant culture, it seems that tourist destinations find celebrity endorsements crucial for people booking holidays.
Celebrities who have depicted Britain include Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Jamie Oliver, Twiggy, Dev Patel, Stephen Fry, Wallace and Gromit and more. Most of them were recruited for Visit Britain’s 2012 campaign, which, as former marketing director Laurence Bresh says, was a “unique year” – encompassing the Queen’s then Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics.
As a result of these circumstances, Visit Britain was given a huge budget totaling some £125 million. The initial success of the first films – with Judi Dench celebrating the country’s ‘abundance of stately homes’ and Dev Patel praising the ‘buzzing’ Leicester Square – led to a further injection of money, culminating in the ‘Great’ campaigns that continued are always used. at British airports.
The need for something flashy and A-list wasn’t just about prestige.
“One thing we were surprised about when we started was that attendance typically drops during the Olympic year. People tend to stay away,” says Bresh, then marketing director of Visit Britain.
The question, however, is whether celebrity-backed campaigns actually work. It’s hard to imagine that an endorsement from Jack Grealish would inspire seasoned travelers to make a change. Likewise, a recommendation from Michael Caine may not persuade a young holidaymaker to explore a new country. And yet tourism boards so regularly use A-listers to promote their destinations.
It certainly worked for Visit Britain. In 2012, approximately 12 million inbound tourists visited the country, an increase of five percent from the previous year. In 2014, the campaign achieved a return on investment of £1.2 billion.
For an event as nationally important as the Olympics, the Union flag-adorned image felt appropriate. But some campaigns lean on the inherent strangeness of a celebrity – a single person – representing an entire country. Kazakhstan included Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat in its campaigns. A Mark Zuckerberg impersonator appeared in an ad for Iceland. The rapper 50 Cent made a video for Hostelworld.
The Visit Britain campaign was over a decade ago and the power of celebrity support has changed. Dr. Vincent Mak, professor of marketing at Cambridge Judge Business School, thinks technology has fundamentally changed the way destinations are marketed.
“Social media ensures that you can reach so many more people than with a traditional campaign. Just one Instagram post from a celebrity can mean so much more exposure than we were ever capable of,” he says.
Tens of thousands, perhaps millions, more people will see Chris Hemsworth promoting Australia, or Taika Waititi proposing New Zealand as a holiday destination, or Roger Federer proposing Switzerland, as the images are posted to their social media.
Unlike a billboard campaign, the Internet enables two-way communication. “If the audience really likes what you do, it can therefore become a big hit overnight, or even [within] a couple of hours. It can also become a disaster quite quickly,” says Mak.
The less “authentic” the approval feels, the more likely disaster is. A Beyoncé advert recommending a stay at a Butlins would not seem credible. And so the ideal celebrity promotion is one that comes about without the involvement of a tourism board. Instead of being asked – and probably paid – to say they love vacationing in Paris, it feels more authentic for a celebrity to say they love the 18th arrondissement. This is, by nature, something that tourist agencies dream about, but have no control over.
Perhaps the most successful example of this is Rihanna’s relationship with her home country of Barbados. In the first flush of her fame, the singer took part in an official campaign: running along the beach, cycling on a country road and playing dominoes with the locals. The ads cemented her bond with the island, but it was afterward—on actual trips home, in song lyrics, and even during her Superbowl performance—that the link really developed.
Cheryl Carter, director of the Barbados Tourist Board, apparently appreciates the country’s most famous daughter. “We are very proud of Rihanna and everything she has accomplished,” she says. “And I think Rihanna has been very smart to continue to position herself as an island girl because that sets her apart from the rest.”
Last year, the singer stopped for snow cones at a stall near her villa. “Suddenly the popularity of the snow cone seller exploded,” Carter says.
She is keen to point out that celebrities have always been attracted to Barbados, but the connection with the singer has encouraged other A-listers to see it as a holiday destination – and opened the destination up to a new group of travellers.
“It definitely helped us reach a much younger demographic,” Carter says. “I remember one time I flew to New York and went to a car rental company. And the young man there, he couldn’t have been more than 21 or 22. I gave him my driver’s license and he said, ‘Oh, you’re from Rihannaland.’
It is something that tourist agencies dream of. Even the most cynical holidaymaker would believe in Rihanna’s genuine love for the island – and perhaps consider a trip.
However, there are risks associated with hiring celebrities. “It’s a game,” says Dr. Mak. “There is a big profit, but also a high risk. Some celebrities can be quite controversial.
“People’s reputations go up or down so much faster and more drastically than before.”
Messi’s ongoing relationship with Saudi Arabia has drawn ire from some quarters, with commentators citing the country’s human rights record – and accusations of ‘sportswashing’ – as reasons why the footballer should not take on this role should have taken.
The most infamous, however, is the ‘Pitbull incident’. In 2016, the rapper was appointed by the Florida tourism department. As part of the contract, Pitbull filmed the music video for his song Sexy Beaches in the State, which featured iconic Florida hotels like Fontainebleau in Miami – and ended with the tagline “#LoveFL.”
So far so typical of Mr Worldwide. But it turned out that he had been paid $1 million (funded in part by taxpayers) for the campaign, something that only came out after government officials pressured the rapper to make the details of his contract public. The marketing agency behind the campaign subsequently received new management.
It does not appear that Florida’s image as a tourist destination has been particularly tarnished. Do recommendations really change where we vacation? Dr. Mak thinks the campaigns are “a matter of awareness,” making us more likely to consider a destination – but not necessarily book it. “Ultimately reaching a decision on where to go can be interrupted by so many other factors.”
If you don’t enjoy beach time or long-haul flights, you probably won’t book a trip to Barbados, no matter how much Rihanna loves it.