Last year, Prague City Tourism introduced the Stay in Prague campaign which encouraged foreign tourists to visit the city.
This was done by running digital advertising which was displayed online and in various social media channels. This ran in Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and even Youtube and received in total 790 million impressions during its running.
This ended up generating 8 million visitors to the campaign website. Michaela Henčlová, Brand Management Director of Prague City Tourism said “We targeted thirteen countries for this campaign, mostly in Europe – and data from this campaign show that the trend for those searching for Prague is significantly higher than it was in 2019.”
There was an immediate spike in interest for foreigners visiting the city after the campaign started running in October- flight searches to Prague increased by a total of 36% (49% compared to 19% in 2019.)
This led Prague to become a more popular search in flights compared to Vienna and Berlin.
Henčlová also mentioned how tourists’ habits have changed as a result of Covid-19.
For example, foreigners are booking accommodation closer to the date they expect to arrive, they buy plane tickets closer to departure and they are more likely to go on shorter trips such as city breaks instead of long holidays.
The marketing plan implemented for 2022 will try to build the relationship of residents and visitors to Prague to cultural heritage, educate visitors about the culture and rules of conduct in Prague.
The Stay in Prague campaign cost a total of 40 million crowns but is estimated that 15 million crowns will be made back and circulated back into the city when the tourist season begins.
All input data for the successful setup of the campaign was provided by Mastercard, the Association of Hotels and Restaurants of the Czech Republic, and Prague Airport.
After one month of the campaign, the number of passengers checked in at Prague Airport also grew, and the week-on-week increases in flight searches were even higher than in 2019, according to available data.
“We are proud partners of Prague City Tourism and wholeheartedly support their activities, which work to create favorable conditions for the renewal of inbound tourism. The targeted campaign was successful, as evidenced by the figures from Prague Airport, where we’ve recorded an increase of about 27% in the number of passengers on flights to countries that are typical for inbound tourism in the fourth quarter of 2021,” says Jaroslav Filip, Director of Air Commerce at Prague Airport.
