Greece Sees Big Gains from GNTO-Expedia Tourism Partnership

Source: Expedia

A partnership between the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) and leading online platform Expedia that involved a strategic brand awareness campaign last year to promote Greece’s richness as a tourism destination to 10 major markets resulted in an over 130 percent increase in traveler bookings year over year.

Part of the GNTO’s 2022-2023 partnership with Expedia, the campaign, which ran for the June-November 2023 six-month period, aimed to continue the strong tourism growth path Greece recorded during its post-pandemic recovery.

Speaking during an interview on Action24 TV, GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis referred to the partnership’s result as a “success story” as it delivered an impactful return on ad spend, the strongest return the GNTO has seen from a campaign.

“Every euro we invested in our cooperation with Expedia brought us back 126 euros… It’s a success story and maybe one of the best campaigns we’ve ever done in the last five years,” Fragakis said.

GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis (right) on Action 24 TV.

The GNTO cooperated with Expedia’s Media Solutions’ Creative and Brand Partnerships team on the design of a creative campaign that showcased everything Greece has to offer to drive visits and continue to increase awareness of Greece. Anchored to the overall campaign theme of “All you want is Greece”, the campaign showcased the destination’s beauty and splendor to the markets of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

On his part, Expedia Group Global Senior Director Andrew van der Feltz highlighted the campaign’s aim, which was drive market share and visitation to Greece.

“The campaign itself delivered a huge amount of reach, we got 57 million impressions globally, 15.5 million unique visitors searching for Greece and ultimately fantastic results from across the globe,” he said.

Expedia Group Global Senior Director Andrew van der Feltz.

To meet the campaign’s goals, the GNTO took advantage of Expedia’s full-funnel solutions that spanned multiple platforms and included on- and off-site solutions to inspire, influence, and convert travelers.

According to Expedia, this allowed Greece to reach travelers at every stage of their journey and the campaign resulted in an impressive 131 percent increase in bookings year-over-year; a nearly 65 percent increase in room nights YOY; and a nearly 30 percent increase in average daily spend of visitors YOY.

The campaign, which focused on letting travelers know that Greece is a destination where “you’ll want to stay forever”, delivered a video view-through rate of 85 percent on programmatic performance and 27 percent on YouTube performance, the campaign delivered significantly higher results than average.

By the close of the campaign in November, global awareness of Greece increased, which was evident in the increase in traveler searches for Greece year-over-year and double-digit growth in the U.S., Canada and U.K. with a 20 percent search uplift for Greece overall.

Source: Expedia

GNTO’s secretary general underlined that the campaign focused on Greece’s multi-diverse offer that went beyond the popular beach holidays and introduced the audience to many more exciting experiences and products such as city breaks, Greek gastronomy and overall lifestyle.

“The results in terms of awareness but also conversion KPIs exceeded by far our expectations, setting a new benchmark for our future advertising plans,” Fragakis said.

It is noted that the secretary general recently announced that the GNTO is looking to open to new markets in 2024, following Greece’s record year of tourist arrivals and revenue in 2023.