Travelocity is the first online travel company to work with Embratur, The Brazilian Tourist Board, on a marketing campaign to promote Brazil. The campaign, launched today, includes social media components featuring the Travelocity Roaming Gnome, and on-site marketing strategies highlighting premier tourism destinations within Brazil including Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Porto Alegre and São Paulo.
“Brazil has so many world class events on the horizon and online media will be an important part of their long term strategy,” said Bryan Estep, vice president of Latin America partner marketing, Travelocity. “Brazil is an important market for Travelocity Global and we are looking forward to building a mutually beneficial relationship with them over the long term.”
“We are confident that our online campaign with Travelocity will help show people across the globe that Brazil is a world class destination,” said Thiago Diniz, Embratur.
Although the press release announced the campaign to be already live on Travelocity.com, we couldn’t find any of the targeted banner ads on their home page – and we browsed a bit. From a customer perspective, announcing a new promotion without having all the elements in place is a major PR fail. Hopefully, the Brazilian Tourist Board will not regret its decision – Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome is perhaps a lazy traveler.
Travelocity homepage screenshot doesn't show Brazil-targeted banners.