The multi-channel Cultural Tourism campaign launching in June will include print, digital, bus advertising and Piccadilly Circus digital screens.
The creative spotlights the tourist board’s Legends of Catalonia video game and Route of Fate short film, using the strapline: Year of Cultural Tourism 2019. Barcelona artist, Sergio Mora, has also been commissioned to create a series of hand-painted street murals inspired by Catalonia’s cultural story at locations in London and Manchester.
The Barcelona artist, also known as MAGICOMORA, has won a Grammy and recently collaborated with Philippe Stark and Gucci.
The campaign will be unveiled at an event on May 30 at London’s Guildhall for Travel Trade, industry partners and media. At the event, entitled Catalonialand, an immersive virtual reality experience will bring to life a series of six new cultural routes specially created by the Catalan Tourist Board to showcase the cultural wealth, heritage and landscapes across the region, as well as the famous Catalan gastronomy and wines.
The routes range from following the Mediterranean Coast to the path of the Pyrenees, discovering the inland heritage to visits to vineyards and monasteries, small historical villages and Barcelona’s famous city product.
The year-long focus is designed to assert the role of culture as a competitive point of differentiation for the destination and to drive economic distribution to the region’s territories. Catalonia’s rich cultural story is world-famous, from Tarragona’s ancient Roman ruins to Surrealist and Art Nouveau works from masters Gaudí, Miró, Picasso and Salvador Dalí; through to nine UNESCO World Heritage, Romanesque churches and ancient monasteries.
Aicard Guinovart, Director United Kingdom and Ireland at Catalan Tourist Board said: “The United Kingdom is the second largest source market for tourism in Catalonia attracting over two million tourists in 2018 and generating £1.6 million in expenditure – a 12.8 per cent increase on 2017. So it is important for us to connect with UK travel trade and the industry to show them what our region has to offer this year.
“We know that Catalonia’s rich cultural offering is a key area of interest to visitors so hope that through this campaign, and by working closely with our UK partners, we will grow this even further this year.”
The activity will promote Catalan Tourist Board’s game, ‘Legends of Catalonia’, developed in partnership with Sony to promote the region’s culture and history. The game, which utilises Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in the app, was launched at the end of last year and is an industry first – the first instance of a tourism organisation using these technologies for destination promotion. Players select well-known personalities – ex Barcelona FC captain Carles Puyol, mountaineer Edurne Pasaban and chefs the Roca brothers – before facing a series of challenges as they traverse across the region.
Iconic sites featured include Tarragona’s Roman amphitheatre, Lleida’s old cathedral, the mountain range of Montserrat, Dalí’s Cadaqués, Barcelona’s Sant Antoni market and the Sagrada Família church. The game can be downloaded free from the PlayStation store or through the Legends of Catalonia app through Google Play and the App Store.
The campaign will also utilise the Catalan Tourist Board’s film, The Route of Fate, which won the Grand Prix CIFFT for the world Best Tourism Film 2018. Aicard Guinovart UK and Ireland Director of the Catalan Tourist Board hosted an event for local travel agents in Belfast Titanic a few months ago.
