Title	REMOTE TOURISM
Brand	VISIT FAROE ISLANDS
Product/Service	THE FAROE ISLANDS
Category	A04. Travel, Leisure, Retail, Restaurants & Fast Food Chains
Entrant	MENSCH Copenhagen, DENMARK
Idea Creation	MENSCH Copenhagen, DENMARK
Media Placement	VERIZON Copenhagen, DENMARK
PR	MENSCH Copenhagen, DENMARK
PR 2	VERIZON Copenhagen, DENMARK
Production	MENSCH Copenhagen, DENMARK

Name	Company	Position
Rune Hørslev-Petersen	Mensch	Partner
Tor Verland	Sansir	Director
Bogi Henriksen	Sansir	Creative Director
Frederik Preisler	Mensch	Chief Creative Officer
Rasmus Mikkelsen	Ryot Studio	Head of Ryot Studio
Isabella Sofie Nielsen	Verizon	Project Manager
Anna Taussi	Ryot Studio	PR & Content dsitribution manager

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

During the spring of 2020, while the rest of the world was in covid-19 lockdown, we made it possible to experience the Faroe Islands first-hand on a virtual guided tour. Remote tourism blurred the lines between arcade video games and adventurous traveling by creating first-of-its kind digital tours, where curious travelers via joypad could act as the eyes, ears and body of a Faroese guides. Not only did we give consolation to those who had to cancel their planned trips to the islands, we also gave millions of others a personal experience with the Faroese nature, culture and local people.

Background

Tourism is the third largest industry on the Faroe Islands and makes up for 14 % of the islands’ total number of jobs. Like the rest of the world, the Faroese tourism industry was severely affected when all travel and tourism activities shut down in March due to the corona pandemic. Greatly disappointed, Visit Faroe Islands had to ask guests to postpone their planned trips to the islands indefinitely. So how could we save the Faroese tourism industry, while giving people the chance to experience the Faroe Islands without being there in person?

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We invented Remote Tourism. The world’s first remote-controlled tourism experience. The concept enables tourists to experience the Faroe Islands via a local guide, controlled via a joypad on mobile, tablet or PC. The guides are equipped with a live camcorder mounted on a gimble stabilizer, a microphone and headphones from which they get instructions from tourists. The “remote tourist” controls the guide via a joypad on the remote-tourism.com website. Just like an arcade game, users can make the guides jump, run and maneuver. That way, tourists can control the route of the tour and experience the Faroese nature in real time through a local guide.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Besides consolidating tourists who were already familiar with the Faroe Islands as a traveling destination, we wanted to give everyone else a taste of the islands in hopes that it may inspire them to visit in a post-corona future. But with a $0 media budget, we needed the remote tourism platform to catch the attention of major news media and travel influencers on social media.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

So while most travel activities in the world was at a standstill, we launched remote tourism with a press release and a film and invited worldwide news media and travel influencers on the very first virtual tours to the islands. On April 15th, just ten days after the official lockdown, remote-tourism.com was open for virtual visitors with several tours a day by foot, boat or even from a helicopter, also controlled by the user via joypad in real time. During each tour, tourists got the chance to ask guides questions, while everyone else could follow the tour live on Facebook and Instagram Live and chat with Visit Faroe Islands.

List the results (30% of vote)

Within 24 hours of its launch, the Faroe Islands had more virtual visits than usual physical visits in a whole year. The average view time was 4.11 minutes which is 2500 % higher than Facebook’s tourism video benchmark. On average, more than 20,000 people viewed each trip. 1,88 % commented, shared or liked, which is 1600 % above Facebook’s benchmark. By week 21, remote tourism became the biggest tourism news story in the world with 549 news articles and an online readership of more than 5 billion people. Through influencers, the story reached 40,3 million people on social media. In just six weeks, 700,000 people ‘visited’ the Faroe Islands and two weeks after the reopening of the islands, all hotels were sold out. This way, we managed to save some of the threatened jobs and give millions of people a travel experience from the comfort of their home quarantine.