REMOTE TOURISM

TitleREMOTE TOURISM
BrandVISIT FAROE ISLANDS
Product/ServiceTHE FAROE ISLANDS
Category A06. Innovative use of Technology
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
Credits
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

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

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, tourists 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

Besides consolidating the tourists who had been forced to cancel their planned and payed trips to the Faroe Islands, we wanted to give everyone else around the world a taste of the islands in hopes that it may inspire them to visit when the global lockdown is over. But with a 0 $ media budget, we needed the remote tourism platform to attract global attention from both major news media and travel influencers on social media.

Describe the execution

So while the rest of the world was in lockdown, 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

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 % above 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. Through influencers, the story reached 40,3 million 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.