Festive Ideas for Your Christmas Tourism Campaign

Your community likely has a variety of fun events, festive activities, and local businesses eager to welcome visitors. By creating a curated, holiday-themed pass, you have a way to make the most of the most wonderful time of the year. Even better – with Bandwango’s Experience Builder, you can quickly create a pass and have it ready before the first Christmas carol is sung. 

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Holiday-Themed Marketing Ideas for Tourism Destinations 

If you want to capture more of those road-tripping, memory-making holiday travelers, here are some creative ways to get started. Many destinations launch their Christmas tourism campaigns in November and keep them running through New Year’s Day, but you can customize the timing to fit your community. Tailor the theme to fit your specific destination as well. You may even want to branch out and create a regional campaign like Visit Indy and Visit Hamilton County did for their Holiday Adventure Pass. 

This is a fun time of year, so carry that fun over onto your pass. Consider adding in some cool prizes such as a Christmas ornament that’s only available to passholders. 

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Create a Christmas-Themed Check-in Challenge 

Even if visitors are coming for one signature holiday event, they may be unaware of all of the festive things to do in your destination. By creating a check-in challenge like Explore Branson’s Ozark Mountain Christmas Pass, you have a way to showcase all of the holiday-themed things to do. You can also build a pass around one specific aspect of the season. Tourism Tofino has a Hot Cocoa Trail that incentivizes visitors to sip their way through the city during the Christmas season. By including prizes, you incentivize them to visit more places and go deeper into the destination – perhaps even giving them a reason to extend their stay. 

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Launch a Christmas Shop-n-Save Pass to Encourage Shopping at Local Businesses

Gift-giving season is a golden opportunity to direct shoppers to your local merchants – and we all love saving money, right? A holiday savings pass can offer discounts, special offers, or exclusive items. While it is possible to create a savings pass that is active all year, you also have an opportunity to create one specifically targeted to holiday shoppers. Discover Oshkosh has a Holly Jolly Holiday Pass that offers discounts at local businesses, but they also take it a step further and include prizes as a way to incentivize passholders to use it. 

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Promote Gifting of Your Attractions or Tasting Pass  

Experience gifts are growing in popularity, and your paid attraction pass or tasting pass could make the perfect Christmas gift. If you already have one, do a gifting campaign to promote holiday sales. Experience Columbus has done a great job of this, and even promotes their Columbus Attractions Pass in their Columbus Holiday Gift Guide. Since passes can be purchased online, these make great last-minute gifts. If you don’t know where to get started, Bandwango Marketing Services can help you put together a robust campaign to promote sales. And if you don’t have an attraction or tasting pass yet –  consider creating one. The Calistoga Chamber of Commerce created a Winter in the Wineries Pass that drove over $135K in sales during a time of year that their wineries needed it most. 

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Organize a Holiday Event 

Help local businesses see a surge of traffic by organizing a themed, ticketed event. The Keuka Lake Wine Trail has a variety of themed events throughout the year, including their Handcrafted Holiday event that takes place in early November. This helps drive revenue for the organization and pushes traffic to the local wineries. This is a great time of year for the wineries to see new faces since people are starting to get in gift-giving mode. They use Bandwango’s ticketing platform for events and have created a seamless experience for both guests and participating businesses. 

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Create Festive Photo Ops

Capturing a merry moment is one of the best ways to spread the cheer – and everyone loves a good opportunity to take a selfie. Encourage local businesses to deck the halls and create Instagram-worthy backdrops – then create a pass that directs visitors to those locations. The Frankenmuth Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau may be best known for their Frankenmuth Gnome Hunt, but they also have a Stop & Snap Challenge that they create each holiday season. This initiative gets their local businesses in the holiday spirit, as they’re encouraged to create holiday-themed instagrammable photo ops, turning holiday decor into an interactive experience. You never know – the picture-perfect moment from your destination could end up being next year’s Christmas card. 

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Develop a Pass to Promote Places to See the Best Holiday Lights in Your Area

Nothing gets you in the holiday spirit more than being surrounded by thousands of twinkling lights. Since this is an experience that visitors are seeking, consider creating a tool like Clearly Kosciusko and Visit Fort Wayne did to showcase their holiday lights. Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island has created a Holiday Light Pass too, and their CEO, Gordon Orr, shared the strategy behind it.

“The Holiday Lights Pass will incentivize users to explore more areas of our region whether they are a visitor planning a trip to the region, or a local taking their visiting family and friends out to experience some holiday magic. This free tool will give us more information on who is visiting the festivals, but also incentivize users to share their memories and possibly visit a new festival or district that they haven’t explored before with the chance to win the $500 shopping spree with our partners at Devonshire Mall.”

The holidays are a time when families and friends gather together to make memories – and with the right campaign, your destination can be where those memories are made. 

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Want to make this season your most successful yet? Reach out and book a demo to learn more. Our team is happy to brainstorm with you to help create the perfect campaign to highlight your destination’s magical holiday experiences.