MTA France has co-ordinated a major Digital Out of Home (DOOH) advertising campaign in seven cities across France, strategically selected for their direct flight connections to Malta, and aimed specifically at boosting French tourist arrivals to Malta in 2023.
The first burst of the campaign went live between the 13th and the 19th March, with a 10 second video spot broadcast across major underground, overground and bus stations in Paris and several other cities including Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and Nice.
‘This year, we decided to include calls to action in our outdoor campaign visuals, with offers from major tour operators and OTAs who are our close partners on the French market’, explained Claude Zammit Trevisan, Director at MTA’s office in Paris. These offers from well-known holiday companies such as Last Minute, Voyage Privé and Promovacances help to stimulate bookings at a time when the French typically book their holidays for the May long-weekends and school holidays.
The outdoor campaigns were held exclusively on digital screens, in diverse locations which enjoy very high frequency and footfall. The repeated exposure, combined with other advertising actions co-ordinated by the same office in France, including digital advertising were aimed to generate awareness and increase Malta’s visibility as a tourism destination, whilst also generating sales for Malta’s tour operator partners.
In Nice, specific prominence was given to Air Malta, given the airline’s launch of a new direct flight from Nice airport starting 27th March. This, together with other marketing initiatives in the South of France, will ensure success for this new route, where Malta is still a novelty holiday destination for the French living in this region.
The MTA outdoor advertising campaign in March has been further complemented by another DOOH campaign running for Air France over Paris, which started on 03rd April, running for a week until 09th April. Air France will once again be running direct scheduled flights to Malta from Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport from April to October.
“It is a first for Malta to be included in the major outdoor advertising campaigns of AirFrance. AirFrance’s selection of the destination affirms Malta’s success in the French market which now sees the Maltese Islands as an established Mediterranean holiday destination for the French, bringing it at par with other holiday spots traditionally popular with the French tourist”, says Mr. Carlo Micallef, CEO Malta Tourism Authority.
The Malta Tourism Authority in France continues to work to reduce seasonality by communicating at different periods of the year, with a view to generate holiday traffic not only during the high-season, but also in the shoulder and low-season months. Its strategy encompasses the promotion of a number of market segments equally promoting Malta as well as Gozo.
A google advertising campaign aimed specifically on Gozo is currently also running, whilst a Gozo online quiz and promotion is also being promoted on the MTA’s Social Media platforms.
The French market is the third largest inbound tourism market for Malta, with over 258,000 French tourists visiting Malta in 2022, representing an 8% increase in volume over 2019 and a 16% increase in tourist expenditure.