Tourism Bureaus & Carvertise Shift Into High Gear as Travel Revs Up for Rebound

March 17, 2022—It’s a fact: Travel is roaring back to pre-pandemic levels, with the World Travel & Tourism Council forecasting that tourism in the U.S. will contribute nearly $2 trillion to the country’s economy in 2022. 

Here’s another fact: “Tourism offices are having to reevaluate their media strategies, and simply doing what has always been done is no longer connecting with their audience as it once did,” says Greg Star, Co-founder of Carvertise, America’s leading rideshare-based transit advertising company. “They have to find innovative ways to showcase their destination in a more engaging manner.” 

One high impact solution: Dozens of tourism organizations have partnered with Carvertise to wrap fleets of rideshare vehicles with their high impact designs, showcasing beachscapes, popular landmarks, and mountain trails, and deploying them in their target and feeder markets across the United States. Some have already hit the road to draw travelers as they plan their spring and summer vacations. 

Key campaigns include: 

* Visit St. Pete/Clearwater has deployed a fleet of branded cars in four different markets—Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Atlanta—for a two-month campaign. 

* Another large Florida tourism bureau, Visit Tampa Bay, is leveraging rideshare cars for a two-month-long campaign in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. 

* In a push to increase tourism in its own state, Visit Fort Worth has just launched a three-month activation in Austin & San Antonio to highlight its “Modern West” branding and promote its status as the new host to the PBR World Finals. 

To make an even stronger impression, many of the bureaus have the rideshare drivers distribute marketing materials to riders and activate Carvertise’s “SWARM” feature, where the branded cars congregate at major gatherings, such as sporting events and concerts/festivals, significantly raising the profile of their advertising. 

Some recent examples of the SWARM feature have been executed at SXSW and the Big12 Men’s Basketball Tournament. “Carvertise provides an Interactive Out-of-Home component with our campaigns that other forms of OOH advertising simply cannot provide,” according to Star. 

With Carvertise’s data and tracking technology, its tourism partners also have the ability to see metrics they’ve never had before through digital retargeting and weblift analysis, offering a new level of insight into the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Most importantly, the medium works. “Our travel partners, time and time again, tell us our branded cars are the most memorable advertising medium they’ve seen,” Star says. And there’s data to back up their contention: Statistics from a 2019 Nielsen out-of-home study reveal that wrapped cars are proven to be the most effective and memorable form of transit advertising.

“The tourism industry is poised for a strong rebound, and we’re excited by the role that Carvertise is playing in driving its resurgence,” Star adds.  

About Carvertise:

Carvertise is America’s Largest Rideshare Advertising Company on a mission to revolutionize the way brands communicate with consumers outdoors. Leveraging a network of 550,000 registered drivers, Carvertise is running wrapped-car ad campaigns around the country for clients including Netflix, 7-Eleven, EA Sports, NASCAR, and GlaxoSmithKline. Geo-targeted, highly memorable, with a heavy emphasis on analytics, Carvertise is proudly spearheading the future of transit advertising. For more information, please visit Carvertise.com.

###

Contact Information:

Lauren Spinelli
Director of Marketing
Carvertise
302-273-1890
[email protected]