New Marketing Campaign for Hue as ‘Heart of Vietnam’ to Launch Jan. 1
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New Marketing Campaign for Hue as ‘Heart of Vietnam’ to Launch Jan. 1
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Category: Asia Pacific - Vietnam
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2009-10-20
La Residence Hotel & Spa invests in major effort to increase exposure for Hue
Hue, the former imperial capital of Vietnam and one of the country’s most idyllic destinations, is to be the beneficiary of a major new marketing initiative, launched by one of the city’s foremost properties, La Residence Hotel & Spa.
The ‘Heart of Vietnam’ campaign, to launch January 1, will deploy a suite of publicity strategies to enhance worldwide appeal for Hue, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
The hotel is planning to coordinate communication on outreach to more than 2,000 targeted media outlets worldwide; to support the production of a major travel documentary on Hue; to work up a host of story ideas that focus on Hue as a must-see destination; to commission and distribute copyright-protected images of the city’s most appealing attractions; and to extend accommodation to visiting travel media among other efforts.
“Hue, by all impartial accounts, is one of Indochina’s most profound destinations,” said Eric Merlin, CEO of the hotel’s principle owner, the Ho Chi Minh City-based Apple Tree Group. “You have an inimitable royal legacy in the Imperial City and the tombs of the Nguyen Emperors. A marvelous collection of pagodas. Inspiring landscapes. A vibrant culinary tradition. After Hanoi, it’s the most culturally important destination in Vietnam.”
The preliminary campaign to communicate Hue’s destination appeal of the city scored its first piece of major exposure in late September when Hue was featured on the cover of the New York Times T magazine, a quarterly fashion and travel supplement. In its six-page take on Hue, the Times wrote: “Hue still embodies a kind of heaven-on-earth quality, a place that makes the here and now seem enough.”
“Having what is, arguably, the world’s most important newspaper say that about your hotel’s locale is absolutely priceless,” said Carmen Marienberg, general manager of La Residence Hotel & Spa. “But if you did want to put a price on it, in a magazine where they charge US $107,000 for one page of advertising, we’ve just realized more than $800,000 of exposure for Hue. As a destination, we need to maintain this drumbeat.”
One of the hotel’s first initiatives will be development of a destination photo archive, which will be readily accessible to the media and available for free.
“There simply isn’t any decent resource or media to obtain high-resolution, downloadable images of the best in our city — the tombs of the emperors, the pagodas, the imperial attractions,” said Marienberg. “There are sites that will sell you images, but there are all kinds of restrictions on use. If we want people from far away to fall in love with our destination, we have got to make it available for them to see.”
The hotel is also planning to increase its availability to journalists who have qualified assignments to write about the destination. And to work with them on the development of their itineraries, and the background materials necessary to write smart stories about Hue.
“Now, more than ever, it’s important that we redouble our efforts to drive traffic to Hue,” said Merlin. “The benefits to Hue are obvious, and we — as operators of one of Vietnam’s more spellbinding hotels — expect to benefit, as well.
The ‘Heart of Vietnam’ will also include a host of events designed to optimize the appeal of Hue for media.
“There are events that attract guests, and there are events that attract media,” said Marienberg. “We’re working on a slate of events now and plan to announce them as we debut them — far enough in advance, of course, that media can plan to be here.”
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