Thailand, one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world, is represented in Romania by ”Tourism Authority of Thailand” (TAT), the representative office of the Thai tourism authority. In 2016, the office launched the competition ”The Thailand Race” in cooperation with Craft Interactive Agency for the digital implementation of this project.
It all began in the spring of 2016 with a conversation over a cup of coffee when TAT came up with the brilliant idea of organizing a competition similar to Amazing Race – a competition consisting of several stages during which two teams (one from Romania and the other from Bulgaria) would engage in an original race in Thailand. The idea was adopted by the Craft Interactive agency that put the idea in digital format and planning a digital strategy to involve as many online travelers as possible. Apart from the obvious objective of managing the online competition, the main objective in 2016 was to turn this brand awareness campaign platform for Thailand, for Romania and Bulgaria.
The competiton ”The Thailand Race” was officially launched on September 5, during a camping trip in the mountains organized by TAT for several travel bloggers and journalists. The competition took place in 3 stages. During the first stage, people could register from any web or mobile device through a very easy procedure. Afterwards, the first 10 entered a jury appraisement and the winner participated alongside with the well-known tv entertainer Cabral Ibacka in the final race in Thailand. The results of the jury appraisement were made public in the presence of representatives of the Thai Embassy in Romania and of the Quatar Airways team, the official partner of TAT for this competition. All those involved in The Thailand Race were invited to participate in this event that took place in the Bucharest Museum ”The Filipescu-Cesianu Building” in a relaxed atmosphere, with traditional Thai treats, photographs from various parts of Thailand and lots of smiles.
The 2 teams
They met on October 23 in Bangkok, received a sum of money and a map with a predefined route, and started on a 7-day race to collect points, being followed online on www.thethailandrace.com.
Romania won the race!
Mihai Jurca accompanied Cabral and won a luxury trip to the Land of Smiles – as Thailand is also called – in 2017. The race was a winning experience in itself since the 4 competitors had the chance to travel through islands they had only seen in movies, see exotic villages, come into contact with fascinating cultures and experience unique moments shared directly online almost in real time by the team members on the platform thethailandrace.com.
Online marketing results
The digital agency monitored the online activity; Romanian and Bulgarian bloggers sustained the competition creating an online engagement of 53,000 visits and 154,000 platform visualizations; 104 people asked for registration in the first stage of the competition. Most of the traffic was registered in Bucharest, Sofia, and Bangkok, over 40,000 people interacted on the social networks, thousands of shares and tens of thousands of views on Youtube on the competitors’ own channels integrated on the platform.
The Craft Interactive Agency
Declares this successful campaign closed, congratulates the participants and the winners and thanks the Tourism Authority of Thailand Representative Office in Bucharest for the opportunity to cooperate in this beautiful project.
