Europe has always been in the global spotlight as an aspirational region to visit for the trip of a lifetime. From wanting to learn more about family ancestry to visiting monuments and palaces studied in textbooks while growing up, a European vacation has rarely been a hard sell.
But that changed when international travel ground to a halt in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping the globe and spurring lockdowns. European countries like Britain and Italy were among the early outbreaks the world anxiously watched as destinations across Europe and in other regions wondered what the virus meant for them. Containing some of the world’s most visited countries, European destinations suddenly had to pivot to tell travellers to stay home and learn the difficult dance of how to market a destination that is closed to visitors.
Despite this unprecedented challenge, many European destination marketing organizations (DMOs) managed to launch innovative campaigns that help reposition tourism’s role in a community and show how travel can be part of the economic recovery. There’s also been an even greater focus on ensuring that, as travellers come back, the emissions and carbon footprints they bring with them are limited to keep the climate crisis from worsening.
Europe has always been in the global spotlight as an aspirational region to visit for the trip of a lifetime. From wanting to learn more about family ancestry to visiting monuments and palaces studied in textbooks while growing up, a European vacation has rarely been a hard sell.
But that changed when international travel ground to a halt in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping the globe and spurring lockdowns. European countries like Britain and Italy were among the early outbreaks the world anxiously watched as destinations across Europe and in other regions wondered what the virus meant for them. Containing some of the world’s most visited countries, European destinations suddenly had to pivot to tell travellers to stay home and learn the difficult dance of how to market a destination that is closed to visitors.
Despite this unprecedented challenge, many European destination marketing organizations (DMOs) managed to launch innovative campaigns that help reposition tourism’s role in a community and show how travel can be part of the economic recovery. There’s also been an even greater focus on ensuring that, as travellers come back, the emissions and carbon footprints they bring with them are limited to keep the climate crisis from worsening.
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