Goal
During the winter off-season, increase visitbarharbor.com website visits and national/regional coverage of Bar Harbor and Acadia.
Situation Analysis
Bar Harbor, one of Maine’s most popular summer destinations with close proximity to Acadia National Park, one of the U.S.’s top-10 most-visited national parks, is a hub of activity in the summer and fall months. Come winter, the town quiets and tourism dies down, despite a multitude of winter activities and accommodations available to enjoy. With the challenges of overcrowding and staff shortages that occur during the extremely popular summer and fall months and the dearth of off-season visitation, we worked with the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce to redirect visitors to discovering a best-kept secret: Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in the winter.
Methods
- Between October 2020 and October 2021, proactive pitching to national and regional publications, in addition to assisting writers with detailed information and photography requests. We highlighted Bar Harbor and Acadia as winter destinations, including details of things to do, outdoor recreation, where to eat and drink, stay and shop. As these efforts occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also emphasized winter in Bar Harbor and Acadia as a great “staycation” opportunity for Mainers, with safe outdoor recreation offerings for all to enjoy.
- Organizing a press trip for travel writers from The Boston Globe in January 2021, developing an itinerary showcasing chamber member businesses and outdoor recreation.
- Through our social media channels, we consistently showcased stunning winter photography, events, restaurants and accommodations.
- Monthly publication of an e-newsletter and blog to a growing list of subscribers highlighting winter recreation and activities.
Results
- Between February 2021 and February 2022, the release of 10 pieces of coverage across national and regional publications including Travel + Leisure, The Boston Globe and Real Simple (click link below for full coverage report). This coverage resulted in:
- 4.41 billion online readership
- 3.26 million estimated online coverage views
- 3,200 social shares
- An average domain authority of 82
View the coverage results here
- An increase in website users visiting visitbarharbor.com by nearly 50%, an increase in page views by nearly 40%, and an increase in website sessions (a period of time when a user is active on the site) by nearly 50% when comparing the past two winters (November 2021 – March 2022, versus November 2020 – March 2021).
