Airbnb Puts Its Marketing Muscle Behind Promoting Nova Scotia
HALIFAX — A new partnership between Tourism Nova Scotia and Airbnb will see the short-term rental platform put its marketing muscle to work promoting Nova Scotia as a travel destination.
As part of the partnership, Airbnb has created a special section on its website dedicated to destinations in Nova Scotia. Right now, it features headlines like “Wine and Dine in Wolfville” and “Seaside Bliss in Halifax.”
The plan, explains Airbnb spokesperson Nathan Rotman, is to pair the website with a marketing push that targets Airbnb users in Nova Scotia. Airbnb will send a series of emails, bolstered by a targeted social media campaign, encouraging people to travel in the province and highlight interesting destinations.
This is only the second time Airbnb has taken on an initiative in Canada and the first in Atlantic Canada.
Tourism Nova Scotia CEO Michele Saran says she is thrilled by the partnership.
“We wouldn’t be very good tourism marketers if we didn’t take advantage of a platform with millions of eyeballs on it every single day. And the fact that they’re going to engage in outreach with their users in this manner, highlighting Nova Scotia experiences, this is just fantastic for the province,” she says.
Rotman says Airbnb is also sharing a bunch of the data it collects through bookings with Tourism Nova Scotia.
“We’re a data-driven company, so we have access to really interesting data, both in terms of what people are searching for, and how they’re travelling,” he says.
That information includes things like where people are travelling from, how long their stays are, the average price they’re paying, what kinds of activities and entertainment they’re searching for, their average age, and more.
Saran says these kinds of data can be a goldmine for marketing organizations like Tourism Nova Scotia.
“Any data that we can get is great, because we’re a data-driven, research-oriented organization,” she says.
In the past, Airbnb has balked at the idea of sharing its data and Tourism Nova Scotia has had to rely on third-party services to collect information as basic as how many sharing economy operators there were in the province.
“Now we’ll have firm numbers on how many hosts there are in the province, we’ll get some ideas of trends, what people are looking for, what they’re interested in buying, places they’re interested in going, what’s selling. This is incredible data we can use to help inform our marketing going forward,” Saran says.
Rotman said Airbnb has also shared data from 2019 before the pandemic hit, so Tourism Nova Scotia can get an idea of the pre-Covid landscape versus what things look like now.
Saran admits the Airbnb partnership is like a gift-wrapped box dropped at the feet of tourism marketers in the province. But she points out that Airbnb stands to gain as well.
According to AirDNA, sharing economy rentals cratered during the pandemic, falling from a high of about 58,000 at the end of February to a low of 15,000 in mid-April in Canada.
Saran says Airbnb wants to drive more people to travel just as much as Tourism Nova Scotia does. Having access to professional marketing content from a region like Nova Scotia helps that.
“They want content; they want to have the beautiful images and the ideas on experiences that people can engage in while they’re here, and we can provide that to them, so there’s definitely a value to Airbnb as well,” Saran said.
“They’re promoting us and we’re providing the great, beautiful content that’s going to engage people.”
For now, Airbnb is providing the website and marketing campaign for free, as part of what Rotman says is an effort to “support recovery as we all try to rebuild our tourism economies together.”
Saran says Tourism Nova Scotia is eager to continue the partnership, eventually adding more destinations to the Nova Scotia landing page and extending the reach of the marketing campaign once more regions open up to travel.
“There are incredible opportunities for us: we’re excited to just have a clean and consistent brand on [Airbnb] site so people can really just understand what Nova Scotia is all about. We know there are millions of people that go on the site every day, so the opportunities are endless for Nova Scotia,” she says.