Now that summer is (what seems rather suddenly) upon us we are looking forward to launching our new publicity campaign in the youth resorts around the Greek islands - Kavos, Kardamena, Malia, Laganas and Faliraki.
This is the third year that we have run what is known as an ‘ in resort’ campaign aimed at tourists in the 16-20 age bracket. We don’t want to spoil the fun, but to make people aware that things can go wrong on holiday too and what people can do themselves to reduce that risk.
The materials are new with funky designs and include things such as beer mats and Y-cards. The messages however remain the same: raising awareness of possible incidents that can occur whilst on holiday such as arrests, sexual assault and hospitalizations. The FCO’s Know before You Go campaign continues to target holiday makers before they travel, and we are carrying on their messages in Greece once they get here.
With the continued help of the Tour Operators, local authorities and some local businesses we will again be targeting as many of the youth tourists as possible. We try to get the messages across in a variety of ways - some of the reps will give the materials out at their welcome events or even on their bar crawls and we’ll be distributing beer mats to bars and clubs where people are most likely to see them. We also have people in all the resorts handing out the material to young British tourists.
What we found last year was not only did the campaign raise awareness for the thousands of tourists who holiday in these resorts but also the hundreds of young Brits who come over to live and work in Greece for the summer season.
The great thing is that the police and mayors continue to be positive about the whole campaign. They see it as a good way of getting important messages across and are so supportive in this effort to reduce incidents. An example of this here in Corfu, in Kavos, is that the Mayor is setting up a tourist information kiosk in the resort and has agreed to give out our leaflets. The more distribution points we can get the better!
Whilst it will always be difficult to give specific statistics on the effectiveness of the campaign, I do feel that the messages have an impact. When I visited Kavos last year in the height of the campaign, I was really pleased with the positive comments from the tourists who were only too happy to give their opinion. I feel sure that this year’s campaign will be just as effective and I am sure a few trips to Kavos will provide the feedback to confirm this.
Posted at 07:06 09 June 2009 by Sarah Ticherou | Comments[0]
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