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Best European Rail Tourism Campaign 2021

About the Award

With the EU designating 2021 as the European Year of Rail (EYR), the European Travel Commission and Eurail have launched a joint award competition to contribute to the objectives of the EYR, namely; promoting rail tourism among EU citizens, encouraging cross-sectoral dialogue between the rail and tourism sectors, and contributing to the European Green Deal.

The award will be given to marketing campaigns that aim to create synergies between the rail and tourism sectors, and to effectively promote train travel as a sustainable tourism model throughout the EU.

Participants in the award competition will be able to reap various benefits contributing to the exposure and development of their campaigns, such as:

  • Exposure on ETC’s and partners’ digital promotional channels
  • Corporate public relations and dissemination via ETC and Eurail channels
  • Expert market intelligence and insights on campaign planning and development
  • Winners will receive the title of ‘Best European Rail Tourism Campaign 2021’ as well as an accredited digital badge, certificate, and plaque

Categories

The awards will be split into three categories:

  1. New promotional initiatives EYR 2021
  2. Best completed rail tourism promotions
  3. Jury prize

Eligibility

The awards are open to NTOs, DMOs, rail organisations and other entities with significant operations in the European tourism sector. Applications from consortia are also welcomed. This award aims to incentivise new promotional campaigns during the EYR that encourage train travel for tourism. Therefore, applications will be open to campaigns which are in the planning or implementation phase during 2021  (any information disclosed in the application will be treated with utmost confidenitiality and will not shared with third parties).

Campaigns which have already been completed before 01/01/2021 will be considered for the second category.

Types of action

Campaigns and/or campaign proposals must aim at contributing to the objectives defined above, particularly in promoting European rail tourism.

In that regard, promotional campaigns must use the right messages, channels and tactics to engage effectively the target audience. The following actions are examples of possible promotional activities:

  • Content marketing
  • Video
  • Native advertising
  • Social media
  • Referral marketing
  • Influencer marketing
  • Programmatic display
  • Email marketing
  • Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)

Evaluation Criteria and Jury

Applications will be evaluated by an expert jury comprised of professionals from the tourism, rail and marketing sectors. The results of the jury will be communicated in an official award ceremony on November 24 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Criteria

  • Relevance. The campaign’s ability to contribute to at least one of the objectives of the award, namely supporting the Green Deal, promoting rail as a sustainable mode of transport, and promoting Europe as a distinct tourist destination.
  • Rail-travel at the core of the campaign. The ability to tie-in the rail experience in an organic and consistent way throughout the campaign, as opposed to highlighting the train as just a way to go from A to B.
  • Clarity of the campaign (proposal) description. The level of coherence, appropriateness and practicality of the (proposed) activities and methodology. The size and type of target audience that the campaign will engage
  • Creativity and innovation of the campaign approach. The extent to which the proposal demonstrates an innovative and creative approach
  • Measurable outputs. The extent to which the campaign (proposal) description contains well-defined and verifiable indicators (KPIs) for project outputs and estimated impacts on target groups

How to apply

Applications for Best European Rail Tourism Campaign 2021‪ are now closed.