Experience Oxfordshire has shared the excellent results generated by its Spring into Summer campaign. With its focus on the breadth and quality of the arts and culture available throughout the county’s five districts, the campaign’s objective was to encourage residents and visitors to explore Oxfordshire and take advantage of the rich range of events and experiences on offer during the spring and summer months.
The organisation re-developed its online event listing capacity, What’s On in Oxfordshire, and worked with venues and event organisers across Oxfordshire to build up a digital bank of arts and culture event information, the online Arts&CultureHub. Digital marketing activity across multiple channels, Facebook, Instagram, native ads and Google Search, was used to engage with and inspire visitors to plan a short getaway on the strength of Oxfordshire’s arts and culture scene and outdoor experiences.
Audiences within a two hour drive of Oxfordshire were targeted resulting in over 10.3 million individuals engaging with the campaign and generating 105,000 visits to the campaign web pages. 750 events were featured and over 1,000 people opted in to hear more on a regular basis.
Experience Oxfordshire’s CEO, Hayley Beer-Gamage said, “The campaign delivered an excellent return on investment in terms of overall engagement and traffic, contributing significantly to the objective of maintaining the county’s profile as a world-renowned, desirable destination for tourism, culture and business.
“It’s important to us that our activity should have a long-lasting, positive impact on the county’s visitor economy. By focusing on the county’s arts, culture and spring/summer events programme, we aimed to encourage visitors to either remember, or to take a fresh look at Oxfordshire this year. We also wanted to inspire future visitation. We are therefore delighted with the campaign’s results and will bring the expertise developed during this campaign, and from the previous Only in Oxfordshire 2022 activity to our 2023 autumn-winter campaign.”
Experience Oxfordshire has been commissioned by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) to deliver three strategic campaigns under their Visitor Economy Renaissance Programme (VERP), which supports the sector’s ongoing re-emergence from Covid-19. Funding for the programme was secured via Oxfordshire County Council’s Contain Outbreak Management Fund.
Helen Ryan-Wallis, Programme Manager (Strategy) at OxLep said, “The VERP initiative focuses on supporting the recovery of the county’s visitor economy post pandemic and we were delighted to see this campaign focusing on the arts and cultural sector, which is such a huge asset in driving the visitor economy in Oxfordshire.
“The development of a central depository for details for What’s On in Oxfordshire and the relates Arts&CultureHub leave lasting legacies, providing up-to-date information and supporting the arts, cultural and events sector through the rest of 2023 and into the future.”
Click here to find out more about Experience Oxfordshire.
