Florida Partners with Snapchat: What a Trip!

As the most visited state in the United States, Florida’s relationship with tourism is a big deal.¹ Florida visitors contributed $121.5 billion to Florida's economy in 2022, and its tourism industry welcomed 137.4 million visitors in 2022 — the highest number of visitors in its history. Today, tourism employs about 2 million Floridians.²

To support and fortify Florida's tourism prominence both domestically and internationally, the state's Legislature in 1996 created VISIT FLORIDA to serve as Florida's official tourism board. One quick visit to the VISIT FLORIDA website and, if you're not already aware, you'll get a good idea of the myriad compelling facets the state has to offer the vacationing set — what VISIT FLORIDA encapsulates as "the wide-open beauty of Florida." Tropical beaches and all the activities they support, amazing fusion cuisine, outdoor adventures galore such as the Everglades, thriving city culture, theme parks — Florida has something for everyone, with a pinch of singular personality.

VISIT FLORIDA is obviously all about engaging travelers and adventurers to ultimately get them to explore all the attractions Florida includes. While being situated among the world's top destination locations is a fine feather to have in one's cap, that status also means Florida has to make the extra effort to rise to the surface in the hyper-competitive ocean of tourism, both domestically and internationally. Fortunately, the wealth of Florida’s activity options is ideal for families and young people looking for a vacation adventure that appeals across ages and demographics.

With that wind in their sails, VISIT FLORIDA determined to focus their marketing during peak travel-planning seasons on promoting Florida as a top travel destination for precisely those two populations. On Snapchat, you can reach 64 million travel enthusiasts³ who are 35% more likely to book a vacation for celebratory moments than users on other platforms.⁴ Snapchat is also the most effective way for a business to reach a highly engaged audience, with Snapchatters opening the app nearly 40X a day.⁵ And they're 45% more likely to recommend a brand to friends and family after seeing it in a Snapchat Ad, compared to ads on other platforms.⁶

Numbers like those have everything to do with why VISIT FLORIDA chose to go with Snap to get the job done. VISIT FLORIDA'S agency BN decided on a two-phase approach for their travel campaign. During the 2023 spring peak travel-planning season, VISIT FLORIDA ran a Families campaign that leveraged Snapchat Ads and an AR lens to showcase what Florida has to offer. They followed up with an "Outdoors and Nature" campaign in late summer/early fall leading up to winter travel. Both leaned on UGC (user-generated content) to do the heavy lifting in terms of attention and engagement.

VISIT FLORIDA's strategy was a resounding success. The Families campaign successfully drove a 10pt lift in brand imagery attributes — 5X higher than US Travel and Tourism benchmarks⁷ — confirming that Florida is indeed a top choice for a family vacation destination. The Lens, meanwhile, generated 88,000 shares.⁷

Learn more about how Snapchat Ads can help grow your business.