Cinnamon TBCasia sets benchmark for Asia at ITB Berlin

Dileep Mudadeniya and Matt Gibson present Sri Lanka case study at ITB

Sri Lanka was in the spotlight at ITB Berlin, the world’s largest travel trade show, which is attended by over 10,000 exhibitors and over 120,000 trade visitors from across the globe. The case study of Cinnamon TBCasia took centre-stage as the first travel bloggers’ conference of its kind to be conducted in Asia, effectively bringing travel bloggers together to create engaging written and visual content about Sri Lanka, which exponentially enhanced the country’s online presence.  

Invited to speak at the eTravel World Forum at ITB, a platform that engages audiences and updates them on the best practices of digital and online marketing, were Dileep Mudadeniya, Head of Brand Marketing - Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts and Vice President John Keells Group and Matt Gibson, President of the Professional Travel Bloggers’ Association (PTBA), who presented the case study on the theme, Co-operating with Bloggers for Place and Product Marketing. 

Matt Gibson presented an overview of TBCasia, and explained how emerging destinations benefit from working with travel bloggers. He emphasised how new or unknown places are suffering from the lack of digital online assets, optimisation on search engines, endorsements and referrals. He reiterated that travel blogging is an effective tool and mechanism that can be used as an alternative to traditional destination promotion tactics. Travel blogging is also ideal for destinations that want to showcase their attractions, key travel experiences and highlights online but don’t necessarily have the funds and know-how for big advertising campaigns. He further described how Cinnamon TBCasia effectively tapped into the potential of blogging to create unprecedented hype about Sri Lanka as a travel destination, on multiple digital platforms that reached millions of people across the globe.  

Commenting on the Cinnamon TBCasia case study, Dileep Mudadeniya stated: “Cinnamon TBCasia was part of an innovative destination marketing initiative that attracted international travel bloggers to the Asian continent on a large scale. Through the immense influence and reach that these bloggers had on their online forums and platforms, we were able to rapidly increase awareness about Sri Lanka as a top travel destination.  The initiative generated over 56,500,000 Twitter and Instagram impressions, over 230,000 Instagram engagements as well as a multitude of posts, vlogs, blogs and videos about the island.”

Observing a highlight of the case study, Mudadeniya further added, “The most important aspect of Cinnamon TBCasia is how the platform helped to place unknown or lesser known destinations in Sri Lanka on the map. Places in the North and East of the country in particular received immense online exposure through the social media promotions and blogging activities that were conducted throughout the campaign. This project truly set a benchmark in the region and was spearheaded by Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts with the assistance of the International Finance Corporation and the Market Development Facility.”

Speaking at the event, Matt Gibson stated: “Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts recognises the crucial role that bloggers play in influencing travellers. Working with bloggers is a creative and effective way to showcase both established and up-and-coming destinations in a cost-effective manner.”

Thousands of online contributions were made during Cinnamon TBCasia, and it is recognised as one of the most effective blogging campaigns to be conducted in Asia.