Project Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the project and your company efforts to demonstrate good corporate citizenship in the areas of community involvement, environmental, or socially responsible practices.
Karisma Hotels & Resorts set out to instill a sense of hope for workers on the front lines of covid-19 and their families by offering a chance to win one of 150 vacations of a lifetime through a new initiative, Holidays for your Heroes, featuring all-inclusive trips to some of the most sought-after brands in our portfolio including Azul Beach Resorts, El Dorado Spa Resorts, Margaritaville Island Reserve and Nickelodeon Hotels & Resorts.
This was a natural extension for our family of brands, given that we have always supported local hospitals and community initiatives across Mexico, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. We were also simultaneously rolling out our Peace of Mind™ well-being initiative, which ensures guest safety and wellbeing through initiatives that prioritize sanitation and holistic wellness. We knew that doing what we do best – offering incredible vacations – could be a unique way to give back while emphasizing our commitment to holistic wellness for everyone.
The idea was proposed internally by our VP Global Sales, Marilyn Cairo, and the entire organization quickly rallied around ways to bring it to life, including omnichannel campaigns, PR, social media, digital marketing and rich media content. We engaged an agency for initial PR strategy and outreach, including three major broadcast appearances featuring Jimmy Buffett, given our partnership with the new Margaritaville Island Reserve brand, along with a major national online feature with ABC News. Our new agency later built on this work with national consumer and trade placements.
Objectives and Goals: What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project in CSR? What were the goals you set to measure your success?
Our goals for this campaign were to:
1) Support frontline workers with a flexible, high-value giveaway, using a broad definition to include delivery drivers, maintenance workers, transit workers and beyond in addition to doctors and nurses
2) Involve our partners and related businesses to give back
3) Link the giveaway to Karisma Hotels & Resorts values of inclusivity and a variety of incredible vacation experiences
We measured these goals with the following objectives:
• Give away 150 flexible, 4-night, all-inclusive vacations
• Earn 2,000 valid entries within 2 months
• Increase web traffic to karismahotels.com by 10%
• Secure an exclusive, top-tier U.S. consumer story with a national outlet
• Earn 5 trade mentions
We also set a lean budget of $12,500 for this work, drawing on a portion of budgeted crisis communications retainers over two months and rich media creation. This budget was supplemented by the value of the 150 4-night vacations from Karisma Hotels & Resorts, along with donated website from Next Guest and donated creative from RDA.
Results: How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve? Please be as specific as possible and share the full impact of your efforts in CSR.
We surpassed all of our metrics for this campaign, including:
• Doubling our vacation giveaways to 300 total vacations after The View asked about our interest in providing vacations specifically for mothers at a hard-hit NY hospital ahead of Mother’s Day
• Earning 13,236 entries over 57,319 web sessions (more than 6.5x our goal)
• More than doubling web traffic vs. STLY (10x our goal).
• Earning 5 top-tier consumer stories (TODAY – twice!, The View, ABC News, Yahoo! News, Travel & Leisure). This was 5x our goal, and the broadcast reach alone reached more than 2.7% of all Americans. These stories also enabled us to overshoot our annual press goal of 2 billion impressions in just 4 months.
• We earned a total of 187 stories for Holidays for your Heroes (37x our goal), including a BuzzFeed article that went viral on Facebook, drawing 2,217 web sessions from BuzzFeed and contributing to 6,290 sessions from Facebook.
Website: https://www.karismahotels.com/holidays-for-your-heroes
Press Release: https://www.karismahotels.com/karisma-hotels-resorts-kicks-off-holidays-for-your-heroes-initiative-with-donation-of-150-resort-stays-to-essential-workers
HFYH Video: https://www.linkedin.com/company/karisma-hotels/videos/native/urn:li:ugcPost:6664196976961208320/
TODAY Show Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTYMUAVmcs&t=1s
The View Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcrokJZWSFo&t=3s
Travel & Leisure Story: https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/karisma-hotels-and-resorts-holidays-for-your-heroes
Leadership: Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility in the travel and tourism industry?
The idea for Holidays for your Heroes was proposed by Marilyn Cairo, VP of Global Oles for Premier Worldwide Marketing. An industry veteran with more than 25 years of travel and hospitality experience, Marilyn is known for putting people first and identifying solutions that embody our values and rally the entire team to create incredible, memorable experiences.
Division
Corporate Social Responsibility - Corporate Social Responsibility
Category
Corporate Social Responsibility