TouristsGoRo – Brilliant PR Campaign in Spain Encourages Tourists to Visit Romania

TouristsGoRo is one of the most brilliant PR campaigns aiming to bring tourists to Romania. And it’s not even a state initiative but a private one.

The context is simple: Spain suffocates with tourists each year. As Barcelona locals say, nobody speaks Catalan or Spanish on La Rambla, their most famous boulevard, but it’s a tide of international tourists.

There are documented studies on over-tourism in Barcelona. It is simply overwhelming for a city with only 1.6 million inhabitants to have more than 32 million international tourists yearly.

While tourism can benefit local communities or countries, mass tourism damages the city. Places are overcrowded, large queues everywhere, from tourist attractions to restaurants or public transport, and locals are unhappy. The very proof is the walls in Spanish cities, covered with hate graffiti, telling tourists to go home or to leave the city alone.

“Tourists go home” is only one of the slogans used to protest against mass tourism, but others can not be published here.

This is when Electric Castle, one of the most appreciated festivals in Romania, entered the spotlight. Their PR team hijacked all the messages on the wall and asked locals to join the efforts in sending tourists to Romania.

Basically, the Electric Castle team registered the domain touristsgo.ro. Then, they registered all the domains corresponding to the slogans on the walls and redirected them to touristsgo.ro. Then, they campaigned among the locals to popularize this movement by simply displaying touristsgo.ro on their T-shirts and the entrance to their shops or restaurants.

Not only that but stickers with .RO were distributed to locals, and they were encouraged to place one sticker at the end of any slogan on the wall, such as for anybody searching for that slogan to understand that it is a website. When searching online, tourists are redirected to the main website, encouraging users to learn more about the Electric Castle and Romania as a country.

As a comparison, while Barcelona suffocates each summer, Bucharest is relatively quiet and welcoming. Bucharest could be a travel destination for worldwide tourists, and Bucharest attractions could prove equally attractive to those who haven’t yet been to this part of Europe.

We also do our part on this news platform and encourage international travellers to visit Bucharest, one of the most underrated destinations in Europe. Check the below Bucharest travel guide, and maybe you find inspiration for your next international trip.