09.07.2014 - 12:13
In Girona there are 65 music festivals and more than 250 performances scheduled throughout the year. Often, however, these festivals are not marketed effectively abroad and there is a lack of international promotion. Therefore, the Costa Brava Tourism Board has facilitated the creation of a single brand, through a website that brings together all of the different musical programs offered in the province, in order to make these events more accessible and better advertised. For now, the site costabravagironafestivals.com lists the music festival program, but has a goal to expand to include theatre, circus and dance events.
The Costa Brava is widely known in Catalonia for its range of summer festivals, but a study by the RocaSalvatella consultancy firm has found that even the most popular of these festivals have trouble reaching international audiences. In Girona there are currently 65 music festivals that take place throughout the year and in various locations, from the city of Girona, to coastal towns and also events put on in the Pyrenees.
To present the whole range, from the most renowned festivals to the more modest, the Tourism Board has created an “umbrella brand”, the Costa Brava Music Festival, which aims to give these festivals a boost beyond the country’s borders. “Today, international promotion is lacking, at best it reaches the South of France,” said Mirei Mata, manager of the consultancy.
The creation of the new brand has objectives in the short, medium and long term. One of the first steps was to create a unique website that unites together all the festivals in one brand and one website. Currently, the site lists approximately 70% of the music festivals in the region, and the goal is to have 100% of festivals listed on the site by the end of the year. Then, once the array of music events is covered, other areas of art and culture will be incorporated, such as theatre, dance and circus events.
“The goal is to work together to internationalize promotion,” said the director of the Tourism Board, Ramon Ramos, who hopes that this will come in time to become a brand new way of attracting visitors drawn by the culture. “Instead of just being a nice addition, festivals can become the main objective for traveling,” added the Trust’s marketing manager.
Social Networking
Alongside the creation of the website, the Tourism Board has also begun to offer training to festival managers. The consultancy had also noticed that most of the festivals had not exploited the full advantages of social media tools.
In the same vein, it found that 90% of festivals have their own website, but the site remains inactive for most of the year. The remaining 10% of the events used other digital platforms to try to reach the public. The aim is to collect the festivals together in a single click. The website will order events by date or artists and redirect users to individual ticket portals.
The Chairman of the Tourism Board, Joan Giraut, pointed out that bringing the whole range of music festivals together under one brand can contribute to Girona becoming a landmark for cultural tourism worldwide.
