Following the hurricane seasons of Fall 2017, the islands of the Caribbean needed tourists and visitors more than ever. In partnership with the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association and 18 other cruise lines, I led marketing and communications efforts for the "Caribbean is Open" campaign. The campaign included promotions, internal communications, earned and paid media placements, a satellite media tour, search and social media advertising. In total, the "Caribbean is Open" campaign had 7 billion impressions externally. Carnival Corporation had record quarters in the Caribbean in late 2017, into early 2018. This high performance was largely due to this uniquely collaborative campaign.
All of the media and marketing activities for the Caribbean is Open promotion directed Guests and travel advisors to visit the Caribbean is Open website. On this site, Guests could find real time information about destinations and their cruise departures. The site also featured recent photography of the Caribbean islands. This site was later transitioned to be called Caribbean for Everyone.
Since Guests were curious about the state of the Caribbean islands, I led the effort to hire a photographer. The photographer visited destinations in the Eastern Caribbean. He took photos of landmark locations, so we could show Guests the current beauty of the islands.
I worked with a student group at the University of Oklahoma to coordinate social media efforts. With my leadership, the student group developed the posts and scheduled the interactions on all social media platforms. They acted as an agency for the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association and for this effort.
To answer questions to from the Media and Guests, I partnered with our PR agency to develop FAQs. The FAQs were posted on the landing page and shared on a reactive basis with those inquiring about the state of the cruise industry after hurricanes.
I led a project to develop a video about the Caribbean, on behalf of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association. The video was shared on social media and on the landing page. The video was developed by an agency from New York City, who was determine and hired by me.