Uniting cross-cultural tourism under a single brand strategy

Challenge

Backed by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Mediterranean Experience of Eco-Tourism (MEET) is an international network of tourism enterprises within the Mediterranean areas of France, Italy, Greece, Jordan, and Lebanon. MEET tours exemplify community-based tourism where a symbiotic relationship between protected areas and their surrounding communities is at the heart. MEET tours give travelers an “insider’s view” of the Mediterranean way of life through soft adventures in unconventional locations. MEET needed guidance on how to promote its unique offering of intimate, cross-cultural, conservation-based tour offerings to a western market.

Solution

While in the role of creative director for Blue Marble Creative, Lisa worked with IUCN's other partner in the project, Sustainable Travel International (STI), to develop a united brand and marketing strategy for MEET. Using information from STI's situation analysis and stakeholder interviews, Lisa helped the STI team members flesh out details of the strategy and solidify recommendations for brand and messaging. Lisa also assisted with content organization and visuals for a presentation of the strategy at a MEET convention in Milan, Italy.

Once IUCN approved the MEET brand strategy, Lisa worked directly with the MEET team to create an overview of the MEET experience in order to give MEET partners and prospective travelers a clear understanding of the offering and how they could participate. Through the process of creating the one-sheet, the foundation for the message platform was laid with "Experience a Local’s Perspective” established as the central theme. Visual assets were also designed and formatted for use in additional collateral.

With clearly-defined positioning of MEET tours, the organization has been able to engage potential partners in productive conversations about participating in the network. About a year after the initial collateral was created, IUCN called upon Lisa to help them package the content for a training manual, and this document has proved to be an effective way for the organization to onboard new MEET partners.

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