14: How Is Pop Culture Driving Tourism?

With travel being the second biggest spend for 16-35’s over items like bills and food, it’s no wonder that pop culture royalty such as MTV are branching out. The popularity of music festivals is growing year on year and this success has been felt by Maltese festival, Isle of MTV who ran their 13th event to 30,000 music fans in July. This level of tourist influx is a challenge for any destination, so we talk to Russell Samuel, VP of Created & Integrated Marketing for Viacom Velocity International, about how they worked with the Malta Tourism Board and local businesses to accommodate the festival goers and source all the necessary equipment and materials.

Viacom are the umbrella company for a multitude of brilliant platforms, including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodean to name a few. Russ discusses how they use their variety of branding to appeal to a range of demographics and to ensure that their impact on Malta is not just specific to the week of the festival, but that the effects are felt all year round. They have also recently introduced a new vertical into their marketing strategy called ‘MTV Travel’ giving fans the opportunity to browse destinations based on their interests within pop culture. It is a clear model of how businesses are using the zeitgeist to grow their business and travel is the perfect branch in which to explore this.

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