ILJ foundation came to us with the challenge of increasing tourist footfall and promoting Jaisalmer Desert Festival to fulfill the terms of the Citizen-Airline Partnership by ensuring minimum seat occupancy for Spicejet’s flights to & from Jaisalmer – a city whose economy took a hard hit due to Covid 19
The Problem
Spice Jet cancels flights to Jaisalmer
On 16th January 2021 Spice Jet, the only operator to Jaislamer, announced the cancellation of its flight to Jaisalmer. The discontinuation meant a steep fall in tourist numbers to the city already suffering losses due to COVID 19 aftermath.
Jaisalmer has bad rail-road connectivity with nearest airport being Jodhpur (300 km). Air connectivity to the city is crucial in the survival of the city where 60-70% economy depends on tourism.
Decreased footfall for Desert Festival
This news came as a huge blow to the upcoming Jaisalmer Desert Festival which was already struggling with footfall due to Covid induced international travel restrictions.
Attracting large number of tourists, the festival is an annual 4 Day winter event organised by the Rajasthan Tourism Department, with the objective to seek global attention from worldwide spectators, showcasing the historical and cultural aspects of Jaisalmer.
The Citizen-Airline Partnership
On the 4th of February 2021, on behest of the memorandum submitted to various government bodies; Jaisalmer Vikas Samiti, the district administration of Jaisalmer and Spice Jet signed MOU – first of its kind Citizen-Airline Partnership to ensure unhindered flight connectivity to Jaisalmer.
The joint initiative aimed to reduce the losses to the airline by following a public-private partnership (PPP) model wherein the local hospitality industry along with ILJ will ensure 60% seat occupancy on each flight or else cover the costs.
This first of this kind sustainable tourism initiative enabled Jaisalmer to host the Desert Festival (24-27 Feb 2021) that was about to be called off.
The Challenges were
The Opportunity areas identified
Personas
Challenge Statement
HMW create a buzz around the festival given the short time frame, creating a sense of novelty to be able to drive the Indian international tourists segment towards Jaisalmer, and engage with local experiences with the assurance of Covid safety protocols.
Ideation
Design Solution and System Map
‘Maru Mela’ was conceptualised as an immersive experience – a sub event under the Jaislamer Desert Festival to enable local communities and provide them an opportunity to present their culture, heritage and food in its most authentic form. The ILJ foundation organised this sub event to primarily attract the upper middle class Interstate Tourists, Travel Bloggers and Ancillary Tourists.
To promote the festival we designed a social media campaign capturing the essence and energy of Jaisalmer with modernised local flavours to target the younger demographic in Indian tourist segment. An ad campaign was designed to create buzz considering the short promotion period of the campaign. A microsite for Maru Mela was designed and linked to the ILJ website, to book local food and cultural experiences organised by the foundation.
Event Identity and Design System
The Event
Maru Mela acted as a window to the local life of Jaisalmer, with three types of immersive experiences designed around:
– the Food
– the Crafts and
– the History and Culture of Jaisalmer
Each of these categories encompassed a list of experiences offered by local hosts in and around Jaisalmer Fort. The ILJ management facilitated the event while the local hosts took front stage giving them a sense of empowerment.
Be it a lunch experience at residence of a local family, a craft workshop by local artisans, or a conversation on local History and Mythology, each session was unique in nature and the first of its kind for both the hosts and the tourists. The batch sizes were kept small to make the experience intimate and personal for both parties.
These experiences could be booked on the microsite designed for Maru Mela (linked to the ILJ website).
The Microsite
We create a microsite for the tourists to be able to book the above experiences online and get a feel of the festival. To view the microsite and the design process in detail, please click here.
Social Media Campaign
We came up with a social media campaign designed around the words ‘Aao Jaisalmera’ (A term of endearment in the local language), inviting the people to come to Jaisalmer. The hashtag #flytojaisalmer for created for the campaign, adding on to the suggestive marketing and also to link the campaign to the SpiceJet Partnership.
The campaign carried the essence of the local culture all the way from the storytelling, the visuals to the copy and tone of voice. We ran the campaign on all the social channels of I Love Jaisalmer cross promoting on partner handles along with the official Rajasthan tourism handle.
We also collaborated with local micro bloggers to cover and promote the event before and during the festival.
The Ad Campaign
An Ad campaign conceptualised and produced by Hoga Films, ran as a part of our social media campaign on the social handles and also as Youtube Ads to get traction to the event as the event dates came close.
The Ad series gave a glimpse of how the city and people of Jaisalmer were prepping for Desert Festival, with a quirky take at the director’s love life. Given the short nature of the timelines, the Ad campaign was shot right before as well as during the festival with local cast and crew, adding not just a layer of authenticity but also a sense of empowerment for the community.
Client / I Love Jaisalmer Foundation
Team / Hoga Films, Priyanka Poddar, Ramsha Qamar, Shreya Kasireddi