Tourism Windsor-Essex-Pelee Island (TWEPI) is celebrating its largest-ever advertising campaign as a major success.
The campaign was launched in June in an effort to boost visitation following the ongoing trade war and other policies initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump.
While 33 per cent of visitors to the region come from Michigan and Ohio, TWEPI’s new strategy expanded domestic efforts through a partnership with Destination Ontario.
That included direct mail, digital ads, and broadcast campaigns across Southwestern Ontario to the GTA, alongside U.S. initiatives, as Canadians increasingly chose staycations over U.S. travel.
TWEPI's vice-president of marketing and communications, Jason Toner, said the two campaigns combined saw 92 million impressions and 850,000 unique visitors to their website.
"A ton of radio, ton of TV, and then we have a digital campaign that runs on top of that. So we saw about 80 million impressions on the U.S. side with our branding. All about food and drink because we know it's such the top tier destination piece for us. So highlighting our unique food, we have the wineries, we have the breweries, distilleries. Great road trip motivators for us, and then when we get people to our site that's where we hit them with content," he said.
Toner said they took a new approach of utilizing content creators to sell the story of why someone should make the trip to the region.
"Exploring Windsor-Essex, to the distillery, going into the Walkerville area, exploring Willistead, but really selling a full story when you make that road trip, you know, we don't want them here for a couple hours, we want them here for a couple days to really leave a strong economic foot print," said Toner.
Toner said the partnerships with content creators helped to spread the word about Windsor-Essex.
"We brought down a partner from London and he did a reel for Iron Kettle out in Comber and it has 1.3 million views. So people are really consuming the content, and then we hope that transitions into a trip down the road," he said.
Toner said the organization is gearing up to launch another campaign with Destination Ontario that focuses on bringing people to the region during the shoulder season of January to April.
Last week, TWEPI CEO Gordon Orr told AM800 that despite the tariff situation, and a decrease in tunnel traffic, the region's tourism industry remains in a stable position.