Brand monitoring
The Costa Brava brand is associated with the Barcelona brand, according to a report on its presence on the Internet and in social networks.
MARCH 2014
The Patronat de Turisme commissioned a monitoring report on the presence of the Costa Brava on the Internet and in social networks (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, digital media outlets and videos) for the period stretching from 15th September 2010 to 24th May 2011, with the goal of establishing the brand's level of presence in the destination’s outbound tourism markets.
The completed study aimed to analyse and evaluate the presence of the Costa Brava tourism brand (whether positive, neutral or negative) by calculating the number of mentions in social channels, news items published in digital media outlets, and uploaded photographs and videos. The Costa Brava term has been filtered to encompass general categories such as nature, culture, scenery, holiday leisure and sport.
This wide-ranging study consisted of an analysis of more than 35,000 mentions made in Catalonia, the rest of Spain and abroad, encompassing Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, the destination’s main outbound tourism markets. Eastern European, Scandinavian and Latin American countries were also analysed.
The most frequently mentioned filtered topics on blogs included Girona-Costa Brava airport, the tourism towns of the Costa Brava, and the life and work of Salvador Dalí. As for the media, the most published news items were related to Girona-Costa Brava airport and El Bulli restaurant. Mentions of the Costa Brava on Twitter were mainly focused on the rental of tourist apartments in the destination and on the Costa Brava Girona international blogtrip (#incostabrava), a promotional initiative organised by the Patronat de Turisme in May consisting of a visit by sixteen international travel bloggers that generated more than 14 million Twitter impressions around the world in just nine days. On Facebook, users' photographs and mentions of the destination were holiday-related. Last of all, the most viewed videos included promotional videos of Costa Brava towns.
The report highlights the most frequent mentions made per country: hotel offers for Germany and Holland, Salvador Dalí for Holland and Italy, and coastal holiday towns and El Bulli restaurant for the United Kingdom.
From its analysis of references in the Catalan media, the report concludes that the Costa Brava is a "brand that is breaking through" and that on several occasions it is associated with the Barcelona brand. This link is due to the fact that many tourists visit both destinations during their stay in the country. In the foreign media, more than 50% of the Costa Brava mentions are about "Dalí". Meanwhile, both the national and international media view Ryanair's decision to pull out of Girona-Costa Brava airport negatively.
The towns with the highest number of online mentions during the analysed period were Lloret de Mar, due to the town's extensive tourism offer and the large number of tourists that it welcomes, Blanes, thanks to the quality of its online accommodation offers, Roses, especially in relation to “El Bulli” but also due to its hotel offer, Tossa de Mar, L’Escala, Begur, Platja d’Aro and Cadaqués.
On the basis of the results obtained from the monitoring report on the Costa Brava brand, the Patronat de Turisme plans to commission a second report to analyse the impact of the summer season.
