Success stories: The PC Agency’s greatest wins of 2023

By Paul Charles, CEO and founder, The PC Agency

As one of the world’s leading luxury travel consultancies, The PC Agency is committed to consistently delivering campaigns that meet the highest standards of excellence, and securing the best possible ROI for our clients.

This year, I’m proud to say that The PC Agency team has raised the bar even higher with exceptional work across  our portfolio of clients, including some of the most celebrated luxury hotels, airlines, and destinations around the globe. 

To give you a flavour of the sheer scale of our industry expertise and creative flair, here are a few of our most successful consumer and trade campaigns of 2023…

Dazzling destinations and cruise lines

Turning the Southbank green for St Patrick’s Day

Our team of tourism board experts spearheaded an engaging and innovative campaign for Tourism Ireland to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. We turned the Southbank green — both in terms of the Emerald Isle’s colour and energy efficiency— with an interactive dance floor powered by the steps of traditional Irish dancers and an evening media reception and influencer trip. This smart activation generated widespread top-tier coverage with a total reach of 249,551,120.

Broadcasting from the happiest country in the world

We’re particularly proud of our work to secure broadcast coverage for Visit Finland on ITV Lorraine. Working in partnership with our airline client, Finnair, to provide flights, we hosted television and radio presenter, Tyler West and his mother on a special trip to Finland,  the happiest country in the world. Three clips of their trip ran throughout November — a major achievement as the daily viewership for ITV Lorraine is 1.3M.

A very grand cruise ship launch

To celebrate our client, Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ partnership with Fabergé and to announce the godmother of its latest ship, Seven Seas Grandeur, our trade representation team coordinated a stand-out event at Frameless in London. Over 200 esteemed guests, attended including some of Regent’s most loyal customers, as well as key media, travel trade and brand partners. 

And we were also delighted to be appointed the official UK PR agency for Bhutan Travel following a competitive pitch.

Showcasing the world’s leading luxury hotels 

Announcing The Zetter Bloomsbury

In September, our luxury hotels team devised and managed the launch event of the newest Zetter hotel, The Zetter Bloomsbury, in tandem with a rebrand of existing Zetter Townhouses into ‘The Zetter Clerkenwell’ and ‘The Zetter Bloomsbury’. In September, we hosted the hard hat launch at the site of the new hotel, with 33 media attendees, including Condé Nast Traveller, Country & Town House, and The Caterer. The event secured exclusive press coverage in London Evening Standard, Boutique Hotelier, and Sleeper.

Rebranding PoB Hotels

In February, we were tasked with launching the new branding for Pride of Britain Hotels, PoB Hotels. Our job was to communicate the fresh, modern direction for the renowned British brand to both media and hotel members. The PC team hosted a full day of events, including a morning briefing with 27 attending media, including Mail on Sunday, Luxury London, The Times, and Boutique Hotelier, and an afternoon event educating hotel members and PRs on the new direction for the brand. And to launch the new social media channels with a buzz, we coordinated influencer stays at some of the UK’s top luxury PoB member hotels.

Elevating our airline industry clients

A year to remember

With 2023 marking Finnair’s centenary, our team of aviation PR specialists planned and managed a series of regional round table events in the UK and Ireland to celebrate the anniversary and the airline’s evolution to become the world’s sixth-oldest airline still in continuous operation. Each event brought together journalists and social media influencers from each city, including Dublin, Edinburgh and  Manchester, giving us the opportunity to promote Finnair’s regional connectivity and share insights from the airline’s senior team. Our London event was also hosted by Finnair’s CEO, Topi Manner, with 1-2-1 interviews with top-tier travel and business media arranged in addition to the highly successful roundtable.

Top-flight coverage for TAP

This summer, we delivered a highly successful PR campaign for Portuguese flag-carrier, TAP Air Portugal, and worked with MailOnline to promote TAP’s short-haul network, and in particular its great value fares to Lisbon. This smart campaign focussed on giving UK consumers a chance to plan a last-minute getaway, while keeping an eye on their wallet. The exclusive coverage included numerous photos and videos, which is rarely featured for short-haul flights.

Hitting new heights for social & content marketing

Beating industry benchmarks for The Luxury Travel Book

For luxury villa and apartment rentals specialists, The Luxury Travel Book, we’ve smashed all of our 2023 targets for social media and newsletters. For Instagram alone, we have successfully increased the number of engaged accounts by 301.2%; interactions are up by 209%; follower growth is up 72.7%, and total impressions +54.8%. [YoY 2023 vs. 2022]. We also consistently achieve exceptionally high open rates for our newsletters. Averaging an open rate of 52.3% throughout 2023, this is more than double the industry standard of 20.44% (Travel and Transportation category, Mailchimp).