Dominican Republic's Beaches Are Now at Your Fingertips

The Dominican Republic is renowned for its impressive landscapes: beautiful mountain ranges, white-sand beaches, and turquoise lagoons. Together they bring, undoubtedly, a perfect holiday destination for romantics, those who want to relax, or simply for those who want to boost their health (thanks to the country’s balneo-climatic status). Although this small corner of heaven placed in the north of the Caribbean Sea, describing magical places at every step, tourists visiting this country reach either Punta Cana, Bávaro, or La Romana beaches. But there’s so much more to enjoy left undiscovered…

The country hosts over 200 beaches, and every one of them is amazing in its own way. Yet, McCann Santo Domingo is willing to bet that the majority of 5.5 million tourists, who visited the island last year, went straight to the three above-mentioned places and never heard of or weren’t paying enough attention to the remaining spectacular beaches.

With holiday programs of all kinds and resorts suitable for all budgets, it is very likely that visitors will return for another holiday in the Dominican Republic. And if they decide to come back, why not lure them into visiting other places as beautiful as those they have already visited?

Sweet Memories Travel Agency presents a solution: the Geolocated Catalog. A promotional magazine cleverly used by the company to seduce (not only returning) visitors to come and explore the less-visited locations of the beautiful island.

The idea behind the tourism agency’s concept was simple: tourists love natural places and virgin beaches with white sand and perfectly-blue waters. If these are the main attraction points, then let’s turn them into the country’s advantage and promote lesser-known areas that actually offer the same natural conditions as the popular places. And that’s exactly what the two partners did!

With the help of the Santo Domingo-based agency, the travel company mapped out the beaches using unusual materials – at least for promo materials. Classified according to the colors that contour their features and using samples of sand and water, the creatives elaborated the first catalog made with natural ‘fabrics,’ allowing tourists to touch, feel, and see the locations as they are in real-life. It is “a Coastal Pantone of the entire country,” explains the creative team behind the project.

Besides the real-life catalog, there is a virtual one, which includes high-definition photography, the exact conditions of sea and sand, and relevant information about each beach, accompanied by directions on how to get there. Pretty neat, right?

The concept was brought to life after six months of hard work, with the artists contouring each of the destinations by hand. And at such huge volume of work, the results did not cease to appear: the campaign generated over 100,000 visits to the website on the first day, and travel bookings grew by 50%, of which about 90% were made to the alternative destinations promoted by the catalog.

If you’re interested, you can check the catalog here. In case it doesn’t convince you, then you can always ask for a hard copy. Meanwhile, let’s have a look at the two-minute-long video the agency made to support the initiative.