One of the most recurring reflections in the field of storytelling applied to tourism is that travelers want to be questioned, surprised. It is the typical sentence: “I will not remind you because of who you are but because of how you have made me feel”. To achieve this, the paths are multiple and there is no a successful formula that can be easily replicable.

In any case, exploiting the authenticity of destiny seems to me the best strategy to disassemble the reservations that a potential traveler may have hesitating while deciding which destination to visit. I would like to present two examples that, although based on different narrative strategies, have a common point: both examples exploit the attributes of the destiny and its prescriptors without excessive pretensions (or renouncing to originality).

Sitia, so hard to say goodbye

The tourist spot of Sitia, a Greek town on the island of Crete, was one of the most rated in the 2017 CIFFT (International Committee of Tourism Film Festivals) ranking. The video makes a commitment to humor from the beginning.

The piece, fiction style, does not voluntarily renounce to show some of the local clichés, but does it with discretion and elegance. We know at all times that we are in Greece. We are given to understand that we can live the experiences that will be unforgettable and we’re persuaded to generate empathy with the main characters. The protagonist, a man of about 65, lives as a tragedy leaving the town that has welcomed him for a few days.

The piece is narratively impeccable. The protagonists are not especially athletic characters, but this detail just makes the piece work perfectly. There seems to be no great pretensions in the narrative positioning. The slogan, in this sense, helps. It’s hard to say goodbye to Sitia. The shoot has been a party.

Hamburg like a local

On the website that informs the “Hamburg like a local” campaign, the Hamburg Tourist Office presents the seven protagonists of their stories as “your experts on Hamburg” and invites visitors to let themselves be advised with new tips and discover unknown -“rough”- corners of the city.

7 pieces of 2 ‘each make up the “Hamburg like a local” campaign. In this case, unlike Sitia’s video, the record is documentary, although slow cameras introduce us to the logic of advertising. Once again, the great finding of the campaign, in my opinion, is the lack of pretensions.

Already from the selection of the prescribers that star in the pieces, it is clearly framed what is the target to address: young Europeans between 30 and 40 who regularly travel to Europe and want to discover small corners that surprise them but at the same time easy to decode. Lovers of urban culture but also of nature, fashion, art and sport. The graphics help to identify these spaces: restaurants, cafes, concert halls … even a market where we could get to try olives from Aragon and Catalonia …

The video works like a stiletto. Very pleasant surroundings and experiences are taught very softly. Once again, without pretensions. He does not renounce to show the industrial architecture of the city and, not hiding it, gives a message of maturity. Local promotion is made, but Hamburg is also a cosmopolitan environment. The campaign goes straight to the grain. The metaphor of the campaign is the last sequence of the video “On the road with Tania“, underlining the pleasure that it is supposed to have a glass of wine on a terrace on the banks of the River Elbe a spring afternoon.