In the months since the pandemic has taken hold, it seems one of the few constants has been the need to be flexible and adapt to quick changes in the business environment. As the spike in virus cases locally and across the state continued in July, we again were forced to pivot from a hard promotion of visitation and the “Si San Antonio” campaign to a softer sell and pitching for future road trip inspiration.
With the July pivot, Visit San Antonio successfully landed additional coverage from the major Texas markets promoting road trips to our city. It’s clear that travelers keep wanting that content and the Communications team is happy to oblige with different takes on possible itineraries to explore San Antonio.
The beginning of July brought some positive news from our Mexican airline partners as Volaris announced the resumption of its Mexico City direct flight to San Antonio. This flight came on the heels of the late June launch of a new Vivaaerobus flight from Monterrey, Aeromexico’s resumption of its Mexico City flight and Volaris’ resumption of its Guadalajara flight. With these new and retuning flights, all major markets in Mexico are again connected to San Antonio and the airlines report very high interest in those flights. Visit San Antonio took advantage of this returned connectivity with Mexico to return to full efforts with its dedicated social media channels for Mexican consumers.
As mentioned previously – and more so with the recent increase in cases – we’re seeing a sustained surge in visitors and media looking for how destinations are handling health and safety. To this end, Visit San Antonio is working closely with the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation on the “Greater. Safer. Together.” pledge. If you haven’t taken the pledge yet, please be sure to take it and proudly display the corresponding graphics on your marketing channels and place of business – the pledge form and toolkit are available at GreaterSaferSA.com. For the visitor, we’ve created the page https://www.visitsanantonio.com/diversesa/ to give clarity on how San Antonio is a welcoming and safe destination. The page provides general safety information and links out to additional information – if your organization has posted information on new health and safety measures related to COVID-19, please be sure to share with us so it may inform our media conversations and this page for visitors.
In the last couple of weeks there has been a slow decrease in virus cases across the state, which makes us hopeful to be able to return to full pitching of visitation in early to mid-September. Please be sure to share any news that we could use (e.g., new offerings, improved sanitation or social distancing protocols, etc.) as we prepare for the new round of pitching.
We hope you stay safe and healthy and look forward to continuing working with all of our partners to tell the positive San Antonio story through and after the current situation.