Ras Al Khaimah hires Beautiful...

The Instagram account-turned-marketing agency has more than 50 million followers

Beautiful Destinations, one of the world’s biggest online travel influencers and marketing agents with more 50 million followers on social media, has created a short-form video campaign for Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA).

Beautiful Destinations has worked on some of the world’s most high-profile video-led tourism campaigns for destination marketing organisations (DMOs). In this latest partnership, 30 pieces of vertical short-form video content have been created in engaging cinematic style, highlighting Ras Al Khaimah’s diverse experiences, to reach travel audiences through “snackable content”, inspiring travellers as they begin their holiday research, which is increasingly starting – and staying – on social media.

The campaign aims to drive brand affinity in key markets, and increase awareness in new territories through ‘showing’, rather than ‘telling’ potential visitors what awaits them in Ras Al Khaimah.

The campaign in partnership with Beautiful Destinations will be featured on YouTube and Instagram and Tiktok, rolled out in three phases with different themes: Mountain Adventures and What to do in RAK are live; Desert Beyond the Dunes will be aired in November 2023.

Short-form video is increasingly becoming the most influential form of travel media, not only for Gen Z but also older generations with as much as 40% of over-30s looking to TikTok first for travel inspiration.

Some research suggests that 87% of millennials are inspired by social media when booking travel and 97% post about trips daily, making it a key tool for travel research and influencing decision-making.

Raki Phillips, CEO of RAKTDA, said: “We try to stay on the cusp of the traveller journey and tap into the visceral nature of tourism. By harnessing the power of short-form video with Beautiful Destinations, we effectively trigger inspiration and emotion far quicker and more impactfully than other, more traditional, marketing tools.

“We welcomed a record-breaking number of visitors in the first six months in 2023 – a 14.8% increase from the same time last year, so now is the perfect time to accelerate our destination marketing with the global trailblazers in travel content creation.”

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Jeremy Jauncey, founder and CEO of Beautiful Destinations said: “Ras Al Khaimah is a case study on why visual storytelling is so impactful for destination marketing. Through this partnership with RAKTDA, we succinctly captured the sheer breadth of the emirate, through stunning landscapes, nature and experiences creating the kind of content that consumers today want to see.”

Featured in Time magazine’s World’s Greatest Places of 2022 and CNN Travel’s Best Destinations to Visit in 2023, 2022 was a pivotal year for Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism. The Emirate attracted 1.13 million annual visitors – the highest-ever number of arrivals superseding pre-pandemic levels.

Infrastructure-wise, it saw a 17% annual growth in hotel supply surpassing 8,000 keys. Taking the emirate a step closer to its goal of securing more than three million annual visitors by 2030, the momentum has continued, with annual visitor numbers expected to continue to grow to the region’s fastest-growing destination.

Ras Al Khaimah’s Beautiful Destinations campaign will be featured in YouTube and Instagram and Tiktok.