The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau recently launched its new #GreaterTogether initiative in an effort to welcome and invite members of the international travel community to the Southern Florida destination as well as diminish any travel-ban concerns in the process.
The brand initiative launched on Sept. 27, the United Nation’s World Tourism Day, with a new brand video and comprehensive digital marketing strategy to celebrate the importance of tourism to Fort Lauderdale’s cultural, political and economic values. “Our #GreaterTogether initiative emphasizes our open-door/open-heart philosophy to event planners and meetings associations, and reinforces that we are a welcoming destination for all people regardless of the color of their skin, religion they practice or whom they love,” says Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. “With this new global initiative, we will continue to advance as one of the leading destinations for conventions, incentive meetings and conferences.”
The almost two-minute brand video takes viewers on a sunrise-to-sunset destination experience, highlighting citizens of different ethnic backgrounds. Yoga on the beach turns into Muslim women enjoying coffee together with a non-Muslim friend that leads to a group of millennials from different nationalities at play to LGBTQI couples and friends hugging. It then ends with a welcome message in multiple languages, combining community pride with a reminder that everyone is welcome to the Greater Fort Lauderdale area. The program’s “Faces” component on social media continues the conversation with some of the locals featured in the video.
The 1.8 million population of the Broward County/Greater Fort Lauderdale area makes it the most diverse county in the state of Florida, with 32 percent of residents being foreign born. It also has one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQI households in the country, with more than 1 million LGBTQI visitors annually.
