Skift Take

Drone videos are a new arsenal that travel marketers should be looking at seriously now, while the novelty wow factor lasts. There is a lot to learn from amateur enthusiasts and independent video professionals, all of whom converge mostly on Vimeo.

The subculture of drones has gone mainstream over the last year or so, and with it comes the spate of consumer drone videos. The nature of aerial video shot through drones makes is a great fit for travel videos, for destinations, resorts, attractions and even tour companies. Just as official travel videos have just caught up to the GoPro video revolution (and it really has been a revolution)

And some early adopters have started creating videos, creating the wow factor that makes them stand out and even go viral. We have collected some great examples of travel videos which use drones, some official efforts from brands, most of them unofficial effort by enthusiasts, making a case for this genre to be taken seriously by marketers.

  • For a mind-blowing official drone video effort, check this one from tours company DolphinSafari, based in Dana Point in Orange County, CA.

  • The best hospitality industry effort we’ve seen is in resort-hotels, by Barnes Creative Studios out of Atlanta. The company has created two videos worth watching, one for Kamalame Cay private island and residences in Bahamas and another for Cap Maison resort in St. Lucia. Besides capturing the videos using a quadcopter drone, there is good amount of post-production that have gone into these videos and they certainly have a wow effect, though the music could have been less soporific.

  • Among the more organized efforts is by a French company DroneCast, which has been doing some amazing aerial drone videos of regions in France and extreme sports videos. The first two below are drone videos of Notre Dame de la Garde statue in Marseille and Frioul Islands and Chateau d’If, Marseille’s island-prison, respectively.

    This video from DroneCast shows a behind-the-scenes of an extreme skiing trip, set to private below but worth clicking through and watching in full.

  •  This one is a demo reel of a drone video by Canadian firm Alterna Films which captured footage of Vancouver from its mountainous terrains to its coasts, and shows the potential for tourism videos.
  • An official tourism board video by VisitTrondheim in Norway shows the city in winter.

  • This is an unofficial effort, where New York filmmaker Roberto Serrini shot this gorgeous aerial footage of remote parts of Cambodia, and talks about the experience here.
  • This video isn’t specifically meant to promote tourism, but is actually a video about the making of a music video! Set in the mountains of Chattanooga TN, the video shows Florida band Hoyle in these mountains, using a DJI Phantom 2 drone. Shows the potential use of drone videos for national parks and other nature attractions.

  • Meanwhile, some smaller local tourism boards are starting efforts to create drone aerial videos to showcase the regions’ tourist attractions. Ringgold, Georgia is considering buying a drone to promote tourism, while an entrepreneur in the small town of Noosa in Australia is launching a drone video tourism site LookatNoosa.com, soon.

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Tags: drones, marketing, videos, vimeo

Photo credit: Drone video of Notre Dame de la Garde statue in Marseille, France. Screenshot courtesy DroneCast.fr / DroneCast.fr

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