Costa Rica Tourism Enlists Singing Animals to Lure Overworked Americans

The Costa Rica Tourism Board took news that workers in the United States aren’t using their vacation days and turned it into a marketing opportunity fueled by singing animals.

In the “Save the Americans” campaign’s centerpiece video, a sloth, turtles, and parrots sing about Americans’ habit of overworking to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” In over-dubbed song, they insist that visiting Costa Rica’s nature and ecotourism is the solution to breaking the non-stop work cycle. Introduced last month, the campaign was spawned from the 2013 Expedia Vacation Deprivation survey which found Americans leave more than 500 million vacations days unused each year.

“The ‘Save the Americans’ campaign is fun, lighthearted and allows the opportunity for our country to share its cultural values with the North American market,” said Alejandro Castro-Alfaro, a spokesperson for the Costa Rica Tourism Board. “We hope this campaign will shed light on the importance of taking time off to improve one’s happiness and ultimately inspire Americans to visit Costa Rica.”

The tourism board will promote the campaign throughout 2015 to several North American markets, and will reach out to Americans through various social channels. Pictured below the video is a sand sculpture from the campaign that was on Wall St. in Manhattan this week, a place synonymous with rigid and stressful work schedules.

This week Skift released the results of its own recent survey which found 42% of Americans didn’t take a single vacation day in 2014.

Source: Costa Rica Tourism Board