90 Years of Bermuda Tourism Advertising Is Mini Lesson in Marketing

Bermuda recently dug into its archives and pulled out 90 years of tourism marketing.

The Bermuda Tourism Authority is one of the advertisers that signed up for The New Yorker’s 90th celebration with a two-page spread in the new magazine. It also shared one of its New Yorker ads from each decade, starting in 1928, with Skift for a look at the evolution of print advertising.

The ads transition from text-heavy pages that suggest readers visit their travel agent or write a letter to the island’s tourism office in Chicago to large images with a simple website underneath.

The country’s messaging has remained relatively the same throughout the years with a focus on its blue skies, sea and land sports, and close proximity to New York City.

It’s expressed this through different campaign themes including “Let yourself go” and “Feel the love.”

In 2012, the Bermuda Department of Tourism hoped to expand its visitor base with a $4.8 million campaign that promoted the cultural and culinary attractions of the destination. The campaign’s theme “So much more” was hoped to reinvigorate the island’s tourism economy.

The next year it was announced that the government-run Department of Tourism would be replaced by an independent tourism authority, a result of the island’s 2012 Tourism Plan.

The new organization the Bermuda Tourism Authority was live by January 2014. The organization is a few months past its one-year mark and it's strategizing ways to make Bermuda relevant to a new generation of travelers. In addition to The New Yorker ads, it's also rolling out social media campaigns and looking at on-the-ground development.