Tourism is the third largest industry on the Faroe Islands and makes up for 14 % of the islands’ total number of jobs.

Like the rest of the world, the Faroese tourism industry was severely affected when the corona virus forced all travel and tourism activities to shut down in March 2020.

Greatly disappointed, Visit Faroe Islands had to ask tourists to postpone their planned trips to the islands indefinitely.

To make up for the loss of physical visits during lockdown, Visit Faroe Islands needed a solution that could maintain public

interest in the islands as a travel destination. To overcome this challenge, we set out the following KPI’s for the campaign:

To reach at least 100,000 people organically via social media and news media.

To secure at least 30 % of the islands’ accommodation capacity booked for visitors when the country reopens.

We invented the world’s first remote-controlled tourism experience.

Remote Tourism enabled travellers to experience the Faroe Islands via a remote-controlled local guide, acting as the eyes, ears and bodies of the users, as they wandered about the Faroese landscapes from home.

The guides were equipped with a live camcorder mounted on a gimble stabilizer, a microphone and headphones from which they got instructions from tourists via mobile, tablet or PC.

The “remote tourist” controlled the guide via a joypad on remote-tourism.com. Just like an arcade game, users could make the guides jump, run and maneuver. This way, tourists could control the route of the tour and experience the Faroese nature in real time with a personal local guide.

Visit Faroe Islands’ target audience are frequent travellers, age 25-35, seeking alternative adventurous tourism experiences using social media to find travel inspiration.

To reach an audience isolated in their homes across the globe, the Faroese tourism board needed a digital solution

enabling a personal brand experience from home.

But with a $0 media budget, we needed to spread the word of our virtual Faroese experience organically through global

news media and via influencers on social media.

We launched remote tourism with a press release in each of the key markets and a film on owned media channels while travel influencers and journalists who had nowhere else to go due to the travel restrictions were invited on special tours where they could capture the Remote Tourism experience and share it with their followers and readers.

We launched remote-tourism.com with a press release and a film on owned media channels and invited travel influencers and journalists who had nowhere else to go due to the restrictions on special tours where they could capture the Remote Tourism experience and share it with their followers and readers.

By April 15th remote-tourism.com was open for virtual visitors with several tours a day by foot, boat or even from a helicopter, also controlled by the user via joypad in real time.

During each tour, tourists got the chance to ask guides questions, while everyone else could follow the tour live on Facebook and Instagram Live and chat with Visit Faroe Islands.

Within 24 hours of its launch, the Faroe Islands had more virtual visits than usual physical visits in a whole year.

The average view time was 4.11 minutes which is 2500 % higher than Facebook’s tourism video benchmark.

On average, more than 20,000 people viewed each trip. 1,88 % commented, shared or liked, which is 1600 % above

Facebook’s benchmark.

By week 21, remote tourism became the biggest tourism news story in the world with 549 news articles and an online readership of more than 5 billion people.

Through influencers, the story reached 40,3 million people on social media.

In just six weeks, 700,000 people ‘visited’ the Faroe Islands and two weeks after the reopening of the islands, all hotels were sold out.

This way, we managed to save some of the threatened jobs and give millions of people a travel experience without leaving home.