Celebrity Cruises' ambition is to redefine luxury cruising for a new generation of travellers, who value a more innovative, stylish and informal kind of luxury. But look at any travel website or brochure, and it was clear that the way the travel industry presented itself remained awash with clichés - images of straight, white, able-bodied families with zero diversity.

The travel trade seemed to like it that way. As one professional put it, clichéd travel images were “relatively cheap" and "to capture new, inclusive, diverse, and let’s say, ‘realistic imagery’ that actually represents the way society really looks, would be too costly and it’s not what brands or consumers want...”

For the good of both our client and the wider industry, we knew we had to change the face of luxury travel.

To change the face of travel, we needed to change the way it presented itself to the outside world. To do so, we flipped the meaning of one of travel’s most well-known (and loaded) terms: “all-inclusive”.

We created the world’s first free open-source, diversity-focused, travel image library: The All-Inclusive Photo Project. A library that represents the true breadth of humanity; regardless of sexuality, size, physical ability, or race. One that would change the travel industry and convince the world that it had moved with the times.

We made this content entirely free to use - rights-free imagery, in perpetuity for anyone working in the travel industry, including Celebrity Cruises’ competitors - removing any cost or access barriers.

With a limited media budget to play with, earned media coverage would be crucial for reaching the travel industry representatives we needed to target. And authenticity was key to the campaign’s success in earned media. With a hundred and one ‘brand purpose’ campaigns crossing the desks of the world’s media every week, talking the talk without walking the walk would have meant the project sinking without trace.

So we commissioned world-renowned photographers who themselves identified as being a part of underrepresented communities. These included arguably the world’s most renowned portrait photographer, Annie Leibovitz; English documentary photographer and disability campaigner Giles Duley; Naima Green, a Black, queer New York-based photographer; and Jarrad Seng, an Australia-based photographer, filmmaker and creative director of Malaysian-Chinese descent.

Commissioning talented photographers from across multiple markets ensured the campaign had the authenticity and local appeal to cut through with the world’s biggest media titles.

The strength of the library’s imagery meant our approach for earned media was simple. To put our images and photographers in front of as many top-tier media as possible.

Launched concurrently across North America, the UK and Ireland and Australia, the campaign quickly generated more than 100 pieces of press coverage, spanning national, international, lifestyle, travel and marketing media, with a combined reach of over 380 million.

North America - 54 articles (including: CNN, Vice, Forbes)

UK&I - 31 articles (including: MailOnline, Metro, Tatler, Gay Times)

Australia - 20 articles (including: Thrillist, ESCAPE, Travel Weekly)

For Celebrity Cruises, the campaign drove the single largest organic spike across the brand’s social channels in the past year, with the launch day post driving +50% reach at 110.4k and +51% more post interactions at 13.7k. Post-campaign analysis also showed a 30% increase in brand preference among potential customers.

But the campaign’s objectives had always been bigger than the client. This was about changing the face of an entire industry.

Within just 48 hours of launch, the image library had received: 14,061 page views, 3,150 organic search impressions, 6,600 visitors and, critically, 500 separate travel industry representatives downloading imagery. Because every user submitted their details (including job title and company), we knew these were real travel and tourism execs accessing the library.

Since launch, our images have been downloaded by some of the world’s most influential travel brands, including Expedia, TripAdvisor, Conde Nast, Qantas, ABTA, Kuoni and Flight Centre. Outside of travel, the likes of HSBC, Unsplash and the American Automobile Association also accessed the library to improve the inclusivity of their marketing materials.

In March 2023, the AIPP’s imagery landed its first starring role, fronting Tourism Australia’s ‘Come And Say G’Day’ campaign. It was the first time Tourism Australia, one of the world’s biggest tourism media spenders, had used a person with a visible disability as its lead campaign image.

With so many influential brands and organisations now using the All-Inclusive Photography Project, we’re confident it will be the first of many.