Along with the global economic crisis came the Influenza epidemic that plunged more than half of Mexico City’s visitors to Querétaro. Budget limited, we developed a campaign aimed at generating non-paid media coverage and word of mouth amongst the target audience. The objective was to raise awareness of a safe and culture-rich destination within culture-oriented families, groups of friends and couples living in Mexico City. We created the concept 'Viajeros Creando'(Creating Travellers), which implies the exercise of artists as ambassadors to produce editorial, photographic and audiovisual contents, as well as digital platforms and social events that promote the destination via the 'real time' adventures of a multidisciplinary art collective.

Conformed by six recognized contemporary artists born or raised in Mexico City, their mission was to create a work of art that reflected their eight-day voyage to Querétaro. We shared daily contents through the official destination web site and the concepts' micro site, as well as within social media and user generated content platforms frequented by our target audience. The story was presented in traditional and non-traditional media; the website generated targeted impacts and Mexico City now represents 80% of Querétaro´s visitors, 10% more than last year.

Activity began with ten interviews with Mexico City’s specialized media. We then took the artists to travel with a production crew to generate branded entertainment contents.

We shared new material daily for three weeks via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, together with two press releases and the project's website. Linked to the destination official website, it was enriched with biographies, a blog, an interactive map with photo galleries, chronicles and a travel journal; seven 5 minutes clips, depicting the trip and the creative process at each artist atelier prior to the exposition. Three weeks later we opened the art exposition with a 250 guests cocktail in the baroque-style Museo de Arte de Querétaro, which remained open for two days to visitors summoned by posters and flyers. We presented the results of the trip to press in Mexico City and scheduled the artwork to visit galleries and museums throughout 2010.

The adventures of the artistic collective visiting Querétaro's natural and cultural attractions were presented in traditional and non-traditional media in Mexico City, and nationwide, achieving more than 100 notes in the most influential cultural and tourism newspapers, magazines, radio and TV shows, as well as in blogs and websites in a month. The campaign was said to be paradigmatic and generated more than 75,000-targeted impacts through digital platforms and 500,000 through promotional materials, events and media coverage. Mexico City inhabitants now represent 80% of Querétaro´s visitors (10% more than last year), and market understanding reflects it as a secure and inspirational destination. By the end of 2009 Querétaro re-established 24% of its occupancy, which dropped to a mere 29%. The works of art derived from the campaign -2 sculptures, 2 photos, 1 chronicle, 1 short story, 3 poetries, 10 recipes and 3 paintings- are being exposed in galleries throughout Mexico.