Vacation Citation is a Facebook campaign built around a sense of validation business travelers oftentimes felt they needed to take a personal vacation. To drive engagement and increased reservations, the custom Facebook application allowed travelers to issue themselves, and their friends, an official Vacation Citation. Each citation not only was interactive and sharable, but also entered them for a chance to win weekly prizes and a grand prize dream vacation. Vacation Citation has generated a 21% growth in Likes, 125% more entries than the previous year, and over 20% revenue increase over the previous year’s promotion.

The idea and execution of Vacation Citation was influenced from research suggesting that the majority of business travelers (62%) admit they have had difficulty taking a vacation in the past 12 months, and hardworking individuals are seeking validation and permission to take a break. The campaign is an interactive social layer for Best Western’s annual “Stay 3 times, Earn a Free Night” spring promotion that gave participants, and their friends, that validation to take vacation, while choosing Best Western for their stays.

Despite increased competition in the marketplace:

• The 2013 spring promotion achieved +20% YOY revenue increase from the previous year

• Revenue from Facebook registrants is up 30% from previous year

• 75% more impressions were reached than planned, reaching over 700m

• Facebook Likes increased 21% since the start of the campaign

• 125% more citations were created than virtual trips in the previous year’s Be a Travel Hero campaign, totaling over 41,000 submissions

• 400+m earned impressions via PR and Facebook were generated