Hotels.com Partners With Cantona For UEFACL Campaign To Encourage UK Fans To Be Cultured

Forget kebabs, pubs and full English fry ups, Eric Cantona and Hotels.com have launched a guide to being the perfect travelling fan ahead of the UEFA Champions League Final in Madrid.

As supporters of Tottenham Hotspur FC and Liverpool FC descend on Madrid for the all English 2019 UEFA Champions League Final on 1 June, Hotels.com has teamed up with Manchester United legend Eric Cantona to encourage British fans to be more cultured while they are in the Spanish capital.

The Expedia owned brand campaign, created in harness with UK PR agency Hope&Glory, was launched on 24 May to coincide with the start of a mass exodus of Liverpool and Spurs fans heading for Spain.

Cantona, something of a footballing cultural icon King Eric acts as a brand ambassador for Hotels.com, to call on supporters of both teams to open their eyes, breathe in the culture and unearth the delights of Madrid via a campaign led by a series of online videos distrubted across social channels in Hotels.com markets Europe-wide.

A lead hero film fronts the cultural call-to-arms campaign,

with supporting spots and cut downs including ‘Cantona’s cultural guide to Madrid’

and ‘Respect the siesta’,

‘Open your eyes’,

and ‘Taste The Place’.

This integrated advertising and editorial (with stories in national titles such as the Daily Mirror, Daily Star and the Metro in the UK and a host of European coverage) campaign is a response to an agency brief charging Hope&Glory to make Hotels.com part of the conversation around the UEFA Champions League final.

“It’s time to open your eyes and experience the beauty of the places you are visiting when you follow your team,” said Cantona.

“Hotels.com and I believe that travelling abroad can be an even more rewarding experience if you really embrace the local culture and everything it has to offer. Learn the language, drink in the culture, meet the local people and become the perfect travelling fan.”

Adam Jay, President of Hotels.com brand added: “Away football fans are some of the most passionate in the world, but we know that not everyone takes the opportunity to fully enjoy their host city. As a travel brand, we want to change that and who better to show you how to be the perfect travelling fan than a cultural icon like Eric Cantona?”

The activation is based on brand insights revealing that football fans aren’t likely to be culture vultures when they head for a European away day to watch their team.

The research showed that around a quarter (25%) of all British football fans don’t consider themselves to be cultured, that three quarters (75%) of football travellers would never visit an art gallery when abroad compared to 43% who said they went to a pub or bar on their last European away trip, while more than half of them (55%) don’t even try local cuisine and only 11% admit to never attempting to speak the local language.

Although 98% claims to be well behaved when travelling abroad, 3% admit to having trashed a hotel room and 5% have ended up in hospital!

Stunningly, 20% of football fans don’t even know which city they are in – as they’re only there to watch the football,

Once in the Spanish capital, Hotels.com also has a strong presence in the UEFA experiential fan zone in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor where sponsor VIPs, travelling supporters and the local football fans can enjoy a pool dip, a rooftop bar experience and appearances from football legends in the ‘Hotels.com Champions Retreat’ created with support from agency Octagon.

Comment:

Pigs Ears and Paella anyone?

Hotels.com, an online accommodation service offering hundreds of thousands of places to stay around the world and 90 local websites in 41 languages, is the official travel partner of the UEFA Champions League.

It was back in August 2018 that Expedia Group to become UEFA Champions League partner after penning a three-season agreement with Hotels.com fronting a sponsorship that spans the UEFA Super Cup, UEFA Youth League finals and the UEFA Champions League finals.

When that deal was originally announced, Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA Events SA Marketing Director, said: “We are delighted to welcome Expedia Group into the UEFA Champions League partner family. Working with a data driven partner like Expedia Group offers exciting opportunities for us to explore as we look to expand our digital offering. As one of the world’s leading travel experts, Expedia Group’s experience in this field will be of huge benefit to UEFA and its partners, as we seek to grow the UEFA Champions League around the world.”

While Mark Okerstrom, CEO of Expedia Group, commented: “As the world’s travel platform, Expedia Group is excited to be reaching an agreement with the UEFA Champions League, promoting Brand Expedia and Hotels.com. There is no better sport than football to bring fans together around the world to follow their dreams of UEFA Champions League glory, and no better way to make that happen than through the power of travel.”

Links:

Hotels.com

https://uk.hotels.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/HotelsEU/

https://www.facebook.com/Hotels.comEurope

https://www.instagram.com/hotelsdotcom/

https://twitter.com/hotelsdotcom

Hope&Glory
https://www.hopeandglorypr.com/

Octagon
https://www.octagon.com/

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/

https://twitter.com/championsleague