Putting Monasterio de Piedra on the map

LEAD OFFICE

Madrid

The Challenge

How to make a monastery one of Spain’s top visitor attractions?

Located in the mountains near Zaragoza in Spain, Monasterio de Piedra is a 12th Century monastery and a Spanish National Monument – but it wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. With fierce competition from other visitor attractions across the country, the monastery was finding it hard to achieve cut-through in the travel and tourism press to attract the visitor numbers it required. So it tasked Grayling with using the monastery’s 800th anniversary to lift it into Spain’s top tier of attractions, with a specific brief to not only gain widespread positive coverage, but to increase visitor numbers…

The Solution

A 360-degree strategy to turn visitors into ambassadors…

Based on our research, we came to the conclusion that, to deliver our objectives, it would be necessary to broaden Monasterio de Piedra’s appeal – continuing to target cultural tourists but, at the same time, crafting a story which would appeal to lovers of food, relaxation and the natural world as well. It also became clear that there was a real opportunity with families too. We communicated via a multichannel strategy combining a redesign and relaunch of the monastery’s website, including a refreshed approach to SEO, targeted media relations, influencer outreach and engagement, and experiential activity in the park itself aimed at promoting advocacy amongst visitors.

Alongside this, we revamped the monastery’s approach to content and social media, delivering a content-led strategy designed specifically with the broader target audiences in mind – and with a strong element of UGC built in, to help create ambassadors for the venue. Finally, we arranged a series of high-profile events, including using the monastery as the setting for the final of one of Spain’s top cookery shows to drive widespread awareness amongst the ‘foodie’ category. All in all, it was a completely integrated, multichannel approach.