Cascais launches the Awe&Some platform at IMEX
27/05/2024
# tags: Events , IMEX , Meetings Industry , Technology , Cascais
Cascais Tourism's 100% digital commitment aims to facilitate bookings and attract medium and large events in the meetings industry.
A kind of box, with only one entrance and one exit, concealed a room of mirrors. Inside, the visitor, wearing headphones, was immersed in a 3D sensory video, with sounds and images that transported them to the ‘specific mystique of Cascais’. It was with this immersive brand activation, developed by Voqin', that Visit Cascais internationally presented the Awe&Some platform to those who attended IMEX Frankfurt, in Germany, from 14 to 16 May.
The digital platform created by Visit Cascais aims to bring together the region's offer as a whole, divided into hubs - Adrenaline & Surprise, Coastline & All In, Education & Growth, Foodie & Luxury and Live & Eat Like a Local - and allow international clients to more easily find and book services, hotels, venues, restaurants and experiences in Cascais.
‘We're innovating worldwide. We've created a brand, Awe&Some Extraordinary Event Hubs, a platform that brings together all the stakeholders that gravitate around tourism, where we no longer really work with just one venue,’ the president of Visit Cascais, Bernardo Corrêa de Barros, told Event Point during IMEX.
According to the head of Cascais Tourism, the platform's main idea is to ‘show that Cascais has the capacity to combine multiple venues’. From there, the destination's ability to attract larger events becomes clearer, even if it has to mobilise different venues, equipment and services. ‘We worked with the whole industry to come to the conclusion of the five profiles,’ Corrêa de Barros explained.
Clients of the meetings industry who want to organise an event in Cascais ‘say what the purpose of their congress is, what their concerns are’ and the platform indicates ‘a previously established hub’.
Users can also ‘create their own profile and choose their own venues’, according to their needs, via an RFP (Request for Proposal), selecting partners while visualising the distance between each one on the map.
‘A new way of thinking about events’
Bernardo Corrêa de Barros believes that the Awe&Some platform is Visit Cascais' “contribution to the future of events”. ‘It's a variety of solutions that will create a new way of working events, a new way of thinking about events and a new way of generating business for our partners,’ he emphasised.
On the platform you can find ‘venues, catering units, DMCs, PCOs, maritime-tourism companies’ and other Visit Cascais partners.
At this launch stage, the platform does not make sales. ‘We generate leads. Visit Cascais doesn't want to replace its partners, we don't want to take business away from PCOs, we don't want to take business away from DMCs, we want to generate leads. We want more and better revenue for all our partners. That's our job,’ said the president.
‘We work for our members and there's no better way than to deliver potential business directly to them,’ added Bernardo Corrêa de Barros, considering, however, that at a later stage, ‘the Convention Bureaux, in general, the various tourist organisations, will have to move towards this,’ in order to realise the sale of services.
‘[The platform] could generate revenue in the future. It's not planned right now, but I think it's a path that has to be considered by the industry as a whole, where we can all make more money,’ said the president of Visit Cascais.
The Awe&Some platform is available at awesome.visitcascais.com.