Dutch tourist creates effective video ad for Romania

Peter Schagen recently uploaded on vimeo a video about his trip to Romania from 2013. The 2 minute and 46 seconds clip shows off Romania in the best possible light, making us wonder why the Ministry of Tourism and the National Agency of Tourism are not able to create something so effective.

Peter Schagen’s vacation video caught the attention of Romanian media, who also praised it for being superior to the ads produced under the “Carpathian garden” umbrella. Antena 3, Metropotam, Yahoo.ro are just a couple of the online media outlets that published the material and complimented the editor.

Contacted by BR, Peter told us the reception took him completely by surprise.

“I was really surprised when I found out my video had so much impact in Romania and I never would have guessed something like that could happen”, he tells us.

“I’m just a guy from Holland who made a short travel video about my trip to Romania and it’s kind of crazy to realize that it went viral and created the ‘buzz’ that it did. From the moment it went viral I have gotten so many nice messages from Romanian people on Facebook and Vimeo about how much they liked it. It’s the best compliment I could wish for and it makes me feel humble at the same time”

The video editor says there are a couple of moments that he did not include in the final version of the clip, wanting to keep it “short and sweet”.

“I think I shot roughly two hours of footage during that trip. I knew I had to leave a lot of stuff out because I wanted the end result to be ‘short but sweet’. Among the things that I could not include were a trip to a market place in Bucharest and several moments of meeting people while walking through the streets of Bucharest”, Peter explains.

The vacation video takes us only to Bucharest and to Mamaia, but presents a youthful and energetic view of Romania.

Ironically, only last week the minister of Tourism, Florin Jianu, announced that Romania will be the first country to launch a tourism cluster aimed at young tourists in September.

Tourism clusters are defined as associations between local businesses, institutions and authorities in the field who follow a common objective of promoting tourism at a local and regional level.

“In the fall, Romania will be the first country in the world to create a cluster for young people because they represent a third of tourists worldwide and are also the most dynamic category. Romania can position itself as a global destination for young people”, Florin Jianu said, quoted by Wall-Street.ro.

The best thing about Peter Schagen’s video and its viral success is that it represents a form of promotion that is 100% free. Something to consider given that a series of video ads financed from the public budget to support the Carpathian Garden brand cost EUR 80.000, according to dailybusiness.ro.

We suggest authorities take a look at Peter Schagen’s vacation video and others like it to understand how young tourists actually spend their time in Romania and what memories they chose to take with them back home to share with their friends.

Peter says:

“I was there for eight days and time really flew by but I loved every bit of it; the culture, the people and the food (especially the Mititei). It is certain that I will visit Romania again some day and I can’t wait for that day to come. I would like to send a huge thanks to everybody who liked my video and the kind words some of you sent me. It means a lot to me”, Peter concludes.

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