client case study

CELESTYAL CRUISES - GREEK CRUISE COMPANY

SERVICE: MEDIA RELATIONS, MEDIA HOSTING, EVENTS

Celestyal Cruises is an award-winning cruise line based out of Athens, Greece, and a leader in Greek and Mediteranean cruise experiences, offering 3, 4, 7 and 14 night cruises around the Greek Islands, Turkey, Egypt and more. The food, drinks and entertainment on board are all authentically Greek - from the best Greek yoghurt you’ve ever tasted at the breakfast buffet, pastitsio at lunch, mastiha cocktails by the pool, to syrtaki dance lessons. Tours at the ports are always rich in culture and history, too, and one of the highlights of Celestyal Cruises’ adventures is that due to being a smaller sized ship, they could dock in at more remote Greek islands - away from the crowds, and offer more enriching experiences. One of our favourite Celestyal memories is hosting a small group of Australian journalists for a traditional family lunch - replete with dancing on tables and raki shots - in an isolated vineyard in the mountains of Crete!

ESTABLISHING A STRONG PRESENCE FOR A BRAND NEW TO THE AU MARKET

ACTIVITY

I was responsible for organising and end-to-end hosting regular travel familiarisations to Greece for groups of Australian journalists and photographers, converting these experiences into valuable feature-length stories in Australian newspaper supplements, magazines, and digital platforms (across travel, F & B and lifestyle), equipping them with new and innovative angles, key messaging and assets for their stories.
Key duties included networking with journalists in Australia on behalf of the Athens-based organisation, hosting media meetings to share the company’s news and create valuable contacts for fams, intimate Greek lunches to introduce the brand to market in Australia or share new product launches.
I attended events representing the client, such as the CLIA Ball, and represented the client’s products at Travel Media conferences.
I pitched news, sales, deals and updates to Australian travel media in an ongoing capacity, along with developing creative angles that would resonate with Australian press, using my knowledge of the landscape and different regular sections and columns to tailor my pitches for better chance of placement.
We also worked on competitions, brand partnerships, and media gifting.

GREEK RESTAURANT LUNCH & AU LAUNCH FT. CEO OF CELESTYAL CRUISES, IN SYDNEY

We invited top journalists and editors to meet the CEO of Celestyal Cruises, and arranged a presentation for them to learn more about the cruise line, over a lunch at a Greek restaurant in Sydney; replete with Celestyal branded place settings and gift bags ft. Greek olive oil and other produce.

HOSTED MEDIA FAMILIARISATIONS

Working in conjunction with the client, we devised appealing itineraries, with activities focusing on current travel trends and hooks to act as story starters to entice journalists to come aboard Celestyal cruises and write features for Australian media titles. Across the trips, we hosted media from top-tier media including Gourmet Traveller, Better Homes & Gardens, Traveller (Fairfax), Escape (News Corp), The West Australian, Nine Honey, Courier-Mail and more. We accompanied the journalists on the trip from Australia and hosted them 24/7 during the cruise, as well as activities at ports. Post trip, we continued to liaise with journalists to assist them with developing their stories. We also continued to leverage the strong relationships formed with journalists during these trips to pitch further creative angles and news about the Celestyal Cruises client (particularly for ongoing weekend supplements with cruise news or travel news pages).