Guernsey Press

Another slice of the pie to market island

A FURTHER £215,000 will be ploughed in to marketing the island on the back of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Film.

Published
A further £215,000 will be ploughed in to marketing the island on the back of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Film. (PA Photo/StudioCanal/Kerry Brown)

The money aims to capitalise on the digital and DVD/Blu-ray release in the UK and Netflix release in America.

It comes on top of £335,000 that was originally set aside when the film was released in UK and European cinemas.

‘The co-ordinated film marketing activities by film distributors, StudioCanal, and VisitGuernsey have generated an incredible amount of international awareness for Guernsey,’ said Deputy Dawn Tindall.

‘Early indications suggest this activity is already paying dividends, with staying visitor numbers in April and May increasing by 3% and 14% respectively.’

StudioCanal now plans a two-week national advertising campaign to support the digital release of the film in the UK.

The additional funds awarded by Policy & Resources will allow VisitGuernsey to go on air with TV and digital advertising, again co-ordinating with StudioCanal’s activity, with the message: ‘Visit the island that inspired the film’.

Netflix has 56 million subscribers in the US.

‘American holidaymakers are high spenders and present an attractive market for us to exploit, particularly as the book was a New York Times bestseller and so popular in the US,’ said Marketing & Tourism director Mike Hopkins.

‘We are already co-ordinating promotional activities with American publishers, Random House, for the release of the film version of the book in North America.

‘The additional budget will allow us to invest more heavily in promoting to the American market through trade and media partner activity to help attract increased numbers of these valuable holidaymakers to Guernsey.’

The actual visitor statistics for this quarter are not yet available.

The previous Economic Development committee reduced VisitGuernsey’s overall budget by £120,000 in 2018 at the same time it was being given the extra money.

Initially in June it bid for an extra £550,000, but Policy & Resources only gave it £335,000, which has since all been spent.