The United States' great outdoors

Brand USA, the destination marketing organisation for the United States, has announced that it has extended its marketing partnership agreement with Thomas Cook to promote the USA as the world’s leading destination for European visitors.

The partnership is the largest marketing partnership Brand USA currently has with a travel retailer in Europe.

At the centre of the multimillion dollar agreement is an experiential online competition promoting the USA’s great outdoors.

Thomas Cook is promoting the competition via a fully integrated omni-channel campaign through its online, in-store, direct mail, social media and in-flight channels throughout Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The campaign will be further supported via Brand USA’s consumer website DiscoverAmerica.com and Brand USA’s travel agent training platform, the USA Discovery Program, which includes a dedicated sign-up for Thomas Cook agents.

“We are delighted to be extending our partnership with Brand USA and are very excited about promoting America’s great outdoors and our new US routes through this omni-channel campaign within new European source markets,” said Thomas Cook group head of media and partnerships, Stuart Adamson.

“Our partnership with Brand USA and this promotion takes place as Thomas Cook continues to invest heavily in enhancing its online presence while digitalising the store network with the introduction of tablet devices to aid the customer experience, free guest Wi-Fi, in-store plasma screens with aspirational imagery and content,” Adamson added.

Brand USA’s ‘Discover America’ initiative aims to raise awareness of and inspire travel to the USA by highlighting the diversity of experiences available and by ensuring that the USA is top of mind during the holiday consideration process.

The partnership will take full advantage of the Thomas Cook Group and its brands – such as Neckermann in Germany - to build pan-European awareness of the individual destinations within the USA and drive visitors to the country.

Brand USA chief executive, Christopher Thompson, said: “The virtually unlimited experiences in the USA’s great outdoors make this an exceptional platform to promote travel to the United States.

“By extending this partnership initiative with Thomas Cook and encouraging the exploration of the great outdoors we hope many more consumers will discover this land, like never before.”