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Cascais Tourism Board

How a high-profile press trip put a destination on the map for active holidays.

Our pitch-perfect group press trip landed five in-depth reviews, from high-profile media, for an active experience at an Cascais.

Just west of Lisbon, you’ll find the former fishing village of Cascais. It's slow paced, and easy going. Through the 20th century, it became a haven for artists, writers, and exiled European nobility.

Today, surfers, food-lovers, and families have all found a little slice of heaven in Cascais. It has an ultra-cool yet relaxed vibe that’s hard to place; once you’re here, you’ll find it hard to leave. Sounds perfect, right?

The challenge

Whilst Cascais is known for its great food, surf and proximity to Lisbon, not many people know that some of the best hiking and biking can be found on the doorstep of the destination.

Visit Cascais turned to us when they needed to spread the word about an incredible new active adventure: “the West Route”.

The West Route is a pedestrian route that links the coastline with the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, a Natura 2000 site and UNESCO Landscape heritage. Here, walkers can experience a variety of landscapes, habitats, ecosystems, and cultural heritage. As part of the Great Atlantic Route, which runs along the coast, the new West Route also includes the Sintra mountains, providing an opportunity to experience both the coastline as well as the countryside further inland.

Cascais needed to show the UK market (a key target) what was now on offer, in a natural, trustworthy way.

We could have done this in a number of ways – but the best way to understand a destination is to go there, and to live the experience.

Here’s how we did it

We suggested a group press trip, made up of five high-profile writers, to visit Cascais and experience The West Route. This would be carried out alongside press office work – including pitching and press releases.

Our pitches immediately landed five in-depth reviews, with the focus on The West Route in Cascais. The ​​highly experienced travel writers we secured were all working in top-tier media, in publications read by active holiday enthusiasts.

The trip

We invited ELLE, Sainsbury’s Magazine, Women’s Fitness, House of Coco and Fused Magazine to experience an activity-focused adventure that unfolded over three days. Our writers would meet a local beekeeper, who’d teach them to extract honey, and about the importance of bees for biodiversity and food production.

A local biologist took guests deep into the woods, to learn how to track, set up trail cameras, and spot birds of prey in their element. Guests also experienced the Canopy Trail – a treetop adrenaline rush with climbing, ziplines and archery.

Every leg of the trip was full of glorious, locally sourced food, capped with cosy glamping accommodation to energise everybody for the next day.

And judging by the reviews they created, it seems the trip was just as enjoyable for them as it was for us.

The results

Our group trip secured Cascais coverage spanning key 2022 and 2023 seasons. Fused Magazine published their review in June 2022, and Women’s Fitness released theirs in August 2022 – in print and online. House of Coco released theirs in October 2022, and Sainsbury’s Magazine published their in-depth review in March 2023. The write up in ELLE is the last to be published, aligning with peak seasonal interest.

Key takeaways

Our team got an amazing result here – because of a tight focus.

A group trip is only effective if everyone knows what to expect. By focusing our effort on the unique active aspects of the experience, our pitches landed better. This group trip worked because each piece of coverage was diverse and centred on the human experience – but we also got mentions of the new package spread to the audiences that matter most.

Reach further, with expertly crafted press trips

Lemongrass is a specialist travel PR agency. Our multidisciplinary team spans travel PR, digital PR, content strategy and audience insights – to put travel brands on the map.

Let’s start a project. Call +44 (0)1865 237 990 or email grow@lemongrassmarketing.com