Inhabitants of a small Mediterranean resort usually reward themselves with a journey after a hard work during summer. But since in 2020 COVID-19 lockdown occurred, and the citizens were not able to travel, we offered them an alternative: a 100% COVID FREE journey! How? With a book!
We transformed a local library that wished to increase membership numbers into a ‘travel agency’, and its web into a ‘destination’ booking system.
Original travel agencies’ posters, that they didn’t have the chance to use in 2020, were used for the purpose of the campaign and linked with book titles, representing new ‘destinations’. Thus users could travel to Greece (Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer), Paris (The belly of Paris, Emile Zola), Istanbul (Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk) and even to the center of the earth (Journey to the center of the earth, Jules Verne) etc… Traveling tickets (bookmarkers) were also printed and distributed. On the mentioned material, QR codes were printed that led to the library’s web page, conceived as a “travel booking system”. Users could there search for book/destination, check the availability, book or borrow a book and send an e-postcard from their journey to the library or friends. Additionally: new and old members received a ‘gratis journey’ – a destination book from the library fund of written-off books.
With a totally new book experience users were motivated to ‘travel’ and share impressions from their ‘journeys’. After years of decline, a significant rise in book lending and membership numbers was achieved.
