Italy, Hong Kong, Egypt & more: Worst tourism campaigns of all time

Tourism campaigns are made for one sole purpose and that is toboost a country's economy by attracting tourists andpromotingtheir cities. But, unfortunately, some do the exact opposite.There're so many embarrassing, cringy and sometimes even appalling tourism ads out there. The latest one being from Italy, which uses anAI version of Botticelli's Venus dressed up as an influencer.

Let's take a quick look at 6of the most cringy tourism ad campaigns of all time!

Worst tourism campaigns of all time

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Hong Kong

Back in 2003, the Hong Kong Tourism Board had to withdraw a long-running ad campaign that used the phrase, "Hong Kong: Takes Your Breath Away"because it brought back memories of the deadly SARS epidemic which broke out in the city the same year. The campaign was created by Banks Hoggins O'Shea FCB and was pulled down because of sensitivity over the strapline.

"The ads were commissioned before the outbreak began. There were a couple of them which ran slightly later than we would have liked, owing to difficulties withdrawing them," a spokesman for the Hong Kong Tourism Board said at the time, confirming that all the ads hadbeen pulled.

Italy

If Italy's tourism ministry hoped to make waves with a new tourism campaign this year, theycertainly did so, however, not in the way the governmentwould have imagined or anticipated.Their latest campaign titled 'Open to Meraviglia', which was presented last week, is facing backlash for using a computerised version of Botticelli's Venus as an influencer travelling across different tourist spots in Italy.

The campaign has caused Italians to lose their minds with fury, with an Italian netizen saying, "Only a poor mind can transform one of the greatest masterpieces into an influencer with trendy little dresses!"
Another wrote, "They look like lousy prints from a Venetian tourist shop."

Meanwhile, an eagle-eyed observer also noticed that the winery featured in a video explaining the tourism campaign was actually in Slovenia and not Italy.

Check out the campaign below!

Syria

In 2016, the Syrian government released a series of cringe-worthy and bizarre ad campaigns to woo tourists and boost the economy of the civil war-torn country. In one of the ads featuring clips from Aleppo the theme song of the popular TV series Game of Thrones was used, for literally no logical reason. And, what's to be noted is that the ad carefully omitted scenes of destruction while promoting the war-ravaged city. For obvious reasons, the ad didn't sit down well with many netizens.

Lithuania

Lithuania, a tiny European country, ended up promoting other countries in their own tourism campaign in 2016, asa state-funded ad campaign featured stock images of various Nordic and eastern European countries. And ironically, the campaign was titled "Real is Beautiful". The head of Lithuania's State Tourism Department,Jurgita Kazlauskiene,resigned in the wake of the scandal in 2017.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island in the US was mocked mercilessly online for using pictures of famous eateries located in Massachusetts, a different US state, for their own 2016 ad campaign. Rhode Island's chief marketing officer had to resign as thebacklash grew. The ad alsofeatured a confusing slogan, which triggered a meme-fest online.

Singapore

In 2014, Singapore's Tourism Board released an ad, which can be best described as a cringe-fest. The three-minute-long video, which seems like a parody but isn't, is aimed at the Philippine market and followed a young couple celebrating their anniversary. In the whole video, they're just seen pointing at things and saying cliche phrases like - "I like coming to Singapore" and "Honey, look!". The video was deleted from Singapore Tourism Board's official YouTube page as soon as it started going viral for all the wrong reasons.

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