VISIT Jersey boss Tricia Warwick wants you to be an ambassador for the Island and has seven finely crafted words to help you achieve this.
Focus groups have studied how people regard the Island from the outside, particularly in its core UK visitor market, and their conclusions have led to the formation of a phrase designed to encapsulate Jersey and why people should visit.
‘Tiny island. Warm welcome. Bursting with experiences’. These considered words form the basis of Visit Jersey’s latest ‘brand positioning’ and new campaign for at least the first three months of this year.
And it is an idiom that Ms Warwick – who is chief executive of the arms-length organisation – hopes that all Islanders will employ when telling friends, family and random people they meet on holiday why they should come to Jersey.
“You can hang a story on any of those words, whether I’m talking to the media or whether an Islander is talking to somebody they’ve just met,” she said. “I’d love everybody in the Island to be an ambassador.”
After a tough 2025 – which saw a 25% decline in overnight leisure visits compared to 2024 – Visit Jersey’s new campaign is designed to begin a new chapter.
The campaign launched on Boxing Day to warm up the audience, but it is already moved on to its next phase – advertising offers in partnership with airlines, DFDS and a major tour operator.
Visit Jersey are taking a fresh approach this year to reflect changing trends.
Ms Warwick said: “Traditionally, back in the day, you would have a ‘big bang’ campaign at this time of year. That is still an industry norm, but it is not the only peak where we go out and push Jersey.”
Although the early bookers are still important, the market is getting later and later.
She said: “In the past, you would expect to get at least 50% of your business on the books in January but it is probably half that now. From a marketing point of view, you have to be always on and follow the peak booking trends.”
Accounting for that change, Mrs Warwick said that while there were always people who wanted the certainty of a January booking, not least to banish the winter blues, you also had the deal-seekers as well as those who don’t make their minds up until that sweet spot of four to six weeks beforehand, especially for shorter-haul destinations.
“Jersey is a comparator with places like the Lake District, Scotland, Devon or Cornwall,” she said. “Last year, we were taking bookings over the summer for travel in the same month, and September is now a very buoyant time for us. The consumer wants to travel when it is not too busy and they are also very price conscious with the cost-of-living crisis in the UK.”
She continued: “Also, we’ve recognised that our past marketing has primarily driven people to our website and booking portals but they haven’t always converted to bookings. What we have done this year is really focus on that conversion.
“Last year, the numbers were not great so this year, with the airlines and DFDS, we’ve introduced something called ‘affiliate marketing software’, which means we are now putting our advertising out co-branded with the carrier. So, there is a BA version, EasyJet version, Premier Holidays version etc.
“If you clicked on an advert previously, you would have gone to jersey.com but now you’ll go straight to the operator or carrier’s website, because we can track whether that leads to a booking and how much it spent.
“We have also found that there is a perception among some customers that Jersey can be expensive but if you compare us to Scotland or the Lake District or Cornwall, we are akin to UK pricing. What we are at pains to do with this campaign is show the Island’s value for money.
“For example, if you go on our website, at the moment there’s a lead-in price for two nights, return flights with British Airways, staying at the Somerville hotel, bed and breakfast, for £169 per person.
“We are also encouraging hotels to put more value into their offers because people want to know what else they are getting – is breakfast included? Do I get a sightseeing tour? What else can you offer me?”
Mrs Warwick added that last summer’s ‘Flash Sale’ – which attracted more than 900 people to the Island in a three-week window – had been a useful test, proving that visitors wanted to come to Jersey but the offer needed to be compelling.
She said: “From that learning, we set about condensing the reasons why people come to Jersey. We went out and did some focus groups with Brits, who told us that they had heard of Jersey but they couldn’t necessarily put it on a map. They knew about its links with the finance industry, so thought it was expensive, and they knew it was small, so thought there was probably not a lot to do.
“We held more focus groups and found that ‘small’ didn’t work but people associated ‘tiny’ with charming and interesting. A ‘warm welcome’ really mattered to people too, which emphasised safety, cleanliness and the friendliness of Islanders.
“Helping someone looking at a map – or even driving them to their destination – is very ‘Jersey’ and I think we can own that.
“Also, we might be nine by five, but we are bursting with experiences, with over 500 cafes and restaurants, and activities such as the Jersey Tidal Trail, which can be packaged up and promoted.”
When it comes to who Jersey is targeting, last year’s ‘easy explorer’ definition proved an accurate segment to attract – those, of any age, who appreciate the great outdoors, like good food and love a bit of history.
However, the ‘moment makers’ definition – the younger audience seeking that defining Instagram pic – was less successful, so they have been replaced this campaign with ‘authentic adventurers’ who actively seek outdoor experiences and are super-keen on food and food culture.
Ms Warwick said: “I believe we’ve narrowed to a much tighter laser focus, borne out by the fact that ten days into the campaign, we’ve had 16 million impressions, spilt 50/50 between ‘easy explorers’ and ‘authentic adventurers’. Our digital marketing is doing the talking.
“So, our data is telling us that we’ve got our market, now we have to convert them, and our partners are really passionate about making that happen. The hotels get it too and I’d like to see more of them packaging up their own experiences.
“Jersey is bursting with them but we need to pull that all together – a two-night stay, for instance, that includes a tour to the oyster beds or a trip to Mont Orgueil.
“I think that’s the next stage for the local industry: for Visit Jersey to be able to say ‘we’ve got this campaign coming up. Can you match your offers to that?’ At the moment, we’re a bit static and I think we need to get box cleverer because other destinations are doing that. We have to show that we are agile, flexible and able to offer the customer what they want, when they want it.”
Ms Warwick conceded that last year was a difficult one for the industry, with ferry sailings that would have usually been on sale in October 2024 not being available until last February. Those four months would have been prime booking time for groups and early movers.
She said: “The cost-of-living crisis in the UK was also a big deal. However, when you look at the research, still one of the last things to go for Brits is their holiday. But if before it was the summer holiday, the ski trip and the short break, it might just be one now, and that will probably be sunshine.
“So, we have seen a fall-off in short-breaks, which is a complete opposite to the Covid period, when everyone was travelling domestically. And we’re in the short-break market, so it is impacting us.”
She added: “When it comes to Blue Islands, it wasn’t so much their demise, which happened out of season, but more the uncertainty of their operations beforehand. The customer service challenges and the lack of refunds left a bad taste in people’s mouths. And the split of our ferry operators also hit our French market.”
Last year was not all bad, however, with the reboot of Bergerac hitting our screens and a second series commissioned and filmed.
Ms Warwick said: “In our exit and visitor surveys last year, we added some questions after the first series had aired – and when we asked people what motivated them to come to Jersey, 8% said Bergerac. And 70% of those respondents were first-time visitors.
Commenting on the £1m+ investment by Jersey, Mrs Warwick said it was a ‘long-term brand play’, and ‘set-jetting’ – where on-screen locations become travel destinations – was a tangible draw that had reaped significant rewards for places like the Cotswolds, where Father Brown is filmed.
She added: “Jet 2 has also told me that they have had a lot of people wanting to travel because of Bergerac, and they have asked to do some marketing together. As a result of that, the airline has increased their capacity to Jersey by 50% this year.
“One of their drivers is the excitement around Bergerac, but also Jersey’s commitment to promoting the Island. They rely on the destination to get out there and talk to the customer, then they pull them in and get them to book.
“We now have series two coming out – so it’s not a one-hit wonder – and we’ve got an on-Island spend of £800,000 in its production.
“With the buzz and the PR that you get off the back of this, you start to go into another playground with other destinations doing this kind of thing. I think that’s important, because it puts Jersey on the map and among good company. We are moving up the awareness chain.”
Funding for Visit Jersey remains a perennial discussion as the government tightens its belt across the board. The arms-length organisation’s core grant has never been index linked; however, it has benefited from the Better Business Support Grant, which has funded Bergerac.
Ms Warwick said: “I’m anticipating and hoping that we’ll retain the core grant, because we still haven’t had it confirmed for 2026. However, it has been inferred, so it’s likely will retain the same level of funding.
“The challenge we’ve got is that media costs go up, salaries go up, everything goes up, and then you’ve got to work smarter and better with what you’ve got. We’re really focused on reviewing every cost to see where we can reduce or cut so that we can push as much of our money into the marketing and shopfront window of promoting Jersey.
“We have demonstrated that if we did have more money, we could generate more visitors. It is all about your share of voice because other destinations are spending a lot more than us to try to get a similar number of visitors. We are having to box clever, which we are by working closer with the airlines, for example, who are match-funding us. DFDS are also spending £2m on marketing.”
And does she think that the Island is fully behind the development of tourism? Posters promoting Jersey go up in Underground stations but so too do barriers to the industry, it could be argued.
In reply, Ms Warwick said: “Jersey wants to change, but struggles to at times, and I think that is because there are so many stakeholders involved in trying to make something happen, whether that’s approving a hotel project, opening a refurbished Visitor Centre, upgrading Elizabeth Castle etc. It all takes longer than you would like.
“I came from working in Dubai for 24 years, which is much more agile and faster. If I had a magic wand, I would love for us to be more integrated as stakeholders and move faster together, because I think Jersey would then get bigger on the world stage quicker.”
