Durham Tourism Instagram Contest Strategy
One of Durham Tourism’s five main strategic goals is to drive prosperity through local love: prioritizing activities with high potential to drive spending to locally owned and operated businesses and increase overnight stays.
To help achieve this goal, Durham Tourism has created a monthly Instagram giveaway schedule to build and enhance relationships with our vibrant local business community, to encourage local spending and local travel, and to build a stronger and more engaged audience for both @DurhamTourism and our stakeholders.
By providing an insider perspective through the lens of a camera, Durham Tourism’s Instagram content and giveaways make local a must-try experience. Through the use of vibrant, colourful, high-quality photos and video reels, and content that is informative, youth-friendly, trustworthy and fun, Durham Tourism has become a trusted hub for local travel inspiration and local business support.
Strategically crafted giveaways were created based on businesses and events in each of Durham Region’s eight local municipalities—Ajax, Brock, Clarington, Oshawa, Pickering, Scugog, Uxbridge and Whitby—to ensure equal coverage and opportunity for local business areas. Our content strategy embraces the growing trend of Instagram-inspired travel and self-documentation by telling a story, and embracing art, culture, food and local businesses as an experience. Through this approach, our giveaway prizes are carefully crafted and vary from day trip itineraries to weekend getaways through gift cards to local businesses or attractions, overnight stays, tickets to a festival or event, or all of the above.
All giveaway budgets included advertising to ensure our content reaches new audiences—targeting our key geographic audience, which consists of domestic tourists within Durham Region and the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). This also included the use of influencers (e.g. Wellness Travelled) and a tie into our seasonal campaigns.
For clarity and ease, all giveaways include clear instructions on how to enter the draw, and a link to our contest rules and regulations. Entrants must follow a few simple steps, including following @DurhamTourism and the associated local business(es) on Instagram.
Giveaway results are reported via Instagram Insights, detailing the increase in followers from each giveaway post, how many users engaged on the giveaway post, and how many users shared our giveaway:
- 21 Instagram giveaways between January 2024 to June 2025
- 7,701 new followers on Instagram
- 656,786 accounts reached
- 64 local businesses/event organizers supported
Through this giveaway strategy, Durham Tourism has been able to generate awareness of Durham’s local businesses, and in exchange, businesses were able to expand their audience to increase followers and potential new customers. This strategy has allowed Durham Tourism to create stronger relationships with local businesses and build a more engaged following. Since the implementation of this strategy, the Durham Tourism team has received countless messages and emails, and had many in-person conservations with local business owners expressing their gratitude and sharing how successful the giveaway was for them. Through this strategy, results and the feedback received, one thing is clear: Durham Region has a lot of local love!
