Hospitality Wins at Women’s World Cup

 

Though the Women’s World Cup 2011 is still a sore subject for most of us here in the U.S. Some positive Hospitality news has just come out of Germany.

World Football Insider reported this week that commercial hospitality packages reached new sales records for the 2011 Women’s World cup. 28,000 commercial packages were sold, making the 2011 Tournament the most successful hospitality campaign in women’s soccer history.

MATCH Hospitality, “worldwide exclusive rights holder of the FIFA hospitality program”, had a specific marketing strategy that probably played a key role in the record numbers.  MATCH used an approach that “ focused on a more feminine look and feel”, they also specifically tried to identify new markets to sell to and began sales way back in 2009. It’s also interesting to note that 50% of packages were purchased by women.

So clearly there are lessons to be learned from MATCH about how best to capitalize from sporting events in order to maximize hospitality bookings. What exactly made their approach so effective? Was it the precise targeting to women, the early sales, or their identification of new markets? It’s difficult to say but companies in the future should learn from MATCH’s example and follow a similar strategy when marketing hospitality around an event.

For more details and the entire article head over to World Football Insider