Filipino Moviegoers Get an Offer from Vicky Christina Barcelona Backers They Can’t Refuse

The Spanish Tourism Board knew that traveling and tourism has fallen due to the world-wide recession. Earlier this month, USA Today reported:

Six U.S. carriers — American, Delta, JetBlue, Northwest, United and US Airways — have received permission from the U.S. Department of Transportation to postpone the launch of new international routes.

It certainly did not look good for international traveling or more importantly for Spain, one of the world’s biggest tourist destinations in Europe or elsewhere.

The Spanish Tourist Board was also aware of the fact that movie sales tickets are taking a dive for the worst.

So what’s a tourism board to do, especially when it has 1 million worth of investing dollars in a Woody Allen movie known as Vicky Christina Barcelona, and its financing partner Catalan Autonomous Government provided pitched in a whopping half a million euros? Use its brain to concoct a publicity frenzy for tickets by offering a trip to the city where the Woody Allen movie Vicky Christina Barcelona is set…that’s what!

So part of the PR strategy for the movie’s release in the Phillipines is to lure the audience in with the possibility of winning a Barcelona vacation. Now, who will say no to the very idea of going to Barcelona on a vacation and live vicariously through Penélope Cruz and her off-screen boyfriend Javier Bardem?

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