Giving Tampa’s First Five-Star Luxury Hotel A Five-Star Opening

JW Marriott Tampa Water Street had plenty going for it when it opened in February 2021: an unparalleled location in the heart of downtown Tampa’s vibrant Water Street neighborhood, some of the city’s best culinary offerings, a Super Bowl Sunday opening weekend, and an auspicious place as the JW Marriott brand’s 100^th property opening worldwide. The only issue? The five-star luxury hotel would be welcoming its first guest amidst a global pandemic filled with travel restrictions. That’s where TURNER came in. In the lead up to JW Marriott Tampa Water Street’s opening, we were charged with positioning the property as Tampa’s newest and best place to stay.

What We Did

TURNER executed a results-oriented 15-month opening strategy that maximized needle moving press for JW Marriott Tampa Water Street’s unveiling, built awareness of the property within key demographics, supported target goals, and ensured that the hotel opened with a bang and remained relevant in the post-opening phase. TURNER’s tactics included: 

• An aggressive opening pitch outreach to target media outlets and beyond, focusing on top-tier national travel, design, luxury and lifestyle outlets, as well a national newspapers, key regional and local outlets, MICE and travel trade publications.
• A coordinated soft opening ceremony event with media attendance. 
• The distribution of a pre-opening and opening press release.
• Individual media and influencer visits in the months in the soft opening phase, as well as visits that followed the opening for qualified journalists and influencers from top-tier print publications and digital media channels (primarily focused on travel, culinary and wellness topics).
• Assisting the JW Tampa Water Street team with confirming media/influencer attendance to various on-property events throughout the year.
• Working closely with tourism partners, including Visit Tampa Bay and VISIT FLORIDA, to maximize PR efforts and assisting them with various initiatives, including media/influencer hosting requests.
• Launching JW Marriott Tampa Water Street Instagram and Facebook channels and performing light community management across all social channels.

Results

TURNER’s efforts earned great results in quality media coverage and awareness of JW Marriott Tampa Water Street, including coverage in Condé Nast Traveler, USA Today’s 10Best, Meetings Today, and several local Tampa publications. All in all, the team generated 192 articles for the property, resulting in 2.37 billion impressions in print, broadcast and online publications. The team also hosted 23 media and 12 influencers in the soft opening and post-opening phase, which resulted in longer feature articles and enhanced social exposure for the property.