Spain’s Costa del Sol took its brand to the streets of London for the week around World Travel Market 2026, running an out-of-home campaign across more than 100 digital screens plus two large-format sites in Leicester Square and Carnaby. The campaign, implemented between October 29 and November 5, was designed to raise the destination’s visibility in one of its most important source markets during the week when the travel industry gathers in the British capital.
The core of the buy was a circuit of more than 100 MUPI-format digital screens distributed across high-footfall pedestrian areas of London. On top of that, Turismo Costa del Sol booked two premium landmark locations. The first, ‘The Screen on Leicester Square’, is a 53-square-metre digital display in one of London’s best-known pedestrian squares, running for three days with a 12.5% share of voice and an estimated 500,000 impacts. The second, ‘The Screen on Carnaby’, sits in one of the capital’s most recognised shopping districts, close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, and was active from November 3 to 5 with a potential audience estimated at more than 800,000 people a day. Combined, the two large-format sites were expected to approach 600,000 impacts.
The combination is deliberate: broad urban coverage through the MUPI network, plus concentrated presence at two addresses that carry cultural weight. “We want those walking the streets of London to encounter Costa del Sol, recognise our brand and, above all, feel curious about discovering everything we can offer them,” said Francisco Salado, president of Turismo Costa del Sol and the Diputación de Málaga.
The strategic context is the British market’s importance to the province. Salado described the UK as a strategic market for Costa del Sol and framed the campaign as part of an ongoing effort to strengthen the relationship with British travellers. Timing the buy around World Travel Market gives the destination two audiences at once: consumers moving through London, and the travel trade professionals in town for the exhibition, who see the brand in the same streets they are walking between appointments.
Destination marketing has become one of the more sophisticated users of out-of-home. Tourism boards must compete for attention against airlines, OTAs and hospitality brands with far larger media budgets, and they increasingly rely on context: the right city, the right week, the right frame of mind. A sun-and-coast proposition shown to Londoners in early November lands differently than the same creative in July, and a screen outside a travel trade venue reaches buyers in a professional frame.
The choice of MUPI screens alongside landmark large-format sites reflects a familiar pattern in destination campaigns: mass pedestrian coverage builds frequency at modest cost per impression, while a small number of prestige placements create the visual anchor that gets photographed, shared and remembered. For a destination brand, that combination is often more efficient than either format alone.
For the London OOH market, the campaign is another example of international tourism money flowing into premium West End and central London inventory during the autumn trade season — and of how a regional Spanish tourism board can buy a national-capital audience for a week at a fraction of the cost of a sustained brand campaign.
Why it matters: Costa del Sol’s 100-plus London screens and Leicester Square and Carnaby takeovers show destination marketers using a concentrated, trade-timed OOH buy — roughly 600,000 impacts across two landmark sites — to compete for British travellers during World Travel Market week.
Source: Teleprensa
