The majority of tourists aim to learn a few words and phrases in the language of the country they are visiting and as Danish is only spoken by a small number of people world wide, it is one of the things that tourists get to experience when in Copenhagen. The name change from ‘Visit Copenhagen’ to ‘Besøg København’ is a way of connecting with visitors and gives the tourist amusement as they attempt to perfect the pronunciation.
The new proposal for branding Copenhagen to tourists is to get them to experience the city how the locals know it, and to have all of the different tourist businesses across the city run together smoothly so that tourists can explore Copenhagen while feeling like they are integrated into the local population.
The logo design takes the two ‘Ø’s from the name as this is a letter used regularly within the Danish language and merges it into a pair of glasses, symbolising how a tourist can see Copenhagen ‘through the eyes of a local’.
The rebrand for Copenhagen tourism centres around a mobile phone app.
There are two main purposes to the Besøg København app; firstly, introducing tourists to things to see and do, and recommendations from locals, and secondly, the trip planner and virtual tour guide sections.
This video shows a walk through of a user exploring the different app menus of local recommendations, before building a basic custom itinerary of what they want to see and do in Copenhagen. The app then generates the itinerary and the user demonstrates how a tourist would use it to guide themself through the city.
Tourists can build custom itineraries and the app would walk them through each place they visit, giving them new directions to their next destination every time they check in at a location.
The use of augmented reality would allow the tourist to scan their surroundings for the app to determine their location and then either give them customised directions from their current location to their next destination, or pop ups would give the tourist the chance to discover more information about things around them.
To fit with the Besøg København brand and its promotion, wayfinding advertisements would be put up around the city which when scanned within the app would allow the tourist to check in at that location.
The wayfinding also works for both locals and tourists who choose not to use the app as it is a more obvious way of directing visitors around the city than street names in Copenhagen which are often high up and difficult to see.
The website for the brand features similar content to the mobile app, where the user can view recommendations from locals, and also build and sync itineraries from their computer to their phone.
An additional section of the website is the route planner which the tourist can use to discover directions from one location to another.
The brand is also used across digital and print advertising using photography of 'local Copenhagen'.
