MACq 01 Hotel: Pay By Sleep

This was a freelance project working with Special PR.

Hobart’s luxury MACq 01 Hotel wanted to encourage guests to book stays over winter. But how do you get people to visit Tasmania, beautiful as it is, when it’s both dark and freezing cold?

A little research on my end revealed a solution. As it turns out, humans need more sleep during cold, dark winter months. And Australians simply aren’t getting enough sleep. Couple that with the growing trend of sleep tourism, and we found a great reason to promote the restorative qualities of a stay in the MACq 01 Hotel.

So to highlight the hotel’s commitment to comfort, working with sleep expert Shea Morrison, we made it possible to pay for your stay with sleep. In our bespoke Slumber Suite, guests slept on beds fitted with non-invasive sleep tracking underlays and the more slept they banked, the more they saved on their stay. A 6-hour sleep was the baseline, since it’s the bare minimum. But every hour on top of that took $100 off a guest’s hotel bill — until at 9 hours’ sleep, the night was free.

While they were awake, guests could also choose from a menu of sleep promoting activities as well as food and elixirs that promoted a great kip.

Created on a shoestring budget, the campaign delivered hundreds of pieces of news coverage in Australia and beyond — and kept MACq 01 Hotel fully occupied during the traditional quiet months of winter.

Winner, Best Small Budget Campaign, Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards 2024

Highly Commended, PR Idea of the Year, Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards 2024