Ranking the World’s Most Swimmable Seas for CV Villas
How one press office story with a unique methodology landed coverage across 26 countries.
CV Villas wanted press office stories that could be pitched internationally to build coverage and links at scale, with their destinations at the centre. We analysed year-round swimming conditions across more than 100 coastal destinations, scoring each on sea temperature against the WHO’s recommended range, plus wind speed, cloud cover and UV index. The World’s Most Swimmable Seas story earned 123 pieces of coverage across 26 countries and 194 brand mentions.
What we did
Press Office
Data Analysis
International Outreach
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Pieces of coverage across 26 countries
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Brand mentions included in coverage
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Of coverage carrying a hyper-relevant brand mention
The challenge
Destination rankings are also a well-worn format in travel PR, and CV Villas have already run several. The story needed a methodology unique enough for titles like Forbes and Travel + Leisure, and results spread across enough countries to give local media their own reason to cover it.
Our approach
We built the ranking on meteorological data, scoring more than 100 coastal destinations on sea temperature against the WHO’s recreational swimming range of 26–30°C, alongside wind speed, cloud cover and UV index, and combining them into an index.
Publishing a global ranking and a separate European ranking gave the story two lives: Indonesia and Egypt led globally, while Italy, Greece, Turkey and Croatia led in Europe. Each market got its own result to write about, and we pitched accordingly rather than issuing one generic release.
The impact
The campaign delivered global reach with local relevance: coverage landed in Greece, Indonesia, Turkey, the USA and the UK, appearing in titles including Forbes, Travel + Leisure, Yahoo, Daily Mail, Corriere della Sera and National Geographic Poland, at an average DR of 59. Just under half of all coverage carried a hyper-relevant brand mention, with 16 links pointing directly to CV Villas’ beach villas collection page, demonstrating that a genuinely original methodology can outperform the well-worn “best beaches” format and earn both authority and commercial value at scale.
