Client
ASEAN Tourism x Roblox
Services
-
web Design & Development
-
SEO Optimization
overview
To celebrate ASEAN Day and introduce Southeast Asia to a new generation of travelers, ASEAN Tourism partnered with Roblox to launch IMAGINASEAN: The Great Metaverse Hunt, an immersive, gamified experience inside one of the world’s largest gaming platforms.
By blending cultural storytelling with interactive gameplay, the campaign invited global players to explore Southeast Asia’s iconic landmarks, traditions, and destinations through a scavenger-hunt style mini-game designed to educate, entertain, and inspire future travel.
our focus
Colab Brand Marketing
- The Challenge
ASEAN Tourism faced a familiar but growing challenge:
How do you meaningfully engage Gen Z and digital-native audiences with destination marketing without relying on traditional travel content formats?
The goal was to:
- Reach younger audiences at scale
- Communicate cultural diversity across 10+ ASEAN countries.
- Create an experience that felt native to gaming culture, not branded tourism content.
- The Idea
Instead of telling audiences to explore Southeast Asia, we let them play it.
ELMNTL conceptualized and launched a Roblox-based metaverse scavenger hunt that transformed Southeast Asia’s cultural richness into interactive gameplay — turning landmarks, garments, and destinations into collectible moments.
Players entered the Visit Southeast Asia portal within Roblox, unlocked quests, discovered hidden cultural objects, and dressed their avatars in Southeast Asia-inspired garments, all while learning about the region organically through play.
- Execution
The Experience
- A custom Roblox mini-game embedded within the larger Roblox universe
- 3 core quests, each requiring players to find 10 hidden objects inspired by ASEAN landmarks and destinations
- A special expansion quest was introduced in partnership with the ASEAN-Korea Centre, adding new objects and narrative layers
- Cultural garments available for avatar customization
- A competitive element rewarding the top 20 fastest players, with prizes awarded via random draw
The Ecosystem
- Global PR and blog distribution
- Organic and paid social amplification across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
- Partner integrations with AirAsia, Agoda, and ASEAN-Korea Centre
- Ongoing in-game analytics tracking player behavior, engagement, and completion rates
2
High Profile Launch events
Multiple Influencer Campaigns
across many digital platforms
250 Million
impressions in 7 days
Collection Sellouts
Key collection items sold out immediately
results
Earned & Owned Media
- 104 million PR impressions with coverage across travel, gaming, and culture outlets, including Associated Press, Gamezebo, Travel and Tour World, Travel Daily News Asia, and Seasia.co
- 78,000+ organic social impressions
- 8.6 million paid social impressions across Meta and TikTok
Global Reach & Engagement
- Earned as a 2025 Honoree in the AI, Immersive & Games, and Tourism & Leisure category for The Webby Awards.
- 1.9 million unique players participated worldwide
- 314,000 players completed all quests
- 3.3 million total in-game interactions (objects discovered)
- Top markets included the U.S., U.K., India, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, and Viet Nam — aligning firmly with ASEAN’s priority markets.
Partner Visibility
Key Learnings
- Metaverse platforms can drive massive top-of-funnel awareness for destination marketing when experiences are built natively for the platform.
- Game difficulty matters: while engagement was high, simplifying quest mechanics could increase completion rates in future activations.
- Localized PR strategies are critical — especially in markets where English-language tech and gaming media are limited.
- Consolidated announcements perform better than staggered micro-updates for earned media traction.
Why It Matters
IMAGINASEAN: The Great Metaverse Hunt demonstrated how tourism boards can move beyond static storytelling and into participatory cultural exploration, meeting future travelers where they already are.
By transforming Southeast Asia into a playable world, ASEAN Tourism didn’t just promote destinations; it sparked curiosity, connection, and cultural pride on a global scale.
