A whisper campaign expected to help boost dwindling visitors numbers appears never to have gotten off the ground.

In April the Department of Tourism's director of global operations Anne Shutte said 400 tickets would be given away in competitions on Facebook and Twitter — two tickets per day for the last 200 days of the year.

Describing it as part of a whisper campaign, Ms Shutte said the competition would cause a "buzz" about the Island on the social networking sites.

She added that a whisper campaign typically involves marketing experts posting comments and starting conversations on websites designed to subtly advertise a product.

However, it now appears that no such campaign has taken place.

The Royal Gazette found no reference to the giveaway on Tourism's revamped Facebook page.

This paper has also been unable to locate the Department of Tourism on Twitter, a popular micro blogging system.

It has located some employees whose accounts appear to be being used to promote the music festival, although The Royal Gazette understands that it is not actually the employees who are tweeting — as the site is blocked from the department's computers.

Over the past seven days The Royal Gazette has contacted the Department of Tourism several times asking them:

• Did the whisper campaign happen?

• If so, how many vacations were given away during the campaign?

• If it did happen, how many more are expected to be given away before the end of the year?

• If it did not happen, why did it not happen?

The questions have yet to be answered.

In an interview with the Bermuda Sun this spring Ms Shutte stated: "Going forward, they [the consultants] are experts on the social [website] side. We are going to launch a whisper campaign on Facebook to get people talking about Bermuda; we are going to be Twittering journalists."