How to maximize i-Tourism through e-Tourism

A TEAM from Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism (NMBT) headed to Cape Town in September to learn what routes there are for capturing the imagination of potential tourists through e-marketing online.

Erenei Louw, Done Louw and Titus Chuene headed to the E-tourism Africa Summit over September 15 and 16. It is the leading e-tourism conference in Africa and it covers all e-tourism topics.

“Overall this Summit gave useful and practical insights into the world of e-marketing for tourism,” said Erenei Louw, NMBT’s information technology co-ordinator. “Many of the strategies that have shown to be successful online, NMBT has already started engaging in. Now we need to increase the reach and start to maximize the use of online media and marketing.”

Amongst the focus areas identified by NMBT are video, the like recently launched, I love NMB video. “NMBT learnt that we need to ensure these videos have a viral aspect so that it spreads and is not just a video that one accidently comes across,” said Erenei.

NMBT also took the opportunity to grow their partnership with Trip Advisor by providing them with a database of products to be profiled as well as brainstorming innovative marketing opportunities.

“We also learnt the value of having online and offline campaigns connected and sharing the same objectives,” said Erenei. “Our website should be the main focus area with all media linking to it. By having your campaigns online it makes it accessible to a much wider audience but must never forget that the offline media such as print and broadcast also add valuable weight to campaigns.”

Also covered at the Summit were useful topics on search engine marketing, managing multimedia, facebook, blogging and twitter and tourism, using cellphones as a tool to promote tourism “in hand” and the route to encouraging user generated content for online platforms.

For more information on the Summit, contact NMBT: 041 582 2575.

Website: www.nmbt.co.za

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