Morning coverage of E-Tourism Africa

The E-Tourism Africa "Summit" kicked off this morning. Some notes and observations from the session before lunch:

First up was Cape Town Tourism's CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, who spoke for fifteen minutes or so. Most interesting to me was her point regarding the need for the country to deal with the post-World Cup lapse in terms of identity, positioning, offering, etc., and that Cape Town (for example) is trying to get its brand positioning re-aligned for the future to try to capitalise on the gains from the World Cup. A bit late for this I think, but not too late and it is an essential thing to get done -- and do properly (even if a bit late). CTT certainly understand the importance of e-marketing, are getting quite good at it, and have really embraced the storytelling approach to destination marketing, which is spot on.




Damian Cook, CEO of the conference organiser, spoke next for most of an hour. Some observations, from a torrent of data and examples he shared, with my thoughts and questions that I'm wrestling with appended:

• African products and destinations are selling to an aging demographic because the traditional markets are reached in different ways than the upcoming markets. Points cited: Half the world's population are under 30, 1 billion people are online -- but I wonder, what proportion have the potential to be customers, and which are worth investing in now, and in what proportion to overall marketing spend? Yes, demography is destiny, but it moves slowly...and timing is crucial to making these things work for a destination or product.
• Damian credits the Internet with higher IQ...really?!? Would like to see the data on that.
• The whirl of data presented seem selected to whip up anxiety around e-tourism and therefore prep delegates to need the expertise of the speakers (good for a conference host to do, of course, and done very well indeed). However, this also undermines the integrity of his overall argument - would be great if the presentation were online so the facts and figures didn't just fly by. No doubt the trends are there, but important exceptions, counter-trends and nuances are also there (not presented, of course), which need to be understood and dealt with.
• In a similar vein, the value of various social media networks was touted, but unfortunately was not matched up against South Africa's important travel markets, e.g., lots of North American (USA) trends, but how does that vary with Germany, UK, China, etc. which have different technology adoption trends, underlying costs, social systems, infrastructure, etc?
• The point was well made that, online, "Users are in Control" (as exemplified by Time magazine's person of the year being "You"). This trend toward user control of interactions with destinations/products is true, I believe, but what about the increasingly private internet(s) and closed networks of information that are undermining this? On Facebook, for example, users are in control, but with features that Facebook provides/enables, and with the data from that user behaviour used and sold to advertisers and others. Private and/or tiered internets (like toll roads) may be coming. And security concerns (digital and national) may clamp down on the openness and anonymity that drive certain aspects of online interactions and innovation.
• Cool Factor: Augmented reality (e.g., Mtrip) looks like it could be a big deal, especially for travel. Wow, on the eye-candy front. Need to get my head wrapped around that more, to see whether it's a big deal at a more fundamental level.

Jesse Desjardins, brought to Cape Town to do 72 Hours in Cape Town, looked like a stunt, but he turned out to have a lot of smart things to say, and had great visuals and content (his day job being to design presentations for people as part of a Paris-based creative agency). Key extracts from his points on making social media work:

• Use video: 2-3 minutes max
• Learn to tell a story - there is a craft to doing this
• Work with what you have - doesn't have to be slick
• Commenting gets you noticed - publishing isn't enough, participate and comment, too.
• "Virtual bragging"is a trend that you need to understand and enable
• Don't go for total number of fans or friends, go for fans that will participate
• Freemium, and the "give first" mindset
• Tell your story at the right time
• Content, not advertising
• 90% creativity, 10% distribution. Get the creative right and the distribution almost takes care of itself

View his 72 second video summary of his experience here.

Next up, some insights from the presentation by Pete Ward of WAYN.com, on aspects of human nature that drive success in social media:

• People love to share
• People love to feel good
• People love to show off
• People love money can't buy experiences
• People want to be rich and famous
• People value status and being popular

Not pretty, but pretty much true. Worth being reminded of.

A couple of other noteworthy items:

FAIL: Free wi-fi was not available for the conference, delegates were told they had to go buy cards for access. Jesse Desjardins made the point during his presentation that guests expect wi-fi will be as available and free in their room as water and electricity -- and so do conference delegates. How can a conference devoted to online issues NOT provide wi-fi for delegates (especially given a >R2000 price tag to attend)?!?

GREENWASHING: Print advert in the CTICC touts Cape Town has 3rd best drinking water in the world...then serves bottled water in the conference.

GOOD NEWS: "All presentations will be made available at a SlideShare address" says Damian. Great!

Morning coverage of E-Tourism Africa