Video and mobile phones are the two technologies tourists are increasingly using to work out where to go and what to see, delegates at the E-Tourism Africa Summit, at Gallagher Estate, were told this week.
Speakers noted that connectivity options to Africa have opened up considerably, and there is a lot of awareness about the benefits of using the Internet and digital media to attract tourists.
However, they pointed out that a lot of education still has to be done with those within the African tourism industry.
“What the tourism industry has to realise is that it is much more than just building an Internet site and downloading brochure material onto it,” noted Damian Cook, CEO of E-Tourism Africa.
The tourism industry has to learn how to use social networking services, such as Twitter and Facebook, to interact with clients digitally, he added.
“Africa still only accounts for about 2% of the global online bookings and travel research. Travellers make up their minds about where to go and what to do from other travellers and they use social networking sites to do this. This includes comments, videos and the downloading of information on their cellphones.”
He said the tourism industry must become increasingly aware and able to engage the traveller.
Andrew Pozniak, Google's emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa head of travel, pointed out that Africa, as a travel destination, held up well during the global economic crisis and that, despite the slowdown, tourists never stopped searching for African destinations.
In his presentation, Pozniak said SA had shown a good performance in terms of “paid clicks”, with October showing a 45% rise compared to the same month in 2008, which had already risen by 31% from that month in 2007.
“Taking the UK as a source for tourist interest, SA made the strongest showing outside the Eurozone countries.”
Pozniak said Google is investing heavily in mobile phones and has identified these as the “eyes and ears” of tourists, by virtue of the devices being portable, and having a camera and external microphones.
“Tourists are very quick to record their experiences and then download them onto YouTube.com, and this has now become the world's second-largest search engine after Google itself.”
William Price, SA Tourism head of e-marketing, said digital media offers the tourist an opportunity to share good experiences, but it is important for those in the travel industry to be able to engage with them before, during and after a trip.
“The travel industry needs a lot of education on how to manage this medium as there is a lot more to digital than simply hiring one agency to manage it all.”
Price said an area of concern is how to moderate chats or pages where people post comments about bad experiences, but this is not as difficult as it may seem.
“Moderation is often done by the digital community members themselves. If one person posts a nasty comment about something, very quickly other members counter that without any or little input from the tour operator or destination owner. Moderation can give a false sense of control and one, especially in this industry, doesn't want to moderate.”
Price noted that the two main factors in a digital strategy are content, meaning video rather than just a brochure type copy; and, secondly, where people can find you.
Amanda Forsythe, MD of online audio visual travel guide Mobiguide, said video is becoming increasingly important as a medium for people to communicate their experiences, or to determine where they want to visit.
“Travellers want to see and experience as much of a destination as possible before actually visiting it. They don't want to read brochures or offline material. They want to interact with other forms of digital media, such as social networks, and also be able to have immediate information at hand on what they are looking at.”
Forsythe said the mobile phone has become the ideal tool for this because of its intimacy with the person who owns it.
“We are looking at applications where a person can point their mobile phones at an object or place, click a photograph, and then immediately receive information in the language of their choice about what they are looking at.”
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