STB outlines its digital marketing strategy for 2017 |29 April 2017
Nowadays if you are planning for a holiday, it is not complicated at all as new technologies make our lives easy. Wherever you are in the world, if you have access to the internet, the world comes to you within seconds.
Digital marketing, as defined by the Financial Times Digital Lexicon, is the marketing of products or services using digital channels to reach consumers. The key objective is to promote brands through various forms of digital media. Digital marketing extends beyond internet marketing to include channels that do not require the use of the internet. To better understand this new trend, Seychelles NATION met the chief executive and the digital marketing director of the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB), Sherin Francis and Vahid Jacob respectively.
It has been four years since STB set up its digital marketing team. “We found it essential to make such a move as the world is moving towards digital. This team, comprising four local staff, take care of the digital strategy and all the websites, social media presence as well as content creation. In Africa, Seychelles is ranked quite high in terms of using digital media and basically digital media is taking the world by storm. Buying and selling any product has become accessible with any hand held device – mobile phone, tablet, etc. Nowadays, consumers who are not online are missing out on a large audience,” Mrs Francis said.
Online presence
Traditionally, Seychelles was sold as a destination through travel agents but this percentage is decreasing. “Now we are receiving direct bookings online from various sites. Being present on the web works in our favour and, as STB, we have to be alert and maintain our presence on the web,” Mr Jacob said.
He explained why it is important for us to stay online. “The Web is a place where we all gather our information before a holiday. Research has proven that 68% of all travellers research a destination online before they plan a trip. Very rarely does someone not research the destination or hotel they want to visit, thus it is very important that Seychelles maintains a strong presence online. We are currently present on 7 social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube to name a few, with a particular large following on Facebook with a combined 530,000 followers across our two main Facebook pages. Additionally we have about 13,000 followers on Instagram and 9,000 on Twitter, with our Youtube channel having about 30 videos of the destination which have been viewed over 900,000 times to date. At present we also manage and update the destination website of the country which is www.seychelles.travel ,the Seychelles blog www.seychellesdiary.com and the newly launched Seychelles Travel Guide Mobile application for smartphones which was launched mid last year. The application has over 1000 listings of accommodations, restaurants, attractions, activities, beaches, car hires..etc and has been downloaded over 17,000 times to date since it was launched. In terms of digital brochures we launched the Seychelles Digital Brochure for Ipads and Tablets in 2014 which has information about the various islands of the destination, events, maps, 360 videos, attractions, office locations among other information. The brochure was well received with over 10,000 downloads from the time of launch until today across the ios and android platforms.”
He added that the digital marketing team engage in producing content about Seychelles and this includes working closely with travel influencers such as bloggers, instagrammers and youtubers.
He said that “some of these influencers have such huge followings that run into the millions with very high engagement, which means that the content we work with them to produce reaches a much bigger audience than we could ever reach through traditional marketing methods such as newspaper adverts, magazines..etc which cost hefty premiums. The main advantage of influencer campaigns is that they are relatively cheap as we work closely with partner airlines and hotels to host these influencers and thus manage to reach the maximum audience for the money spent”.
“Additionally our in-house team is working with several production companies to produce several 360 videos of the destination which will give potential visitors a virtual experience of the destination. These videos will be placed on our websites and across our social media platforms. Over the past several years we have also produced several short niche videos of the destination such as honeymoons, diving, sailing, hiking, surfing, water sports, zip lining among others to appeal to several niche categories,” said Mr Jacob.
In the last two years, Seychelles content has doubled online with the advent of smartphones, thus placing a camera in the hands of every visitor and with the addition of drones becoming cheaper and more accessible, visitors are able to produce stunning content which was not possible before. Video content on Platforms such as Youtube, Vimeo and Facebook have seen a massive increase with several videos of the destination been added daily. This works at an advantage for the destination as Seychelles content is much more readily available.
STB is also working on a refreshed destination website with a more modern design which will be much more user friendly. The new site will also be fully responsive taking into account that more and more people are accessing the website through mobile.
Online campaigns
STB has also said that it is working on continuous online campaigns: “This not only benefits big hotels but also small establishments. Currently, there are ongoing campaigns with Expedia for the French and UK markets promoting Seychelles for the next four months. This is expected to greatly influence bookings on the OTA. STB is also moving away from brochures and moving towards travel apps. Once downloaded, the user can use the application offline. Additionally we will be launching several display advertising campaigns of the destination targeting several key markets such as Germany, France, UK, South Africa, Russia and UAE on search engine platforms such as Google and Yahoo. Adverts of the destination will appear across the web to potential visitors from these key markets searching either for Seychelles or our competitor destinations such as Maldives and Mauritius for example. The campaign will also include video adverts of the destination which will run on YouTube and Facebook and will be active for a period of 6 months. Additionally we are also doing seo campaigns for our destination website Seychelles.travel with several keywords of the destination being added which would increase the probability of Seychelles coming up in search results when users search for holiday destinations.”
Mrs Francis emphasised the fact that “from 2013 to now, many small establishments are only using online booking sites such as booking.com, Expedia, Agoda among others and this works at an advantage for the destination as many of the smaller establishments which found it difficult to sell their rooms previously are now doing quite well with good occupancy rates. And based on the rankings of the facilities and the guest experience, the online sites would send a certificate of excellence to that establishment. This improves the ranking of Seychelles accommodations online and brings in a spirit of competition as establishments compete to get the best reviews from their clients”.
Two years ago STB worked very closely with Trip Advisor to organise the Trip Advisor Awards for Excellence in Seychelles whereby tourism establishments with the best ratings were presented with their certificate of excellence. Over 120 tourism establishments received their certificate of excellence and this was much appreciated by the tourism trade. Seychelles has never been so visible online.
DMCs still play an important role
STB also relies a lot on good working relationships with the Destination Management Companies (DMCs). “Compared to many countries or islands in the world, Seychelles has its own unique characteristics. We will still need the DMCs to add that human touch for our clients. They book the hotels online and use the DMCs to do the logistics. But the DMCs are also seeing a decrease in their core business and so they have to take a business decision. They will also need to evolve and be more present online.
Attendance at trade fairs
Questions were raised about the attendance at trade fairs by STB. Mrs Francis noted that “trade fairs are more like a public relations exercise. You have all the main players out there and there is a saying that goes ‘out of sight – out of mind’. If we do not go to these fairs, our partners think we are not interested. We need to be cautious with the transition in this fast developing technological world”.
Competitions
STB has been organising several competitions over the years to increase its database of images and videos of the destination and at the same time increasing its presence online. One of the popular annual competitions is the Facebook Photography competition done on the STB Facebook Page for a period of 2 months, whereby participants are asked to submit a photo of Seychelles based on the theme of the competition. The best photos go into an album weekly and the photos with the most likes advance to the next round. The winners of the competition receive a combination of airline tickets and room nights sponsored by trade partners. The advantage for STB is that all photos once submitted becomes property of STB and can be used in the promotional campaigns of the destination around the world.
Another popular competition done during the past two years was the *My Seychelles Experience Video Competition* which targeted an international audience. Tourist visiting Seychelles during a period of 6 months were asked to film their experience of Seychelles in a short two-minute video and submit it to STB, where it was further uploaded to the competition website. Based on the views, popularity and quality of the video STB selected the winner of the video from Romania who won an all-inclusive vacation in Seychelles which included business class tickets and accommodation in several exclusive resorts such as North Island, Four Seasons, Savoy Resort among other prizes. Over 45 videos entered the competition from over 40 countries. All videos once submitted became property of STB and this greatly increases STB’s stock of video footage. A similar video competition was also done for the local audience titled Sesel Sa!
STB noted that 4% of the budget is currently dedicated to digital marketing but each market around the world also dedicates some of their budget towards digital marketing.
“We currently have a team of four people in Seychelles and the team will surely increase as we will need to increase work. We have to always know what is happening around us as we are small. In order to succeed, Seychelles has to be visible all the time,” concluded Mrs Francis.
By Vidya Gappy