Nine Flow Communications staff were involved in covering the 7th Annual E-Tourism Africa Summit (#ETAS14 on Twitter) in Cape Town on September 4 and 5. #ETAS14 aimed to share the latest in social media and digital marketing trends with the travel trade, to help them run and market their businesses even better.
Flow's services included running all social media channels for South African Tourism and E-Tourism Frontiers, as well as ensuring excellent coverage of the conference through streaming video, various other online content and public relations.
There was excellent social media hype about the event, with #etas14 regularly trending on Twitter in South Africa throughout the two days, reaching around 1.8-million accounts after being used 4 500 times, according to TweetReach. One of the compliments about the social media coverage came from rugby star Joe Pietersen (@joepietersen), who said: "enjoying the updates on all the travel goings on!"
According to BrandsEye, this Cape Town leg of #ETAS14 generated the advertising value equivalent of R4.7-million.
The highlight of #ETAS14 for most delegates was a presentation by Vusi Thembekwayo (@vusithembekwayo), an acclaimed global businessman and speaker. Vusi spoke about how to capitalise on opportunities in other African countries, as well as about things that make businesses successful around the world.
He relayed forecasts that Africa will have 440 new cities of more than a million people by 2050, and mentioned Kenya and Uganda as two countries he was particularly excited about. His advice on breaking into other parts of Africa included "If you aren't brave in Africa, you're dead" and "Focus on being the best, not the biggest".
Vusi used the example of Ferrari's Forumla One pit team, which completes highly technical pit stops within a few seconds, when he talked about achieving success. Clarity on roles and responsibilities, as well as clarity on results and improvement, were key ingredients he spoke about.
Damian Cook (@damiancook), founder of E-Tourism Frontiers, is well known for his highly informative and entertaining presentations, and his #ETAS14 offering definitely met expectations.
One of the memes Damian spoke about this year was "prancercising", which is so difficult to explain, you will need to watch the video below of Flowstars (and a few volunteers) accepting a video challenge in Long Street.
The video was viewed more than 100 times before lunch on Friday, attracting more than 100 Facebook likes and dozens of tweets. We were proud to prance away with the award for the best video, which included champagne and two tickets to #ETAS15.
We were also thrilled to receive some lovely notes from our clients about our work, including Monde Mateza of South African Tourism, who tweeted: "Well done Team Flow. You rock!"
And from Brett StClair, head of Google in South Africa and a speaker at #ETAS14: "@taraturk1 @FlowComms @GoToSouthAfrica @gailcameron You guys are doing stellar work, keep it up, def proudly South african #ETAS14"
Organisations represented at the E-Tourism Africa Summit in Cape Town included TripAdvisor, Facebook, Twitter, Expedia and South African Tourism, while South African Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom spoke on Thursday morning.
Some of the key take-outs for the South African travel industry included:
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Make wi-fi available for free so that travellers can share their experiences on social media (which, more often than not, essentially turns into free marketing when travellers post pictures and comments on their social networks about you)
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Engage with customers and potential customers on social media – it's all about engagement
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More than 60% of travel today is researched, booked and sold online, so ensure your website and social media presence is optimal
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TripAdvisor's website gets 280-million visitors per month, and if you have a great product you will get great reviews
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Don't tell people about your product – show them your product
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Good video content is hard to ignore
- Consumers control the travel market, so instead of saying: "We offer ...", ask: "What would you like?"
The Johannesburg leg of #ETAS14 will take place on September 8 and 9, so follow the hashtag if you can't be at the event.
If you'd like to get even more of a sense of what #ETAS14 in Cape Town was all about, see our wraps of Day 1 and Day 2 for the South African Tourism website, and the #ETAS14 highlights video.