Durban comes alive in May every year when thousands of delegates converge on the coast, not because it’s “the warmest place to be”, but for the gathering of the clans at the tourism Indaba.
This year Flow sported a clan of its own in support of two of our tourism clients, South African Tourism (SAT) and Gauteng Tourism Authority (GTA).
Kevin Collins, Christine Marot, Roy Barford, Ingrid Sinclair, Bianca Bothma, Benedict Siyotula and Melanie Feris managed the SAT social networking platforms over the four-day event. This entailed attending presentations, conducting interviews, keeping trade and consumer Facebook pages alive with new content, images and videos; packing the Flickr account with fresh photo albums, and keeping the Twitter feeds buzzing with news and links.
Kate Rau was dedicated to GTA, sourcing product leads for new business tourism partnerships, blogging on interviews and events, writing news and press releases, updating social media and liaising with GTA SMMEs to improve their web presence.
Says Kate, “It was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity to network with industry professionals.”
A number of other Flow clients also exhibited at Indaba 2012: Jaci’s Lodges; Cheetah Plains; The Grand Daddy; World of Beer; Cape Town Tourism; Table Mountain Aerial Cableway; Hotelstuff and Greenstuff (for whom we are currently designing a new site).
“Having attended Indaba for more than 10 years, I thought this year’s event was superbly organised, although a bit quiet in terms of visitors. The media facility was well equipped and backed by good technical support, which made our work much easier,” says Christine.
“My job was to take loads of photos,” says Ingrid. “It was great fun and I ended up meeting so many people this way – the delegates sure loved smiling for the camera.”
While uploading her pictures to the SAT trade site, Ingrid discovered that many companies had little or no presence on the web. “Many trade delegates still have a long way to go in the world of social networking,” says Ingrid. “Perhaps they need Flow Communications?”
Roy provided Twitter coverage of various seminars, managed the Love South Africa Facebook page, and identified sport and adventure article angles for SAT.
“It was my first Indaba so I learnt a huge amount and thoroughly enjoyed the experience,” says Roy. “From a digital perspective, I’m encouraged to see the increased awareness of social media platforms in the local travel market, but also noted that South Africa still has some catching up to do.
“Damian Cook, a destination-marketing expert from Kenya, pointed to studies that suggest 96% of travel is researched online and that 850-million people are now on Facebook. I’m looking forward to helping more South African travel companies with online and social media marketing in the near future.”
View Bianca’s video clip on the Indaba 2012 vibe, featuring rising stars Ingrid Sinclair and Kate Rau, by clicking here.
