This year, a team of seven Flowstars attended the Tourism INDABA in Durban, to support Flow Communications' many clients in the tourism industry.
The theme for INDABA 2016 was Putting You at the Forefront of Business Success, and with the launch of four Flow websites at what is the largest tourism gathering in Africa, this was definitely fitting.
Flow developed an INDABA 2016 mini-website for the Gauteng Tourism Authority, which was launched on Thursday, 5 May. The website provided news and information about INDABA and small, medium and micro-sized enterprises attending from Gauteng this year.
We also contributed rolling social media, blog and video coverage of the Gauteng Tourism Authority at INDABA.
A social wall was created for Constitution Hill’s #IamConstitution campaign, which features all posts made on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the #iamconstitution hashtag and displays them all on one page.
The Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa (RETOSA) launched its new Southern Africa Certified Expert e-learning programme – which Flow developed – to its members on Saturday, 7 May. The programme is an interactive online learning tool with courses focusing on the 15 Southern African countries that are RETOSA members, and their major tourism selling points. It is intended to teach the travel trade more about the diverse tourism offerings of the region.
The e-learning programme was presented by Kwakye Donkor, marketing and communications director at RETOSA. Flow's CEO, Tara Turkington, went through the key elements of the site.
The site was developed with strong educational principles behind its content and quizzes, and was written by Kate Turkington, a top professional travel writer who has personal experience of the countries involved. It is user friendly, fun, and fast to register and interact with, and has an attractive, compelling design.
Another website Flow on which was very proud to work and launch in time for INDABA was the Experience Northern Cape website, for the Northern Cape Tourism Authority (NCTA). Leading up to INDABA, Flow did social media training with some of the NCTA staff and members of the Northern Cape's tourism industry who were attending the exhibition this year, where we presented to them the redesigned site.
NCTA marketing and promotions manager Dianna Martin said the new website is “simply fabulous”, and that “it has been really great to see the interest in the Northern Cape” at INDABA this year.
Several of Flow’s other long-standing clients attended the show this year, and we caught up with a few of them at their stands on day one.
Janine Muthusamy, the sales and marketing manager of Maropeng, was very enthusiastic about the show, saying “INDABA 2016 has yet again delivered us to an international buyers' market of great significance”.
Rolf Steiner, of Rhulani Safari Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West Province, said that the lodge's “end goal for attending INDABA is that it has a positive impact on our business”. This was award-winning Rhulani’s fourth year at the show.
We are very proud of the work we are able to do for our clients, especially the projects we launched at the biggest tourism trade show in South Africa. INDABA is always a very exciting event on the Flow calendar and we look forward to being back next year, and to producing even more creative and rewarding work for the tourism industry in South Africa.