3 Key Points From E-Tourism's Africa Summit

If you are in the travel industry and did not attend this year's summit, you missed out! With speakers from Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, Uber and Sveinn Birkir Bjornsson from the award-winning "Inspired by Iceland" campaign, the golden nuggets from this year's summit were priceless.

Out of all the great points that were made, these three are the most important that I feel summed the summit and what I am going to be focusing on even more going forward with GVI's social strategy.  

1. Experience is King.

Content is no longer the new black. It is all about your visitors experience. The content is a consequence of you creating an amazing, shareable moment in someone's life. 

People want an experience that no one is/has/or will have. It is all about indulging our selfie culture and being able to say to our beloved friends and family: "Look at me. Look at where I am and what I am doing."

Creating this experience is strongly tied to how well your business is going to do. This can be seen with the success of review sites like TripAdvisor. Someone really has to love you or want to raise hell to spend their valuable time writing a review about your restaurant, hotel or tour. And if you are inspiring such positive fanaticism from your visitors, congratulations. You have created a shareable experience.

2. Personalisation

So how do you create these amazing, shareable moments that are going to get heads on beds? Personalisation.

Essentially get out there and start social stalking your visitors. Social media gives us so much data on our clients before they even arrive and it is time to start capitalising on this.

Creating a personalised experience doesn't need to be a grand gesture inode to someone's love of Game of Thrones. It can be something simple, like their favourite chocolates. An establishment that is really knocking this ball out of the park is The Backpacker in Cape Town. They used their powers of social sleuthing to find out that one of the keynote speakers staying with them really loves hubbly-bubbly and what did he find when he checked into his room? One waiting, ready to go.

Such a simple, thoughtful, personalised gesture that has me talking to you about their business and I have never set foot in their establishment.

3. Focus on Why People Travel, Not How

If you own a hotel, you're probably in a hotly contested battle on Adwords for phrases like "hotels in Hermanus." Well,  you are doing it all wrong.

People don't go on holidays because they really want to chill out in your hotel for a few days. People go on holidays because of what the location can offer them. So instead of thinking about your hotel, think about why people are going to your area. This will open you up to bidding on more unique, low competition keywords like "kitesurfing competition in Durban" and being able to get in front of your customer before any of your competitors.

For more information on the summit, go to www.etas.co.za and remember, "Search shows us what people are thinking, social shows us how people are thinking."