•MEDIA has played a major role when it comes to promoting tourism via internet based platforms.

By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE –

Last month, Zambia was voted second best tourist destination to visit in 2016 for the French.
The award arose from a competition organised by Liligo.com, an online travel and flight search engine which the Zambian mission in France to participate in a competition for best tourist destination for the French to visit in 2016.
Liligo.com worked with three travel bloggers, one of whom assessed Zambia based on his first hand information gleaned from a visit to the country where he visited South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi national parks, Lusaka and Livingstone under the facilitation of the Zambia Tourism Board (ZTB) which collaborated with tour operators.
The collaboration between Liligo.com and the three French travel writers brings to mind the important role journalists can play in marketing tourism to the outside world.
The role of the media is important especially in view of the fact that the Government is looking at tourism as one of the areas of diversification to wean the country from over dependence on copper mining.
The media’s role is also important in that almost all media institutions in the country are now accessible online through their
Internet websites, social media pages and products like the digital versions of newspapers which are accessible via hand held devices like mobile phones via the Internet.
Early this year, local journalists from various media institutions launched the Travel Media Association of Zambia with the aim of enhancing the marketing of tourism to local and international tourists.
The launch was witnessed by stakeholders like ministries of Information and Broadcasting Services, Tourism and Arts and the ZTB.
The launch was necessitated by a perceived lack of information on Zambia’s tourism, especially on the Internet.
Also present at the launch was the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) immediate past president Beatrice Broda.
Ms Broda urged local journalists to help market tourism in and outside the country by writing articles not only for organisations they work for, but also for the local and international community via the Internet.
Ms Broda – who is a travel writer, producer and television personality – urged the journalists to open their own websites, use social media and master skills of incorporating quality photography and video footage in their writing rather than restrict themselves to text.
She urged the journalists to flood the internet with content about Zambian tourism so that the information can easily be assessable to search engine users.
She said the world is becoming more and more inclined to exploiting the advertising and marketing potential of the Internet based online platforms because of the speed and ease with which business associate with clientele and the general public.
Ms Broda said the instantaneous means of communicating and obtaining feedback via internet based platforms was the advantage traditional forms of mass media, such as newspapers, television and radio, did not have.
However, the scenario had since been overtaken by new developments when newspapers like the Times of Zambia introduced internet based digital editions of their physical newspapers.
Ms Broda said digital newspapers like the e-Times which could be accessed on the same platforms that also host social media were game changers because such products where relatively cheaper and could circulate wherever the internet was accessible.
She also said the presence of traditional news organisations on social media was beneficial because social media platforms were relatively free tools which businesses were incorporating in advertising and marketing strategies at minimum cost.
Flooding such platforms with local tourism content therefore stood to benefit Zambia whenever Internet users activated search engines like Google.
Besides newspapers that are now available digitally online, there is a growing community of bloggers who had even gone to the extent of forming the Zambian Bloggers Network which helps them interact and share ideas on how to run blogs.
However, there has been a view by local journalists that in spite of the media being a formidable too to market tourism, the ministry of Tourism and Arts and ZTB have not fully used local media in marketing tourism.
Journalists feel that rather than allocate resources to specific marketing programmes which the local media can be part of, Government and ZTB officials do not much their statements of involving local media in tourism marketing with resource allocation.
Zambia Bloggers Network founding member Richard Mulonga believes the network, for example, which is comprised of professional journalists and photographers, can play a critical role if it was involved in tourism marketing.
“The Zambian Bloggers Network can use online social media platforms to popularise local tourism.
“The use of the web (Internet) which is accessed worldwide is conducive for marketing Zambian tourism to the world,” he said.
He said the network, which is an amalgamation of bloggers in and outside Zambia, mainly publishes information on social, economic and political matters as well as tourism.
But he was quick to point out the need for specialised training and specific media strategies in marketing tourism in order to stimulate interest towards reporting on tourism.
In other words, the ministry of Tourism and Arts and ZTB need to design specific interventions that would attract media participation in marketing local tourism.
Lack of specific programmes in marketing and assessing the marketing strategies of tourism has been a source of concern by some sections of the public who the ministry of Tourism and Arts and ZTB fail in their marketing efforts.
Such concerns suggest that since tourism was reclassified from a social to an economic sector in 1996, there have been persistent failures in the marketing of tourism.
There is a general feeling that programmes, like the visit Zambia Campaign which was launched in 2005, have not been assessed in terms of how many tourist visits were generated and how much foreign revenue was earned.
Another case in point is the 2010 FIFA World Cup where ZTB officials travelled around the world holding marketing shows.
Rather that embarking on costly marketing campaigns of sending teams all over the world, engaging local media in campaigns like the one organised by Liligo.com could benefit the country and ensure that information is available online for anyone in any part of the world.
In the Liligo.com competition, it took the effort of only one French blogger, Fabrice Dubesset, to produce content which earned Zambia the position of second best tourist destination to visit in 2016 for the French.
The completion involved three French bloggers each of whom was required to travel to three different countries for 14 days.
This is an idea the ministry of Tourism and Arts as well as ZTB can learn from and design a local campaign that would involve journalists in producing content which can be used in marketing tourism.
According to the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) Tourism Sector Overview for 2014, Zambia has made strides towards increasing tourist arrivals.
In 2013, the country had 914,576 visitors of all types, including business travellers and those visiting friends and relatives, besides holiday focused visitors.
The overview said it was one of the objectives of the Zambia Travel Bureau to exceed the milestone of one million international arrivals in the year 2013.
This milestone would not be insurmountable with the involvement of the local media in tourism marketing.
With its own share of travel writers, a growing community of bloggers and media organisations that have an Internet presence even on social media platforms, local media can equally rise to the occasion if called upon to generate specific content aimed at marketing tourism.
This is especially important since Government is working on ensuring that tourism becomes a major economic sector that can provide employment and earn the country foreign exchange.