”Style-Up your E-Marketing” -A Kenyan observes Naija Tourist Sites

My very good friend and brother challenged me last week with the motive of quickening my creative juices and I was grateful for that. What would one do without such valuable people who are so willing to take that risk and push you into your destiny?
So, here I am once again another fortnight and very excited to get my fingers typing away.

Easter week is coming and many people tend to be busy on the internet and at tour agencies looking for a holiday spot for themselves and their loved ones. Working as a holiday consultant and an occasional tourist (yes ooo – never sell places I’ve not personally visited) has taught me a very valuable lesson: clients (no matter what title you want to give them) are driven by what they see as opposed to the information you give them for a particular holiday/tour destination. So I got thinking… Nigeria is a very beautiful country, full of amazing and spectacular tourist/holiday destinations – places to die for and combined with the cultural wealth, it would pull in multi-million dollar revenue in tourism alone but for just one major setback…the lack of detailed direct information about each of the attractions and hotels on offer; and by this I mean websites for each tourist/holiday destination. Like I said before, clients love to see the places they are going to, it wets their appetite and keeps their anticipation levels for a great holiday rising – at least that’s what it does to me and I’m sure my clients would agree with me. I decided to do a random search from a very reliable Nigerian tourism site belonging to a friend of mine on Facebook and they had a wealth of places one would go on holiday but unfortunately all the places I went to in their site didn’t have a private website or even pictures of the said hotel, game reserve or tourist attraction and which is really sad. Like they correctly say: a picture is “worth a thousand words”, and I wish I could see pictures and great pictures on some great websites. Clients take you seriously and trust me when I’m selling a particular destination to a client overseas or even locally, the first thing they will ask for is the website of that location – they want to see for themselves if the place is worth their dime and time – that’s how serious this website concept is; and again it gives a certain location or hotel/lodge an opportunity to sell itself widely without doing or spending much. I know you might want to argue from the point of view that most of the time what you see is not what you get…true but that was a century ago. Now any serious establishment will be wise enough to put the right pictures and information on their website if they want to pull in the numbers which translates to revenue.
I have this work in my own mother country, and therefore urge the Nigerian Tourist Board to start taking her work seriously, with passion and style up. E-marketing is the place to be if you want to pull in the numbers and earn high revenues and I know you can do so if you stop long enough to listen!

Until next time, I remain yours truly,

K-Naija Sista,
Suzan Mwadime,
CEO, Kivuli Holidays and Conferences,
www.kivuliholidays.com

E-Marketing, Easter, Nigeria, Tourist Sites