Last Friday, QED Group, LLC hosted “Tourism as a Sustainable Development Strategy: A Systemic Value Chain Approach,” a breakfast seminar. Discussions focused on best practices in tourism management and how these tools can be implemented in projects to maximize positive impacts.

Amanda MacArthur, Director of Operations at CDC Development Solutions (CDS) and speaker at the seminar, offered an overview of the Tourism Employment and Opportunity (TEMPO), a USAID funded program implemented in Nigeria’s Cross River State.

Tourism e-Marketing and promotion strategy

MacArthur highlighted the Ambassador Promotion Program as a successful tourism e-marketing and promotion strategy.

Essentially, CDS staff work with local stakeholders to develop a program over a specific period of time where they provide resources, deep discounts, activities, packaged promotions to people who are willing to be first adopters of the location.

“Facebook integration wristbands”

Ushuaia Beach Hotel in Ibiza launched in July their Facebook sharing initiative—a first in the hotel industry. Hotel guests are given the option of wearing a slim wristband synchronized to their Facebook profile.

Guests can swipe their wristbands across a sensor at designated kiosk, checking in to various places in the resort, updating their status and tagging themselves in as many pictures as they like to post online.

Last year, Coca-Cola pioneered a similar technology in Israel. In the summer, the Coca-Cola Village invites 600 to 800 teenagers for a three-day stay in a multimedia village to enjoy fun activities such as sports, swimming and horse-riding.

Through the Like Machine, conceptualized by Enon Landenberg, joint-CEO of Publicis E-dologic, the inhabitants of the village were able to use their wristbands to register that they “liked” a certain activity, and a Facebook message would automatically appear on his or her wall stating that he or she “liked” the pool at the village, for instance.

The event was so popular that according to E-dologic joint-CEO Doron Tal, 250, 000 people claimed to have been there—even though only 8,000 had the opportunity to experience it in real life.

“They felt that they had been there because they could enjoy it through their friends by following their fun on Facebook,” Mr. Tal Said.

Background on TEMPO

TEMPO’s ultimate goal is to build a destination tourism sector—leading to jobs creation and economic growth for local and regional communities.  To accomplish this goal, CDS established (or provided) capacity building to private sector led public-private Destination Management Organizations (DMOs).

In particular, CDS built DMO’s ability to use technology to promote and sell tourism in the destination by creating a web-portal that provides information about Cross River State tourist spots, training in content development and collection to enable tourism operators to market their services based on customer needs, and making booking and payments available online.

Why Tourism for Development?

Presenter Kristin Lamoureux, Director of International Institute of Tourism Studies at George Washington University representing the Save Travel Alliance a member of the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA) at the seminar, stressed the importance of the tourism sector in developing countries.

Tourism is the top five export category for 83% of developing countries—and for 38% of those it is the most relevant economic activity, said Lamoureux.

Also, the benefit of tourism is that resources—cultural and natural—are already available in developing counties. Most importantly, many tourists’ activities are found in rural areas and this creates opportunities for sustainable economic growth in remote locations.

Though sustainable tourism requires various conditions to thrive, the visitor’s experience should be the center-piece of a tourism promotion strategy with an emphasis on connecting travelers to destinations.

These innovative approaches—Facebook integration wristbands and Ambassador Promotion Program—connects travelers to destination and tie online and offline worlds neatly and painlessly together.

It is a great bit of user-generated marketing for the resort or destination, and has the added benefit of letting guests share their experiences with their friends, colleagues and family members through social media. This will in turn bring more visitors to the location.