The Sunday Mail
Andrew Moyo
On Wednesday the World Travel Market (WTM) London calls it a wrap, marking an end to an eventful three days for the prestigious event where the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) and the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry have been participating.
Digital marketing was among the topics of discussion that took centre stage at this travel extravaganza with ZTA head of corporate affairs, Godfrey “Chief” Koti highlighting that Zimbabwe must proactively create content, own and tell its own stories in order to control the narrative.
“There are more than 500 million tweets posted each day and Facebook has a gigantic 2,4 billion regular users which shows that statistics surrounding social media are just incredible for travel marketers,” said Koti.
“From Instagram all the way to YouTube, the reach of social media sites prove that this is the direction in which travel marketing is heading.
“We have attended very productive sessions on the power of social media and its capabilities in marketing a destination so we need to be in a position to collectively create good compelling content in order to manage our general perception as a destination.”
He added that from the lessons they had learnt from this expedition, they were in a position to rollout massive digital media campaigns with high-level partners in Europe.
WTM London’s senior director, Simon Press, said they were proud to be leading the way when it comes to embracing the role that content creators have in the development of the travel industry.
“This is one of the reasons why we launched BorderlessLive in September of this year, with this unique event allowing content creators to meet the brands and destinations, exchange ideas and form the business partnerships that will shape the travel industry into the future,” said Press.
“The sessions, and other social media seminars being held at WTM, will inspire delegates with imaginative ideas to help them to stay ahead of the curve and create content that will see a return on investment.”
This year’s edition of WTM London themed “Where Ideas Arrive” has been laden with inspiring sessions where social media gurus, bloggers, digital influencers, content creators, marketers and entrepreneurs have been participating.
