Tourism Industry Missing the Big Attraction

The Jakarta Globe, Nanda Ivens, March 26, 2009

I can only hope I did not sound like I was from another planet when I spoke about the urgent need to listen to “word of mouth” and “engage social media” with top executives and entrepreneurs from the tourism industry at a seminar in Jakarta earlier this month.

To build awareness among the seminar participants about the power of Internet-based social media, I had to accept the fact that only a small number of participants raised their hands when asked whether they had corporate Web sites and almost none updated them regularly.

Have I been in Europe so long that I have lost touch with the developments of my own people? I doubt it. Just the other day there was an encouraging picture in a local paper of residents in a village near the West Nusa Tenggara provincial capital surfing the Internet through a program called “Digital Village.”

Consider these statistics: As of May 2008, there were 25 million Internet users in Indonesia, or 10 percent of the population. Friendster, a popular online social networking site, has eight million users in Indonesia, and WordPress and BlogSpot, free Internet blogsites, have 300,000 and 247,000 members from Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is the third most-used language on WordPress.com after English and Spanish, and Facebook, another Internet social media site, grew 645 percent in Indonesia in 2008. There are currently 831,000 Indonesians on Facebook. These are really amazing statistics for a country where about 15 percent of the population still survives on less than $1 a day.

The conclusion is clear: While most business executives in the tourism sector don’t seem convinced about the power of the Internet, the reality is that Indonesians have embraced it in full force. The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer released this month in Jakarta makes it very clear that the future of communications in this country belongs to Internet-based social media.

According to the findings, 40 percent of young, informed respondents aged 25-34 said they consider information about a company on Internet search engines, particularly Google, extremely or very credible.

This is significantly higher than the 26 percent of respondents from the same age group who find information in newspaper articles extremely or very credible. For respondents aged 35-64, the information in Google has the same level of trustworthiness as articles in newspapers. Strong evidence that Indonesians are moving away from traditional media and looking for information on Internet-based sites.

Is the tourism industry aware of all the activity on social media? Or are we still limiting our interaction with customers to single-channel communications through advertising, when most of the informed public has migrated to the Internet for credible sources of information?

The current global financial and economic crisis may force the local tourism industry to shift its target from a foreign-arrival-oriented approach to one of cultivating and nurturing domestic tourist potential. Domestic tourism potential is huge, and local travelers share their experiences and seek information from social groups or their peers through social media. Pictures of tourist spots are shared on Facebook, and there is a significant amount of online chatter about tourist-related topics.

The Internet allows companies to be creative in the way they approach potential customers. Through interactive social media activities, companies are better able to focus potential customers on more detailed content about tourism hot spots, unique facets of the culture and rare cultural activities. This is all packaged in content-rich products that can easily be disseminated and linked to multiple digital platforms from social media to mobile. Travelers search the Internet for ideas and inspiration, and when they do they expect to get concise information on the destination of their choice, before interaction and engagement begins. Comments, feedback and customer ratings on the Internet are important to the traveler’s decision-making process. More importantly, a multichannel approach is necessary to enable, as well as empower, potential customers to make contact and ask questions without feeling intimidated.

Let’s start with the Web site. The Web site for a travel and tourism establishment is the sales agent on the Internet and the first point of entry for many potential tourists. The Web site needs to be easy to find on Google or Yahoo searches and present a professional and engaging image to build credibility with customers. This can be enhanced by linking to content sharing, social networks, travel advisory or micro-blogging sites; developing active blogs; and forging partnerships with travel aggregators and online travel agents overseas.

One of the most attractive aspects of Internet-based outreach for both companies and their audiences is the efficiency with which properly developed online communications can work. Not only is communicating online cost effective, a clear advantage given the current financial climate, but it is also accountable and measurable. It is accountable because it is measurable. The measurement metrics are not just about how many people see, click or engage, but include the sphere of influence of these visitors. It is cost effective because an effective digital campaign does not require more than 25 percent of a company’s overall marketing communications budget, but can reach a highly targeted audience with higher potential to purchase. This has become a strong driver in shifting tourism-related companies to online marketing on Internet portals and search engines.

Going beyond domestic tourism, we often wonder why more tourists visit Singapore and Hong Kong than our beautiful country. In 2008, a mere 6.23 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, compared to the 10.1 million and 29.5 million tourists in Singapore and Hong Kong in the same year.

The fact is that these countries have managed to utilize the power of the Internet very effectively. Living outside Indonesia, it was much easier for me to find information online about traveling in these countries than for Indonesia. We have often used issues like political instability as the reason for our lackluster tourism, but we have a growing reputation for stability today and this excuse no longer holds water.

The future of tourism is in the Internet, and it is high time that we start by using this channel to market ourselves domestically first, then use that expertise to market ourselves abroad.

The writer is director of the digital division at IndoPacific Edelman.