At the Africa Travel Association’s 39th Annual Congress, held in Uganda in November 2014, Peter S. Greenberg, multi Emmy-winning travel editor at CBS News and the United States’ most recognized, honored and respected front-line travel news journalist, unveiled his “recipe for promoting tourism in Africa.”
In light of a general belief that Western news organizations are largely ignorant and unkind in their portrayal of Africa, and an admission by African tourism ministers that they have done neither “enough” nor “a fair job” with the media, Greenberg’s bitingly candid remarks on how the media story is shaped were timely and informative.
“My country people are the most culturally and geographically ignorant people in the world,” he began. “Africa’s resources are amazing. Africa does not suffer from a lack of resources; Africa suffers from its people. You have to have a great strategy and that’s the problem: What is your story? How are you going to tell it? Where are you going to tell it?”
Here, in his own words, are the ingredients of Greenberg’s Africa tourism promotion recipe:
The things I hate about tourism.
1. I hate brochures. They don’t tell the story. They’re like the Internet. Just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true. We want to see real people doing real things.
2. I hate focus groups. I despise focus groups. You know why? They lie. Doesn’t tell the whole story. You’re asked loaded questions to which you can give only one answer. You don’t need a focus group to tell you what you want.
3. I hate the word “branding.” Branding means nothing if you can’t deliver the goods. Get off the “brand” wagon. It doesn’t work. Countries spend millions with consultants on buzzwords that mean nothing. Stop worrying about branding and start worrying about the product. The travel experience today, at least in the U.S., has nothing to do with luxury. Luxury is when you get to keep your options
What do we want?
1. Simplicity.
2. Connectivity – telecommunications.
3. Authenticity – and that’s what Africa excels in. We live in a world of experience one-upmanship. You want bragging rights. It’s about the experience.
4. To give back. People want to give back. Activism is a very big part of the safari experience.
5. Accessibility – if it’s an experience that fits into those bragging rights. I don’t need to be sold. I need information that’s credible, that’s real, that gives me those options I like. It’s about accessibility.
How does everybody see Africa?
They don’t understand it. They fear it. It’s a feared continent. It’s the unknown continent. When you have ignorance and it’s forgotten, compounded by fear, you have a recipe for disaster.
You cannot separate heads of state from tourism. It’s the largest industry in the world, nearly 10 percent of global GDP. If you divorce yourself from that reality and the story gets ahead of you, you have an incident like what you had in the Kenya [Westgate] mall shooting: your tourism flat lined. Heads of state need to get ahead of the story.
The fear factor reigns supreme. Future bookings for safari tour operators are zero because of fear of Ebola. Based on current rates of infection, your chance of dying from Ebola is one in three-plus million, greater than dying from your pants catching on fire, which is one in 900,000-plus.
When Americans get scared they vote with their wallets. Get great influencers to sell the message, get celebrities from the entertainment industry. Get celebrities here to tell the story. The government will not tell the story for you. No one believes them.
Realize whom you’re telling the story to. The North American market is not going to solve your problem. We matter less and less. But, the North American media gets to set the program for the rest of the world. They watch to see what we do to make their own decisions. Who’s watching? The BRIC countries. One hundred and thirty million Chinese will travel this year.
Don’t think one dimensionally. Stop marketing individual countries one-dimensionally. Regional marketing is needed. If you want to go to Uganda, stop in Kenya. Everybody wins. The regional visa is brilliant. That’s why so many business travelers go to China, Dubai, etc.
You gain nothing by additional paperwork. You need to regionally cooperate in Africa because the rest of the world sees you as one dark continent.
Where do you tell your story?
Not TripAdvisor. The problem with social media is, there’s no vetting. It’s not credible. Leave Uganda, get on a plane, talk to people. Do your own outreach to know who is credible, who can tell your story. We live in a disruptive world and it’s getting worse.
The dynamics are changing rapidly. Airbnb is changing the whole model of distribution in terms of accommodation, cars. It will get to airlines.
Airlift is crucial to any country.
There’s less competition in the airline industry now. They’re no longer fighting for traffic they never wanted in the first place.
The Caribbean is in big trouble. Why? Airlift. Some airlines are talking to countries, exploiting them. ‘If you want us to come to your country you have to pay us to come.’
You need to get together and control your airlift because you are in competition with carriers that go to places that are not forgotten. Create enough airlift to fill the demand you hope to have. Create regional carriers. Kenya Airways shows dismal results. Get together.
Press conferences are self-serving and accomplish nothing.
If you’re too busy to get your story out, someone else will tell it for you and it will not be the one you want told.
Why is there a tourism recovery program in Kenya? After the Westgate Mall bombing they did not get ahead of the story. You can hire as many crisis PR people as you want but that’s after the fact.
Use individual personal stories. Put a face on it. Humanize it. Tell people what their process is. Inaction will come back to bite you.
