Features
Branding & domestic tourism – UNWTO blueprints for Africa’s tourism recovery & growth
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The United Nations World Tourism Organisation, (UNWTO), the UN specialist agency with responsibility for the tourism sector has identified and rolled out branding and marketing as recovery strategy roadmap to support Africa to quickly recover from the devastating corona virus (COVID- 19) pandemic.
According to information from Mr. Zurab Pololikashvill, the Secretary-General of the UNWTO, “countries around the world are steadily shifting from responding to the corona virus pandemic to the recovery phase, where tourism would play a key role not solely due to its importance in job creation, supporting livelihoods and driving inclusive development but tourism itself has been hit hard by the unprecedented crisis, with a decrease of 47 per cent (47%) in international tourist numbers, which translated into around (US$ 320,Billion) in lost revenue.”
The UNWTO Boss, however, affirms that Africa has certain advantages as a prime destination for wildlife and or nature tourism, unspoiled landscapes and habitats, over other global tourism regions, for most international tourists, which call for promoting “Brand Africa, as a key priority.
The branding and marketing support, according to UNWTO, is as a result of feedback from consultations with Africa Member countries.
The objective is to identify the best marketing ideas and strategies that will reposition and make prospective tourists, to see a different Africa, more positively, especially regarding Agenda 2030 and how to reposition tourism sector , to contribute effectively in realising the lofty Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Strategy
The practical assistant in marketing is being offered alongside others including helping to train and up-skill tourism workers, so that they can adapt to the new reality.
The UNWTO is, therefore, working closely with Africa Member countries to adopt innovative strategies and entrepreneurship, to overcome unprecedented challenges that require new ideas and voices.
Moreso, UNWTO seeks to work with member countries to realise their domestic and regional potential.
The Madrid based specialist agency urged member countries to evolve strong and responsible domestic tourism industry, to sustain livelihoods and rural communities, especially women and youth, for the gradual return of international tourism.
Appeal
The UNWTO in addition, calls for determined leadership among African countries, reiterating its confident in the ability of the tourism sector to bounce back stronger and its ability to adapt to challenges, learn lessons as well as embrace innovation and new ideas, which will be pivotal, “to restart tourism across Africa and so reestablish tourism as the ultimate driver of growth and opportunity for all,” as proven over the years, according to UNWTO.
…What’s Ghana’s Tourism Brand ID?
Product development and product packaging are essential elements in product branding, promotion and marketing to meet consumer need and satisfaction, to ultimately attain organisational set market targets and goals.
Branding becomes more indispensable, important, critical and essential in a very sensitive, delicate, dynamic and very competitive industry as tourism.
Potential
Ghana has great tourism potential as regards the four main natural, man-made, cultural and heritage tourism resource categories.
This potential, however, does not translate into an attractive brand national tourism image, it takes a lot of conscious innovation to create attractive and popular brands, which are packaged and promoted with the best marketing mix and marketing strategies, to become popular brands that gain and attain high consumer patronage and acceptance.
Brand campaign
The “Wear Ghana, See Ghana, Eat Ghana”, existing and ongoing national tourism brand campaign is too opaque, it is not attractive, concise and precise enough to make an appreciable impact , to attend the desired target results, the campaign needs review, amendment and realigning with specified identified professional and precise segmentations, which is an outstanding brand, re-enforced with the right, attractive and appropriate logos, colours, taglines among other scientific elements in formal branding enterprises.
Lack of branding
Tourism currently ranked as the largest biggest and fastest growing industry in vogue in the world, contributing critical and substantial foreign exchange into the socio-economic purse of many countries globally, over the years until the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in late 2019.
Our Homeland Ghana has a thousand and one tourism resources in all four broader resource categories of natural, cultural, heritage and man-made resources, which are evenly spread across the length and breadth of the country but pathetically earns paltry pittance from the global tourism market share, whilst other countries with less tourism resources rake billions of thousands of dollars from the blue gold of the 21st Century.
Ghana has all the ingredients including political stability, safety and security and a standard of fair road network and transport system, to be an endless model destination and tourism traffic hub but tarries behind and misses out on the global tourism index.
Potential
Our Homeland Ghana is well endowed with some unique and outstanding rare tourism resources but has no attractive and compelling tourism brand image and identity.
The country has failed woefully to brand itself touristically and, therefore, has no attractive tourism brand image and identity, on the tourism market index currently.
Way forward
Modern tourism is very competitive which has compelled all destinations to adopt dynamic, innovative, creative and robust strategies to create attractive brand images , to reposition themselves to attract the ever increasing dynamic sophisticative money bag tourist patrons and consumers, for a chunk of the rare blue tourism revenue.
There is, therefore, the need for the country to take pragmatic initiatives to commission and undertake in-depth researches to identify its industry competitive edge/ strength and take steps to create an outstanding national tourism image identify, properly segmented for both domestic and foreign tourism patronage and consumption.
Brand identity
The need arises to comprehensively brand the Homeland touristically with creative and innovative strategies, using very sound communication, marketing, branding and business promotional strategies and principles.
Brands
The national tourism branding exercise should create multiple competitive product sub-brands within a synchronised outstanding national brand to attract and satisfy the needs of visitor consumers of diverse tastes, needs and cultural backgrounds, with domestic and foreign consumer needs and targets.
Segmentation
The exercise must be very comprehensive with very clear and conspicuous and identified market segment targets including the broader domestic, specific consumers including the working class, students, faith, academia, research, conservation, youth, retirees markets and or consumers.
There also need to target other identifiable markets such as West Africa, Africa, African Diaspora, and the world at large among others, to create instantiations, irresistible and attractive brands within the National Image Tourism Brand.
Notable and possible attractive tags include Ghana-Land of Living in Diversity, Warm Hospitality, Sun, Beach, Rich Culture & More, Ghana-Land of Gold, Ghana-Footprints of Slavery and Colonisation, Ghana-Land of Endless Tourism Treasure, Warm Hospitality & More outstanding national tourism enclaves, circuits, clusters, zones, districts and regions along other remarkable sub-product units such as gold, slave routes, cocoa .oil, beach, waterfalls, wildlife, agriculture, education, health among others.
Marketing
Branding and marketing promotion are interrelated with common denominators with satisfactory customer and consumer experience to achieve desired market share in modern and an industry as competitive as modern tourism.
Promotion strategy is another critical and essential element in brand’s success narration in every endeavour.
Strategy
Sustained multi-media campaign messages in the form of press statements, press conferences, press soirees, interviews, using electronic (radio/television), banners, sign boards, print (newspapers, flyers, magazines), attendance of exhibitions, fairs/events ( home and abroad), and social media presence medium have , fair general media balanced media-mix presence all overbearing positive effects on brand evolution campaigns.
By Prince Dennis Klintings
The Writer is Brands, Branding, Communication, Marketing & Tourism Analyst
There is a scripture that is found in Matthew 6:22 which says that the lamp of the body is the eye and therefore the eye must see well to enable the body to get to its destination.
What most people do not know is that behind the scenes, there is a strong interaction between the eyes and the brain before a picture becomes clear. The state of mind therefore is crucial to the eye seeing clearly to enable the body to process accurately the information the eyes are feeding it for proper identification of what the eyes see.
This is similar to how a person behaves i.e. what informs the decisions that forms in the mind that results in the actions that a person performs. The actions of a person does not therefore just happen but is as a result of things that went on in the mind, which in most cases resulted from information passed on to it by the eyes either consciously or unconsciously.
There are so many issues that affect our society which makes one wonder, whether the people who displayed such acts were created by someone or something other than God.
How can a person see a beach created by God with beautiful beaches and fresh air blowing all around, decides to defecate at such places, and therefore desecrate the environment? lt is simply mind boggling?
When other people in other countries who dwell on the coast are using their beaches for tourist attraction purposes as a means of livelihood and also to promote environmental health, some people living around our beaches, have turned them into rubbish dumping sites and toilets.
It is a very sad situation and the earlier we did something about it the better. It is a national emergency that must engage the attention, first of the government and then the citizenry, where religious bodies and NGOs must play a critical role.
The things we focus on in this country, needs to be addressed. Our minds which processes the info the eyes send to the brain, must be disciplined. There are certain behaviours that a disciplined mind can ignore even when the eye has provided info to the brain. One of the things a disciplined mind does, is the avoidance of a second look, which is critical for every person who wants to avoid adultery or fornication.
Once a person is not blind, he will see things. The boobs, the ‘shankus’, the coca cola shapes, the light complexioned, the dark complexioned etc. the eyes will definitely see and report same to the brain. What the brain or the mind decides to do or instructs the eye to do is the issue.
It can decide to instruct the eye to take a second look and let the mind drool over it or say ignore it and that will be the end.
If the mind becomes trained to focus on environmental issues like clean environment, the eyes will automatically be reporting on insanitary conditions to the brain as and when it sees them. The mind will pay attention to such data and begin to process them and to identify solutions to deal with the reported insanitary conditions.
There is the need to encourage citizens to train the mind to focus on the right thing so that in tandem with the eyes, focus will be maintained. When the mind is so trained, it communicates with the eye to also focus on hood things that helps in both are spiritual life and our secular lives, for indeed the eyes are the lamp of the body. God bless.
THE relationship between New Times Corporation (NTC) and African Concrete Productions (ACP) is based entirely on matters of the stomach. Each depends on the other in a dietary symbiosis, reinforced by the close proximity of each other
At lunchtime, you’d see a particular set of Times workers marching regimentally to ACP to face the wall. You’d think they are soldiers. It has long been declared that the company manufactures the best kokonte in the Greater Accra Region. ACP is, therefore, a culinary haven for those NTC kokonte fans, both male and female.
As the NTC kokonte warriors cross the border to ACP, you’d see some ACP banku fanatics dancing joyously to NTC. They are lucky folks because they do not have to obtain visa to enter into ‘Times’ to attack the balls of banku with precision and accuracy. They also claim that the lightsoup at ‘Times’ is arguably the best in West Africa.
So the relationship between the two entities was quite cordial and based practically on stomach palaver, until ACP workers staged an industrial revolution, whereupon the managing director, accountant and estate manager were allegedly stripped naked and locked up in a room. An insurgency had began in earnest.
An ACP worker came to ‘Times’, this time not to eat banku and okro. He had come to inform newsmen that juicy stuff awaited them at ACP. It could make a front page lead story.
A camerawoman and a female reporter were accordingly dispatched to go and bring back news, juicy news as juicy as kokonte and groundnut soup.
I was driving to work when I espied the familiar camerawoman clicking away outside the ACP premises. I didn’t see any ‘Times’ reporter but angry workers who were on the verge of getting violent. I slowed down and the driver behind blew his horn at me like a lunatic. I drove on.
Later, I heard the reporter and camerawoman were harassed and brutalised. The report came,. “The camerawoman, Mrs Salome Adonu-Agbottah and reporter Mrs Doreen Allotey, in an attempt to retrieve the camera which the workers had seized from them were severely beaten. They were manhandled and almost pushed into a big gutter opposite the company’s premises.
BRUISES
“….The camerawoman had bruises on her body, her hand bag was destroyed and the money in it stolen. Mrs Allotey’s watch was also snatched and her feet stamped on.”
Luckily, it was not her nose that was trampled upon. She has a beautiful nose.
The bad news was received with extreme sorrow. If the victims had been men, it would not have seemed too bad. But to brutalise women is just unacceptable. The New Times Corporation has not stopped mourning the incident which has been condemned in many circles.
Some people keep asking me why Times sent females to cover a potentially violent demonstration. I tell them they might as well ask why CNN’s amazon, Christina Amanpour, is assigned to cover the carnage in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda. She is always on the frontline in jeans and jacket.
Journalism is a potentially hazardous profession, and once you accept to study and practise the trade, you might as well bone up to face any assignment as long as your superiors feel you are capable of handling it or you have demonstrated the capacity to handle it. Both males and females can be assigned anywhere, anytime just like policemen and women are assigned.
The only difference between cops and pressmen is that the latter are armed only with a pen and the former with a gun. The question is should newsmen also arm themselves so that in any event of an assault they would not be found wanting in self-defence? They can’t adequately defend themselves with a pen and a jotter. A pen cannot even disfigure an opponent’s upper lip.
Photo-journalists have particularly suffered violence. Spectator ace-cameraman Vincent Dzatse was severely assaulted by AMA men when he attempted to take pictures of their indiscretions.
Sports cameraman, P. K. Arthur has been beaten more than once at the sports stadium when riots errupted and he wanted to capture it on his lenses.
Some sports journalists have been banned from entering the Accra Sports Stadium by supporters because in their comments, they didn’t write “sense”. Some supporters once nearly lynched Christian Abbew, Spectator Sports Editor, near a courtroom. He was stoned like the biblical Stephen. He had gone to defend a contempt charge.
I think it is time journalists met and discussed how best to defend themselves in any event of an attack by individuals or mobs. In the pursuance of their duty, they must be free from harassment and assault.
Some journalists go to work and return home with a black-eye or a double fore-head. It is just not right. Something has to be done about it. I think journalists should be armed. But first we must be trained in the use of firearms so that our warning shot do not hit below the belt. What about training in Kung Fu?
This article was first published on Saturday, October 17, 1998.
