Zoom advertising helps turn tourism green

The brainchild of Zoom's creative director, Deon Robbertze, the initiative is simple to grasp, simple to implement. Every R80 collected will pay for the planting of a tree in Africa and Zoom will partner with Food and Trees for Africa, www.trees.co.za, to plant the trees in disadvantaged communities. “Through this”, Robbertze explains, “travellers will be invited to pay a small amount extra on their tickets to offset the impact of their travel.

“SA Tourism recently stated that we need to do something about the carbon footprint overseas visitors make when they visit our country. ‘My tree in Africa' is a solution. With 2010 looming, we need to promote South Africa as environmentally responsible, because many of these visitors will be green-aware.”

So far, Zoom has already signed up Giltedge. Giltedge had been investigating options to link with a suitable environmental programme and jumped at the chance to get on board with the ‘My tree in Africa' campaign. Giltedge is now presenting the concept to all its business partners, agents and associates throughout the world and is issuing a newsletter to its regular customers to sign them up to the idea and get the green ball rolling.

Gaining momentum by the day, Zoom has just signed up Travel Smart, www.travel-smart.co.za to the ‘My Tree in Africa' campaign. Travel Smart - which is a group of companies, of which Giltedge Travel is one member - has gone one step further and stated it will also make its own organisation carbon neutral.

Zoom is also busy talking to government and more major tourism organisations about joining the ‘My Tree in Africa' campaign so that the South African tourism industry can be united in one effort to offset its negative impacts on the global environment.

Zoom's managing director, Steve Massey adds: “Zoom promotes sustainable marketing because, in the future, more and more consumers will only buy brands that act responsibly in the environment, socially and economically. We are urging our clients and associates to think green, to be responsible and to take the lead with campaigns such as the ‘My Tree in Africa' initiative so that we can bring about effective change and make a positive difference.”

Zoom has also been invited to handle all the marketing and be the lead agency for the 2009 Green Marketing Conference.