Marketing campaigns to cover 'lost' bookings, encourage more trade

Durban Last Minute

TBWA\Group\Durban has created Durban Last Minute, a web portal and marketing campaign for the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Tourism and FEDHASA to help market the excess supply of accommodation, following the last minute cancellations of accommodation bookings by FIFA's Match Hospitality. The booking and loyalty platform, launched on 8 June 2010, has resulted in new bookings and more than 46 000 hits between 8-14 June.

Justin McCarthy, group MD of TBWA\Group\Durban, says, "The campaign needed to communicate that there is still an abundance of accommodation available at incredibly low prices in Durban during June and July 2010. With the very tight time lines, a web portal was the logical solution and we were able to set this up within a week."

The portal has been designed with the same look and feel as Durban's FIFA World Cup 2010 website and marketing material and to the city's current advertising campaign, 'Durban: The Warmest Place to be in 2010'. It allows hotels, B&Bs, lodges and guesthouses to register free and load their available accommodation and special deals. Discounts are available, thanks to partnerships with suppliers such as airlines and car rental agencies.

CRM system provide prizes, incentives

Discounted Lifestyle, a South African provider of loyalty programmes locally and internationally, has licensed its software, providing the many innovative features of its 'loyalty' technology for the purposes of this campaign. The portal is backed by a CRM system, which facilitates bulk email contact to a closed user group environment of up to 3 million members on the variety of the company's programmes at any time.

It includes a 'real-time' availability feed for bookings, where members can get extra instant prizes for being a sequentially selected participant when placing an order. There are a number of exciting features on this site, including a 'What's On' Diary and instant prizes for every 5th overall booking made through the facility at the destination chosen.

Driving traffic to portal

The agency's next challenge was to drive people to the website. Initially, this was done via a media conference. On 15 June, the campaign went live on TV, in the form of tags on the existing Durban 2010 adverts, with press adverts following from 16 June. From 21 June, activations took place in the streets of Johannesburg, with baggies- and bikini-clad models handing out pamphlets and sunscreen. The 'surfers' held surfboards that featured the web portal's address.

McCarthy concludes, "This portal provides the province's tourism industry with great future opportunities, as the industry players can continue to use it to market their special deals. It also allows the tourism industry to manage communications with a growing database of current and future tourists." Go to www.durbanlastminute.co.za to access the portal.

Eastern Cape exhibition in Germany, Port Elizabeth

The Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) has taken its 'Eastern Cape From Above' picture exhibition, which has been shown in a number of German cities since 2008, back to South Africa for display in the Port Elizabeth airport departure hall. The marketing campaign will run from mid-June to December 2010.

The ECFA exhibition shows panoramic views of Eastern Cape's tourism spots as well as investment and industrial projects. Its goal is to entice visitors from abroad and elsewhere in the country to return to the province and consider Eastern Cape as a venture and leisure destination. "We want to encourage them to see more of the province next time. We want to showcase to business people the infrastructure the province has to offer at industrial development zones (IDZs) and ports," says ECDC's Pierre Leppan.

"Selecting the departure hall was because people arriving at an airport are not in the frame of mind to study photos and read write ups. They would normally be looking for their baggage and wondering where the car hire company is located. At the departures hall, people usually need to wait for flights hence we expect a high number of people to view the exhibition and read the info panels attached to each picture," he adds.

According to ACSA, the city's airport will handle 6 000 visitors per day during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a 200% surge on the normal count. Over 30 days this will translate to 120 000 more people passing through the airport.

Leppan added that a similar exhibition had been on track in Germany since April 2010, starting in Munich station and on to Düsseldorf, Bremen and Kiel stations. It is in Hanover from June 22 to July 7 and its final German destination for 2010 is Mannheim station from July 19 to August 12.

The ECDC says the previous exhibition got great reviews in Germany and through it, Buffalo City municipality and the Office of the Premier secured twinning with La Rochelle municipality in Germany.