To Mikumi and Beyond. . .

When thinking of cost-efficient and effective ways of marketing today, the use of social media is at the forefront. When challenged with the need of marketing tourism in rural East Africa, social media once again, is where we landed.
NSCC has been partners with the Vocational Training Centre in Mikumi Tanzania (VETA Mikumi) for three years now through an EFE project building capacity in tourism training. Through this project, the students, faculty and administration at VETA Mikumi have established a Tourist Information Centre (TIC) on campus to help provide information on their conference centre facilities as well as the surrounding tourist attractions and amenities. The challenge then became how to attract tourists to the TIC and Mikumi in general.
Although there are still several network problems in Tanzania and internet and electricity can’t always be depended on social media sites, especially Facebook, are in high use. The first phase of the marketing strategy thus became establishing a Facebook page promoting the TIC at VETA Mikumi. Faculty and students will add content to the page and help administer it. Links, photos and videos of local hotels and restaurants as well as information on the nearby national park will be added to the page. Eventually we hope to have the Facebook page linked to other websites such as Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet to help drive potential visitors to the page.
During my time in Mikumi in early June, I was able to share the Facebook page with the faculty and administration as well as the plans for future social media marketing. I also had the pleasure of spending some time with a dynamic young woman, Grace Kabogo, who is newly in charge of marketing for the entire VETA system in Tanzania. We were able to discuss a strategy for her to use Facebook, blogs and Twitter to help promote the VETA Centres around the country to potential and current students. Let’s just say it wasn’t long before Grace and I were friends on Facebook.
Overall our mission was a success and I left Mikumi a little dusty and tired but encouraged by the potential we have to share information with an institution such as VETA Mikumi through social media. Tanzania and Nova Scotia may be geographically far apart, but I’m feeling incredibly connected after this experience. Join the VETA Mikumi TIC Facebook group today at www.facebook.com/MikumiTourism

Kellie McMullin
NSCC International