The Wall Street Journal’s blog ‘Japan Real Time’ recently reported that “the Japan Tourism Agency has proposed offering free airfare to 10,000 foreigners to visit the country next year.”
Interestingly, this isn’t the first intervention that Japan has tried since it was hit by that tsunami in March and then by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Almost immediately after the radiation leak hit the news, Japan “enlisted celebrities far and wide to reassure timid travelers that it’s safe to visit” (one such: Lady Gaga).
But it’s already clear that the celebrities campaign isn’t working – and now Japan wants to try a different tack.
In sales speak, what they want to do is called experiential marketing and, as wiseGEEK puts it so well, “The goal of experiential marketing is to establish the connection in such a way that the consumer responds to a product offering based on both emotional and rational response[s].”
The key word here is “rational.” In truth, there’s now very little if any danger for visitors to Japan, but the human being doesn’t often make buying decisions on rational thought alone.
That’s what happened after the Bali Bombing. (Remember that? It devastated the Indonesian tourism industry because everyone was too scared to go there.) But, as the deputy minister for tourism in Indonesia told us at a tourism safety conference in Cape Town some years ago – the Indonesians re-started their tourism economy by buying up thousands of hotel rooms and air tickets, and giving them away, free of charge. (I found an interesting pdf on the Balinese experience here).
And this is where I think we could take a lesson or two.
(One) If a campaign doesn’t work, it’s OK to change it; (two) you NEED to know what people think of you so that you can respond accordingly – which is one reason why it’s so important to watch the social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Tripadvisor. And (three) no matter whether you’re a country or a tiny B&B, giving people an actual experience of your product will improve your chances of selling your product. Dramatically.
I’ve had my own experience of the power of experiential marketing: I once ran a bird watching boat called the Kingfisher Ferry – but I started the business with no money and no marketing budget.
So I gave away as many tickets as I could.
By the time I was closed down as a result of floods 23 months later, I’d carried more than 6,500 people on my little 18-seater boat – 1,200 of them free of charge.
It worked. Of the 1,200, six hundred were people who couldn’t afford the trip (disadvantaged kids and pensioners, mostly), and six hundred were people who I thought would be able to influence others to come along as paying guests.
And they did.
By my reckoning, I’d sacrificed about 10% of my potential turnover, and in return received 100% of my actual business.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Stumble It!
4 users commented in " Japan to give away 10,000 air tickets. A lesson for us? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackLet salute the spirit this little (But big by heart) Country shows all the time..They have always converted every disaster into new opportunity to unite and grow..
My best wishes with them …
What a simple trick..tnx for reminding us…I think that’s what I am going to do next year 10% free-bee during the quiet mths May to Aug or maybe the whole year?
Cheers
Mk
Hello Martin
Its an interesting concept to give away airline tickets to kick start tourism into Japan, however I can’t quite see SA Tourism or SAA buying in with this sort of promotion, its just too radical for them.
However there are other ways of marketing a country and perhaps SA Tourism should consider a simple promotion that explains to the citizens of the USA that:-
They don’t need to give any “Aid Funding” to us here in South Africa.
That they don’t need to send any of their troops here to defend us.
That they can rather save their very expensive defence budget and cut their fiscal deficit by simply encouraging tourism to a friendly country like South Africa rather than spending money on wars.
And perhaps we could convince America to consider a complete change of direction in their foreign policy to assist “deserving” countries like South Africa simply through mass tourism to that country.
In return:
None of their soldiers would be returning to the USA in body bags.
Their airline industry would very quickly return to profit (and so would ours)
Their citizens would be made to feel very welcome here (as opposed to the many other countries who don’t always want American tourists) and they would enjoy a great holiday.
Their tourism spend would do more good by assisting to build a healthy economy in a friendly country such as South Africa, rather than spending billions of dollars on countries who are hostile to the USA and at war with them
The concept of “send us your tourists, not your troops” would allow us to purchase more of their manufactured goods with bilateral trade agreements. After all we have more in common with the USA (than China) with Barak as their President and a huge number of African Americans who might want to undertake heritage tourism here. Its a simple “carrot rather than stick” approach to their foreign policy
Their tourism spend would do more to promote friendship and democracy and the American approach to life, than all of the money they currently spend on defence.
Or perhaps that’s also too radical ? But somehow we have to find a way of kick starting international tourism into SA and just a few extra percentage points of increased tourism from the USA would actually achieve that goal for us. Make love not war!!! its not a new concept.
Regards and keep up the good work
Peter Rose
Totally agree. There needs to be a radicalized approach. Long time ago, i suggested to Tourism that here needs to be discount packages where the tourist provider and the government came together to offer great deals, especially to nearby towns such as Cape town, PE and Bloemfontein.
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