This edition of This Tourism Week is brought to you by Houston Travel Marketing. Join them in Holland and England immediately after this year’s ITB - see details below or go here

There’s a Recession on - let’s stop marketing… and start selling.

Because if we’ve got our backs to the wall, that’s what’s going to get us out of the dwang, isn’t it? Actual, you know, cash in the bank?

Well, on the surface of it, yes. But two pieces I read last week made me see this question in a bigger light.

First, Seth Godin … oh, wait. Just as I typed those words, a Knysna loerie (I REFUSE to call it anything else - except perhaps ‘Tauraco carythaix,’ which is its zoological name. See my rant on the subject of bird names in the BarefootBooskhop)… (ahem) Just as I typed those words a Knysna loerie glided into the tree right outside my window and started calling. I looked up, saw it (deep green with its red under-wings and white eyebrows), and two thoughts crossed my mind: (a) nice advertising, Guy, and (2) where else in the world could I have had just this experience?

Which lead me onto some other ideas: (a) yes, but what if I wasn’t interested? Or if I was so bombarded by bird calls that I couldn’t tell if it was a loerie or a poppet-faced vulture? And (b) HEY! That’s it! THAT’S why people should be coming here.

Now, back to extraordinary marketing guru Seth Godin (I’ve just started reading his book, ‘Free Prize Inside’): he had this to say about marketing in a recession: “When times are good, buying things is a sport. It’s a reward. The story we tell ourselves is that we deserve it, that we want it and why not?

“When the mass psychology changes and times are seen as not so good, the story we tell ourselves changes as well. Now, we buy out of defence, to avoid trouble. Or we buy because something will never be as cheap again. Or we buy smaller items for the same sense of reward.

“Of course, the two different extremes can lead you to buy the very same thing. It’s not the thing so much as it’s the story.

“Starbucks was the indulgence of a confident person happy to blow $4 on a cup of coffee. Starbucks can become the small indulgence for the person who just traded down to a small rented apartment.

“The challenge for marketers is to figure out how to change the story they are living so that their customers can change the story they tell themselves. What you make, where you make it, who makes it, how it’s priced and sold and … it all adds up to a perception. If you change these elements the story will change too.” (at sethgodin.typepad.com)

And the second piece I want to bring to you came from a less likely source: the BBC News.

In ‘Optimism Is The Cure For The Downturn,’ Sir David Tang (Hong Kong-born, English-educated entrepreneur and founder of the Shanghai Tang clothing chain), wrote, “Pessimism is the most serious cause for the global economic tsunami.

“There is an ocean of people who are now feeling so depressed that not only have they become resigned to the fact that they are in deep trouble, but they have told everybody else that they are also in deep trouble.

“Pessimism has an uncanny knack of being self-fulfilling.

“No wonder almost every single quoted share in the world has gone down significantly, mostly by half, if not much more.

“It is only with a sense of optimism, preferably accompanied by a sense of energy and laughter, that we will be able to pick ourselves up from a broken Humpty Dumpty” (or, as my favourite two-year-old [who doesn’t give a rocking horse’s ass about any damned recession] has it, “Hormtee Dormtee”).

… all of which inevitably lead me to a coupla conclusions (which, by the way, are the things that have always underpinned the work I do for all my clients. So I’ve kind of vindicated myself):

1. Look for what makes you unique and tell us about it. Every bird’s got wings and I don’t wanna know about them. But only the loerie’s got those incredible red under-wings - and if I’d never seen them before, I sure as hell would want you to tell me where I could go to look for them. So I’d notice your message.

2. Keep marketing. Even if we don’t make those sales now, we will when the recession ends (and everything ends). But if we stop spending on marketing, everyone will have forgotten us when they start looking to spend again (see? Even awareness ends. And it ends a lot quicker than you think).

3. Keep hoping (and laughing). It’s a lot easier than despair, and the results are usually more rewarding.

4. The loerie is right. If you have something interesting to say and you’re sufficiently unique in what you do, SOMEONE’S gonna listen (and on this subject - check out this amazing and amusing video that I found on Hotel e-marketer):

Jobs in Tourism

Hardly surprising that my Jobs in Tourism page has recently become the most visited page on This Tourism Week.

Here, you’ll find

  • an extraordinary marketer who’s looking for a position in the Cape (and who has heaps of experience in tourism-specific media);
  • an all-rounder who has experience in every aspect of property management (and is a qualified interior designer and horticulturist, too. Any hotels out there looking to employ someone who can supply their kitchens with beautifully arranged baskets of produce from their own herb and vegetable gardens?)

… as well as a really useful resource that I borrowed from a great site called Young Hotelier: it’s a downloadable pdf document called ‘Hotel Jobs: A Hotelier’s Guide To Job Hunting In The New Online World’ by Jitendra Jain - and it’s here.

So - go to work, get laughing and go on holiday. It’s in the industry’s best interests.

And in the meantime…

Have A GREAT Tourism Week

Join Houston Travel Marketing in Holland and England

In the tough times that we’re facing, it’s so important to maintain your international sales and marketing initiatives - and with this in mind, Houston Travel Marketing offers some very cost-effective marketing opportunities for networking with tour operators and other important tourism professionals in Holland and the UK immediately after this year’s ITB.

Spotlight Holland Workshops - Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 March in Utrecht and Rotterdam.

This is the fourth year in which Houston Travel Marketing Services has linked up with Holland-based Tourism Africa (Niel Venter and Anneli Bronkhorst) to organise our Spotlight on Holland workshops in Utrecht and Rotterdam. We’ve chosen Utrecht as it offers convenient rail connections for members of the trade based in Central Amsterdam, Eastern and Northern Holland. Rotterdam (the main commercial centre of The Netherlands) is also convenient for operators in the Southern part of Holland and in The Hague.

Total cost: Euro1800.00 for both workshops.

London & South-East England Workshops - Thursday 19 and Friday 20 March 2009

Our Friday morning networking workshop in Central London (Royal Garden Hotel Kensington) will feature pre-scheduled appointments with 40 to 50 major tour operators and travel agencies.

We have teamed up with AMG Events - which handles a number of blue-chip tourism clients and has established Network Namibia as one of the major dates on the UK tourism calendar.
The key advantage of this format is that AMG Events will personally target and talk to the top tour operators and travel agencies to actively encourage them to attend and make appointments with exhibitors.

Our Thursday evening workshop will be held at the Holiday Inn in Brighton and will target tour operators and travel agents in South East England (Sussex and Kent) - an important source market for Africa travel. This will be a traditional, free-flow workshop.

Total cost - GBP1100 for both workshops

Visit www.houstonmarketing.co.za  for full details on all Spotlight Workshops scheduled for 2009.

Arabian Travel Market Dubai (5 - 8 May)

Only three booths left! The South Africa stand is being organised by our Consulate in Dubai - join 30 blue-chip South African companies to gain high end business from the Middle East and the Gulf.

Bookings: Derek Houston, Houston Travel Marketing Services
Telephone: 0027 12 665 0896 / 665 1191 / 665 2323
Fax : +27 12 665 1677
Mobile 082 464 0901
derek@houstonmarketing.co.za