Review: Online tourism efforts for WelcometoSwaziland.com stillborn

Swaziland (where I was born 35 years ago) is a landlocked country neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique. Culture and traditional customs plays a major role in attracting tourists into the country. Swaziland Tourism Authority is the destination marketing organization tasked in promoting the country as an attractive tourism destination.

Apart from using various media platforms to spread the message about tourism, Swaziland Tourism Authority owns www.welcometoswaziland.com a website that offers the organization another medium that could be aggressively used in selling tourism. Below are my findings about the website, join the journey to see how this valuable resource is used…

HOMEPAGE CONTENT
The animated header with rotating beautiful Swaziland scenery (depicting wild life, cultural event and river) is the only appealing element of the homepage. There is a brief welcome message on the body of homepage. There is a slide feature on the right side bar of events taking place throughout the country. You can also view a clickable map of Swaziland on the left side bar, reflecting the 4 districts (provinces in SA) of the country.

WelcometoSwaziland.com homepage

My Take
A homepage provides premium real estate to sell/market a destination. A properly designed website with a clear mandate can easily market Swaziland as a tourism destination for Swaziland Tourism Authority. First impressions last, for any potential visitor to Swaziland, browsing on www.welcometoswaziland.com does not generate an interest as the website is dismally failing to market tourism.

My Recommendations
1. Add a side bar widget with a brief introduction about Swaziland Tourism Authority, with a link to a detailed page.
2. Showcase major tourist attractions to potential visitors using photographs and video clips. The widlife link only lists privately owned game parks and missing government owned parks. As a government funded entity it is only logical that government owned nature reserves get promoted.
3. Add contact details of the authority for better communication with the outside world. The current contacts link does not have any contact information.
4. Showcase visiting guests using tourism facilities in the country.
5. Add the various lodging facilities with a rotating slide gallery for equal exposure. The current accommodation link doesn’t showcase lodging facilities on the homepage. The thumbnail photograph per property does not give maximum exposure (each profiled facility must have a set of different images to give potential guests the true ‘picture’ about property).
6. The registration links (below) meant for product owners, must be removed from the homepage…
Accomodations Regulations
Application form for Campsites
Application form for Backpackers
Application form for Hotels
Application for Replacement of Documents

SOCIAL MEDIA
Swaziland Tourism Authority does not have any presence on social networking websites.

My Take
Social media plays an important role of spreading the message/news pretty quickly and free of charge. As a destination marketing organization responsible for attracting tourists into the country, an active social media presence is very important. Today’s travellers are internet savvy and use the internet to research about their next travels and to make bookings.

Therefore by using all the available social networking websites to promote and sell Swaziland as a tourism destination will convert more internet users who would have otherwise have not known about this destination to consider visiting. This role can be better performed by the marketing/communications/PR department.

My Recommendations:
1. Create a facebook.com page – this will help the authority to interact with potential visitors into the country and also answer any questions they might have about happenings in Swaziland.
2. Create a twitter.com account – again, this will assist in spreading any immediate announcements to create a critical mass within a short space of time.
3. Create a VirtualTourist.com account – here potential travellers pose questions about a destination (Swaziland also get questions from travellers). Warning: never self promote, they’re faster than the speed of lightening in banning users who self promote (I’ve been shown the RED card already).
4. Create a Wiwih.com account – Who is Who in Hospitality is a membership website for tourism professionals to network. Sharing notes with experienced peers from around the world would go a long way into ensuring staff at Swaziland Tourism Authority use the internet to its full potential in marketing the destination.
5. Join Google Alerts – in order to monitor all published content about Swaziland Tourism Authority of the internet. Every time something is mentioned about the authority, an alert will be sent informing the authority about the link concerned. This will help Swaziland Tourism Authority to stay on top of the game in terms of its PR/communication (even with this very web review, they should be aware about it and take the necessary steps in order to respond if they see fit).
6. Create a Flickr.com account – to showcase photographs, such as the reed dance pictures owned by the authority, but not found on their website.
7. Create a YouTube.com account – to promote all video footage about tourism in Swaziland. Similar to the below video clip where the CEO, Eric Maseko was interviewed by SADirect at Indaba last year.

INDUSTRY UPDATES
Swaziland Tourism Authority and the Swaziland Tourism Ministry have engaged in various marketing efforts to attract tourists into the country, however all these initiatives are not published on the website.

My Take
There needs to be a way of communicating a message with website browsers that Swaziland is ready and waiting to host them throughout the year.

My Recommendation
1. The tourism ministry recently launched a ‘Visit Swaziland’ marketing campaign, this should be promoted on www.welcometoswaziland.com to land a hand to government’s initiative.
2. Swaziland Tourism Authority, together with Mpumalanga Tourism and Mozambique Tourism recently signed an agreement to pull together in a marketing effort to benefit all three countries. Nothing about this agreement was published on the website.
3. In July 2009, the ‘Visit Swaziland’ campaign was staged in Johannesburg, however nothing about this event was mentioned on the website.
4. The tourism ministry together with Swaziland Tourism Authority recently hosted tourism stakeholders in Maputo in an affect to get Mozambicans into visiting Swaziland, again such an initiative cannot be seen on the website.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Only the keyword ‘Swaziland’ is optimized for search engines.

My Take
Potential guests searching the internet do not all use one keyword about a destination, therefore it is important that you include the most possible keywords that could be used in order to widen your chances of making the first results page.

Current Keywords
Title Tag Analysis:
Welcome To Swaziland – Home

Meta Description Tag Analysis
Welcome to Swaziland, Swaziland Tourism Authority

Meta Keywords Tag Analysis
holiday, culture, Kingdom, tourism, destination, resort, big game, adventure, activities, Africa, accommodation, attractions, food, wildlife, incwala, restaurants, Swazi food, royalty, reed dance

My Recommendations
It is important to note that I’ve narrowed down the keywords to be country specific. Using general keywords will not serve the purpose since you’re competing with millions well optimised websites on the world wide web.

Title Tag Analysis:
Swaziland Hotels, Accommodation / Swaziland Travel/ Visit Swazi

Meta Description Tag Analysis
Swaziland Travel/ Swaziland Hotels/ Swaziland Tours/ Explore Swaziland/ Swaziland Reed Dance/WelcometoSwaziland.com/Visit Swaziland

Meta Keywords Tag Analysis
Swaziland Travel / Swaziland Hotels /Swaziland Tours / Swaziland Tourism / Swaziland King /  Swaziland Reed Dance / Swaziland Incwala/ Swaziland First Fruit / Swaziland Royalty / Swaziland King Mswati 111/Visit Swaziland

Next week the spotlight falls on Gauteng Tourism Authority’s website www.gauteng.net, I’ll scrutinise if it truly represents tourism in the economic powerhouse of South Africa?

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