With more than 1,000 delegates from some 65 countries in Las Vegas 11th Global Travel & Tourism Summit got off to a great start, with a Welcome Dinner and spectacular Show hosted by the Aria Resort & Casino, the Summit venue.

Some of the key issues to be discussed during the Summit were addressed during WTTC’s AGM yesterday, with Members pledging their support to Japan to power the recovery of Travel & Tourism demand during a special session with high-level Japanese government and industry representatives. The 46-member strong delegation from Japan is a clear demonstration of Japan’s commitment to hosting the 12th Global Travel & Tourism Summit in Tokyo in 2012.

Discussed at the AGM were issues of concern to WTTC members, as well as the industry at large – such as visas, taxation, human resource and infrastructure constraints.

And Members all agreed that it was important for WTTC to take a stand on these issues, to try to reduce barriers to growth.

“Despite the trauma in Japan and the difficulties in the Middle East, all the forecasts nevertheless point to a strong increase in Travel & Tourism demand over the next ten years,” David Scowsill, WTTC President & CEO, told the media at the opening press conference. “WTTC will work hard, in co-operation with industry partners and the public sector, to ensure that we can manage this growth.”

“Partnership is key,” Scowsill added. “We are now one year into our third decade and partnership will be one of our main focuses over the next ten years. We will be focusing on working with governments – neither the public nor private sector can go it alone.”

Scowsill cited a number of examples of public-private sector partnership in which WTTC is engaged, such as the Global Leaders for Tourism campaign involving WTTC and the world Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and the new project being launched by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping with the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and WTTC on Creating New Opportunities for Building Business Growth.

Reminding media attending the conference of the mission of WTTC – to raise awareness of the importance of Travel & Tourism – he commented: “Travel & Tourism is not just about holidays and fun, but a serious economic activity on which many people’s livelihoods depend.

“Working with the Minister of Tourism, we need to reach the Ministries of Finance, and Heads of state,” Scowsill said.

Last week we found a great resource for Travel, Tourism and hospitality news in the East Africa region. Wolfgang Thome, a professor and journalist maintains a comprehensive blog featuring travel-worthy news in the region. He was kind enough to write a great article for us. One paragraph resonated for me which shows we are on track to achieve our mission:

“The real good news though is that smaller ‘one property’ companies can now take advantage of the Yellow Masai booking site, without having to spend mega bucks to create their own and often due to the transaction sizes not exactly viable booking engine, or ‘buying into one’ on a shared platform, something the hospitality giants in East Africa can afford but smaller businesses cannot”- WolfGang Thome.

Democratizing online booking and letting the smaller tour operators, hotels be more visible is a core mission. What’s also more exciting is that our partners are recognizing this and sending us packages daily, we literally can’t keep up now. With so many scattered operators with varying websites, look and feel- its just more efficient to find it all in one place.

Some packages are truly unique, such as this 14 day mountain biking safari and cultural package and this Golfing and Zanzibar combination trip. We are now showing over 20 packages on our site and we expect to double that in the next month. We will then start organizing them smartly by categories for different segments e.g. Honeymoon, Family etc… as well as group sizes. Many safaris or packages are really optimized for a certain group size for real value- a topic for a future post.

We are also recognizing that many want custom packages and have responded by creating a page you can put in your inquiry.

An interesting article was released on eTravel News on how Tanzania is switching to ancient methods of using embassies to promote tourism. A move that would herald a return to the command and control economy Tanzania once employed following independence. Rather than rant about how bad this idea is- I wanted to provide suggestions of my own which also hint as to why we founded Yellow Masai to begin with. Whilst the Government cannot do all of these things since the private sector will most certainly be marketing, they can certainly do their part and create an enabling environment.

1. Invest in a better website and online presence across regions and destinations
In today’s world, the first place people increasingly turn to in finding about a destination is a google search. This is especially true for the younger generation who may never have visited a travel agent. The current tanzania destination website can use much needed improvement in supporting more languages, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), going in depth on content and be updated more frequently and maintain a blog and invest in social media channels such as facebook, youtube and twitter. One website is not enough, they should open destination specific ones where it makes sense- it should also do a better job of linking various resources and highlighting various events in the Tanzania travel calendar- for instance, the Zanzibar Film Festival, Serengeti Migration. The Government can also encourage more regional control of tourism. A great example is this Tanga Tourism Guide created by Herman of MamboViewPoint, the Tanga Regional Commissioner and many volunteers and local associations with in an interest. I particularly love the slogan “Tanzania’s secret between the Ocean and Parks”- positioning the region as a place to visit in-between 2 important physical attractions within Tanzania. How many more secrets could be marketed this way?

One great example of the use of social media is what britain has done with it’s LoveUK facebook page which allows travelers to checkin on Facebook and hence gauge the popularity of an attraction and broadcast that on their page- very clever.

2. Attend Tourism related tradeshows: Rather than utilize embassies to promote tourism- they should be hitting the major tradeshows around the world in key markets such as Germany, UK, UAE, Italy, USA as well as emerging ones such as India, China, Russia and Brazil with increasing levels of disposable income.

And of course one that is particularly relevant to Tanzania is INDABA in Durban, South Africa. Where the most serious of safari exhibitors can be found the Government could do a shared exhibit with many smaller tour operators who might not be able to afford it on their own.

3. Collaborate with neighboring countries to market the region: Governments need to stop treating tourism in the region as a zero sum game where in fact most tourists who are coming from a long way or even regionally want to combine visiting several countries. They could establish a single EAC tourism visa to save travelers money, make it much smoother for tour operators to visit several parks at once such as the Masai Mara, Serengeti and Tsavo. Zanzibar should cut the red-tape required for tourists to go through another immigration checkpoint when arriving from mainland Tanzania.

4. Sustain brand advertising on popular channels: A few years ago, Tanzania released a great TV ad that appeared in the news channels capturing global attention. Particularly, the tag line: The land of Serengeti, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar and a focus on the friendly people and great culture. The problem is that the adverts dried up after about 1 year. The same advert can be used online and broadcasted cost effectively and targeted across travel sites such as lonelyplanet.com or national geographic- right now a lot of the ad inventory for Africa on these websites are filled with only airlines and no sign of tour operators and hotels- a opportunity to reuse this great video for better distribution on behalf Tanzania tourism.

5. Promote cultural and “voluntourism”: Given the social challenges that face many African countries including Tanzania, and the growing shared responsibilities all citizens of the world feel in tackling the most pressing social problems such as poverty and global health. we should highlight great NGOs and social ventures that could use interns and volunteers from colleges, gap year students to retirees who are looking for ways to make a difference whilst traveling. This is particularly important as the benefits flows directly to the communities. There are an increasing number of hotels that make a point of showcasing the great work they are doing to help their communities as well as running a sustainable operation.

6. Help dispel the Africa danger myth: Tanzania is one of the most stable African countries compared to neighbors- we should be promoting this fact and do a better job of educating against the common preconcieved notions that Africa is dangerous, this will help attract tourists who want a change of pace and are not necessarily looking for adventure and otherwise put off visiting the region. Especially to destinations such as Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia which can offer tranquil beach vacations.

7. Take a firm stance on conservation: Tanzania has an enviable record on conservation and with more than 30% of the country set aside as protected land, we are actually globally recognized leader for this. However, recent decisions regarding the Serengeti highway has raised global interest and could threaten this image. Whether one is for or against the highway, it is clear that potential tourists are influenced by the outcome.

8. Showcase new and popular activities: Whilst Tanzania is known for its wildlife and other landmark sites such Kilimanjaro, not everyone goes there just for that. We should do more to draw in the more active segments in those who are seeking thrills such as kitesurfing in the windiest parts of the swahili coast and Group Yoga retreats in peaceful quiet mountain areas such as Lushoto or foothills of Kilimanjaro. One could even promote Kilimanjaro marathon or tap into the growing triathlon movement combing running, cycling and swimming- these athletes are always looking for exciting new destinations and challenges.

9. Collect better feedback : The government should improve their methods of data collecting and gathering feedback from tourists, this will help the country collectively know where we stand on our offerings and what tourists increasingly want- the earlier we get these signals the better chance we have of meeting them in time. Consumer tastes constantly change.

10. Invest in Training: This is a big one. We need to make sure the staff employed in the tourism industry are properly trained- from speaking more languages at the high end in serving new markets to the basics of hospitality management at hotels and lodges- this will help put a premium on both wages as well higher end and more sustainable tourism. The Government, private sector and donors can collaborate to build training centers in the country to address this at the local level.

East Africa’s biggest music festival and one of Zanzibar’s main attractions is next week! Sauti Za Busara is in it’s 8th year and it takes place in  Stone Town’s Old Fort over five nights featuring some of the best African artists.

The festival not only features great music with hundreds of musicians, but also has street parade, markets,drum and dance, fashion shows, dhow races and after parties.

Here are some great sources for planning a trip there.

• For official  information visit www.busaramusic.org
• You can also  follow the festival’s  Facebook group here for the latest updates.
• Our friends at MamboMagazine have a great nutshell guide to the festival

In addition, check out Yellow Masai hotel listings for places to stay in Zanzibar from stone town to the beach resort areas. As well as our packages listings- we will be adding an exciting package over the 5 days in the next couple of days to celebrate our launch!

Here’ a video of highlights from the 2009 festival:

Happy New year to all our partners and the world of travelers!
Below are our commission rates for partners signing up on Yellow Masai travel portal. The rates are applicable until June 2011.

YM Commission Pricing List Jan2011

Today Safaricom in Kenya announced upcoming details of their M-PESA ticket service which got us very excited here at Yellow Masai- this is one of the core reasons we believe in serving both the international and domestic market and this service will make it easier for us to connect and light up all our partners with this service especially as we begin to think about entering the Kenyan market in 2011. The partners the service has signed up at launch so far are Air Kenya, Akamba, ALS,Kenya Airways, Safarilink and all IATA Airlines and Hotels. You have to go to a M-PESA store to actually make payments, but regardless this addresses the 20M+ users in Kenya who already use the service. We hope this service will be available for online merchants for doing bookings over the internet.
Right now the service is not available in Tanzania under Vodacom, but since Kenyans are more active traveller across East Africa, we are excited of the prospects of enabling this with Kenyan travelers bound for Tanzania to begin and we will work with out existing partners on providing ticketing via mobilebanking for Tanzanians for M-PESA, Airtel Money, TigoPesa and Z-PESA.

Just wanted to provide an update to our plans here at YellowMasai. We are  (still) nearing launch and have been working around the clock to get content ready on various destinations and get some of our partner packages ready for launch- we had planned on being ready in November, but the difficulties is setting up the ecommerce infrastructure to take credit cards has delayed us somewhat. Meanwhile we have continued to sign up great partners including some hotels in Zanzibar where we were also having difficulty. Whilst delayed, we wanted to reassure you all that we are getting closer to Launch with now over 200 partners.

Wanted to wish all of our partners  and supporters a Happy Christmas whilst we could not help you with your travel plans across Tanzania and East Africa this time- we wish you safe travels and in the new year we hope to see your research and bookings begin here from next year

We wanted to take the time to plug one of our partners in Zanzibar who would appreciate our x-mas image below. Congrats to the team at MamboMagazine, a site dedicated to Zanzibar, for launching their site last month- which looks fantastic.

We are busy doing final integrations and testing before we launch- you will begin to see more areas of the site open up over the next few weeks. The team is working flat out doing final integrations on ecommerce.

I also wanted to bring attention to our Dar Guide article and the beginning of our marketing promotions over the next 3 months.

Yellow Masai Dar Guide November 2010

The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development released it’s vision for a new city in the Kigamboni region, a beautiful area to the south of Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is dreaming of a 500,000 population city adjacent to Dar es Salaam to cope with the growing economy and to try reposition the area as a hub. As part of this, it is encouraging to see that the Government is setting aside land for tourism development due to the pristine beaches in the area. They are expecting this city to reach the full maturity by 2030.