DESTINATION MARKETING
AFRICA SHOULD TELL
HER OWN VERSION
OF STORIES
By Ben Asoro
I
s Africa perception affecting your
marketing initiatives? Yes it does
in my world.
Having been born and bred in
Africa with considerable travel
exposure around the globe, I have
never realized how much the rest
of the world doesn’t know about us
Africans!
To the rest of the World Africa is
‘‘To the rest of the
World Africa is one
country and because
I come from Africa,
when am in New York
for a meeting, for
example, I must be
knowing Mr. Adebayo
or Mr. Zulu with
whom you attended
the same university
a while back in
California.’’
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one country and because I come
from Africa, when am in New York
for a meeting, for example, I must be
knowing Mr. Adebayo or Mr. Zulu
with whom you attended the same
university a while back in California.
Apparently this is the rest of the
World (read: Western media lenses)
that Africa depends on to tell her
own story. It is no wonder we get
very positive coverage as a hot bed of
all negative things.
I was particularly shocked the other
day when one of the leading media
house had a live interview from
Atlanta interviewing their African
correspondent based in Johannesburg
on Boko haram incident in Bono
State which is 1400km from Lagos!
To put things in proper perspective,
the South African based
correspondent would have to catch
a 5hrs flight from Jo’burg to get to
Nigeria, take a 2hr domestic flight to
mid North of Nigeria and then spend
a couple of days with a good 4WD
vehicle to reach the place where she
was being interviewed on ‘breaking
news’ in Africa!
Before I digress further, let me
demonstrate my point of view with
the following illustration: In my
world, MICE Industry (Meetings,
Incentives, Conferences, and Events/
Exhibitions) has been referred to
as the resilient niche of the larger
tourism industry. Nevertheless, Africa
perception still remains the greatest
impediment to realizing the full
potential as compared with the other
destinations.
A few weeks after the unfortunate
incident in Paris last year, the
destination still managed to host
one of the biggest and high profile
conferences on Climate change.
If Paris was in Africa, would you
honestly think the event could have
still taken place? My answer is a big
NO. ‘Why?’ you may probablyh be
asking. And my response is that over
time France has built a ‘supporting
infrastructure’ to guarantee some
degree of resilience.
The quick succession of World
leaders holding press conferences
within hours of attack is appointer
to my assumption. The Political class,
the (western) media and the MICE
industry fraternity provided the
synergy for the destination to soldier
on despite such an incident.