Zambia Tourism Board


Frankly a lot more is required than ‘rebranding’:

The Zambia Tourism Board has announced it will launch a new tourism brand by the end of the first quarter of this year. The goal of this initiative is to increase annual tourist visits to Zambia from about 810,000 in 2009 to 3 million by the end of 2017. Donald Pelekamoyo, ZTB Tourism Promotion Manager, says the re-branding will comprise the development of a new strapline for Zambian tourism, as well as a new logo to go with the new strapline. He says: “We aim to come up with a destination brand that represents the core essence and consistent characteristics of Zambia.”

Pelekamoyo says the development of the new brand will take into account Zambia’s core market segments, the results of consumer research conducted by Cornell University, the country’s current competitive position, wide stakeholder consultation, continuous communication with players in the tourism industry as well as the advocacy of the adoption of the new brand by all of Zambia’s commercial and other stakeholders.

Pelekamoyo explains that ZTB has been working closely with Cornell University, which has conducted comprehensive qualitative research into the market. The Cornell team surveyed American, British, Asian and South African citizens to gauge perceptions of Zambia. Robert Kwortnik, Associate Professor of Service Marketing at Cornell, says: “The obvious conclusion was that there is a complete lack of brand awareness. Zambia is simply unknown.”

Danalee May from Born Free Safaris in the US, confirms that Zambia is not a very well known tourism destination for US travellers. She says: “Unfortunately Zambia is not a popular destination in the US market unless the traveller has a savvy agent. The US traveller does not seem to be as aware of Zambia as they are of Zimbabwe or South Africa. I attribute this to Zambia not getting any media attention, as they are stable with no political upheaval.” May further explains that once Zambia is mentioned to prospective travellers and they research it a little they usually book it.

The travel industry welcomes Zambia’s efforts to obtain more exposure. John Ridler, Media & PR Manager Thompsons Holidays, says: “Any initiative by a tourism office to make their respective countries more appealing to the potential tourist is of enormous benefit to us in the travel industry as it backs up our marketing and advertising initiatives.”

Pelekamoyo is confident the new brand will have a positive effect on the country’s tourism numbers. “We expect that the new brand will refresh and create positive perceptions of Zambian tourism and repair any negative perceptions that may have been created by the current brand of ‘The Real Africa’.” Pelekamoyo says the costs related to the rebranding have been absorbed through various services and expertise that have been provided by various stakeholders, which include the Tourism Council of Zambia as well as the World Bank.”

The picture? The mighty Victoria Falls of course, just 10kms away from Chanters Lodge, Livingstone

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Zambian Music Scene 2010 – Review


Here’s George da Soulchild’s piece about the 2010 Zambian music scene, George is pictured above:

The year 2010 can be recorded as a mixture of explosive moments as well as big flops in terms of popular music and performances in Zambia. Today’s blog takes stock of some of the highlights in the sector often hyped up by music videos.

It worked as an advantage to most artists to produce music videos as this became a faster way of promoting their songs, and with the opening of TV2 (ZNBC), airplay increased with many artists getting recognition. It’s also worth mentioning that despite the fame some of the artists enjoyed, others totally lost it. 2010 saw a number of uncontrollable releases, mostly singles, which created competition and at the same time paved way for songs like Chika’s ‘Lupupa’, JK’s ‘Soul Survivor’ and B1’s ‘Pillow’. This trend overshadowed a number of album releases especially from big names.

Copperbelt’s Afunika, whose style added a different dimension to the industry, came in with songs ‘Kakonkote’, ‘Miss You’ and ‘Tefumo Lyandi’ earning him popularity and a string of shows country wide. This made him 2010’s most played artist both on radio and in night clubs. Dandy Crazy’s 2010 effort wasn’t as good as his last project leaving fans disappointed – it couldn’t even match the muscle of up-coming artistes like PJ, B’flow, Bryan, Cray J, Alpha Romeo and B1 who took over radio – especially radio Charts.

Additionally, the year saw the growth of hip-hop music with Slap Dee and C.R.I.S.I.S both winning Born and Bred Awards. New talent P.O.M.P.I and The Zone Farm pushed Zambian hip-hop forward. Artists like JK, Dalisoul, Orga Family, Runell, CQ, Danny and ‘wonder boy’ Afunika had a successful year as regards music performances, as all of them had an album to promote though their rewards were unevenly matched. Runell’s offering ‘Addictive’ failed to beat his previous and probably most successful ‘Unexpected’ album.

Orga Family were a serious come back with efforts on ‘Koka Kola’ earning them an Ngoma Award and a nomination for the Born and Bred Award, while Danny enjoyed a country wide tour thanks to his latest work ‘Live’, making him the most consistent live performer of popular music in the last ten years. JK got the most awards at the Born and Bred and his quest for international fame finally paid off when he was selected for the One8 project singing alongside seven other African artists plus celebrated US musician R Kelly. His ‘Kapilipli’ Album produced by Raydo has significantly revamped his career. MC Wabwino and K’millian were among notable artists to come up with late releases – we’ll have to wait and see how their albums fare this year.

Petersen, Ozzy, Roberto, Mampi and Shyman are all soon to off-load their latest projects for 2011. Credit should be given to Exile and PJ who have probably been the most featured artists in 2010. Female artistes have not had a good year with Mampi not being as aggressive as the previous year. Artistes like Indi K, Judy and Dambisa have taken advantage.

Artists to look out for in 2011 both big names and up and coming are B’flow, B1, Camster, Manus, T-boy, TY2, Mozegator, OC, Roberto, Shyman, Yellowman, Ozzy, Petersen, Mampi, Afunika and Livingstone Based Kaufela just to mention a few. These artists are definitely set to turn the tables in 2011.

Music backed by traditional Zambian influences, the Amayenge ,Sakala Brothers, Mathew Tambo, Angela Nyirenda, Maureen Lupo Lilanda and new comer Mumba Yachy enjoyed a good year with tours outside Zambia.

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Ian Lurie – Conversation Marketing


I found this article through @RasMbisi on Twitter – Michelle Vickers from Ras Mbisi Lodge on Mafia Island off the coast of Tanzania. The piece comes from Ian Lurie @portentint on Twitter (that’s him above) from his blog conversation marketing. There are certain things I hate about websites and it was nice to read that others do too. The original piece was Ian’s “Here’s my 13-step process for making sure your customers hate you. Just build these features into your web site.” I’ve picked the 9 that really annoy me (and that I understood!!)

1: The Flash Intro
Somehow people still argue with me, saying that 120 seconds of totally pointless dancing raisins, spinning squares and cheesy, porn-inspired music loops is a good marketing tactic. It’s not. How do you feel when they show commercials at the movie theater? They get in the way, right? So does that nasty, pointless flash intro. It’s like a sleezy sales guy standing outside The Ritz. Even worse, it drives away the search engines, too. If you want your customers to hate you, put a nice, long Flash intro on your home page. Even better, make sure there’s no way to skip it.

2: The Every Page Link
You don’t really have to link back to your webmaster/designer from every single page of your site.

3: Animated Buttons
Use any of these on your site and I will find your server, pour a milkshake into the power supply and then run down the street shrieking with laughter. If you want your customers to despise you, use lots and lots of animated buttons.

4: Take Over My Browser, Why Dontcha?
Gotta love this one. You go to a web site. Then your browser blinks, goes into a kind of fit, and suddenly fills your whole screen. What the hell?! Someone suddenly decided you needed a ‘cinematic’ experience, so they used a javascript to maximize your browser window. That’s actually OK, unless you’re like me and have a 24″ monitor. Then your browser suddenly explodes in your face like you’ve entered hyperspace. The web site you visited appears as a tiny little rectangle in the middle of the screen or your computer crashes because it can’t handle drawing an animation at 5x normal size. If you want your customers to find sticks with rusty nails in them and then find you, take over their browser and make it really big.

5: Have a Soundtrack
Some sites might deserve a soundtrack. But if you’re an estate agent, I don’t want to hear the first ten bars of the Star Spangled Banner, converted to tinny MIDI format, played over and over. Want everyone to wish a pox on both your houses? Have an annoying, repetitious soundtrack.

6: Write Really Long Sentences With No Punctuation and Then Use Bad Grammar Too So That I can’t Tell What the Hell You’re Saying
Please, just hire a copywriter, OK? Or, just keep writing crappy copy. So that your customers can hate you.

7: Have An Incomprehensible Tag Cloud
I don’t hate all tag clouds. But every now and then I see one with 250+ terms in 4 colors and almost infinite different sizes. It’s like the blogger wants me to run away. Obstacle-oriented design. I love it. Trust me, folks won’t like you if you use a horrifically large, impossible to read tag cloud.

8: Make Me Register
Oh, no you didn’t! You did not just sell me on your product, get me all happy to buy it, and then ask me to fill out an entire registration form for the honor of giving you my money! Actually, at least half the e-commerce sites I see still do exactly that. “We want to make sure we can contact them,” is what I hear a lot. I also get “We want them to be able to order more quickly next time.” Then give them the option of saving their information, at the end of the checkout process. Gasp.

9: Make a Popup Appear When I (try to) Leave
I visit your site. I don’t like you, or I’m not ready to buy right now. Do you really think that popping up a window when I try to leave is going to make me change my mind? Let’s see: “Hmmm. I didn’t really need what you have to sell me. But since you’re being unbelievably annoying, I’ll think I’ll buy something.” Nope. If you want your customers outside your house with pitchforks, have a popup window that appears when they try to leave your site.

Has a way with words our Ian doesn’t he? But spot on he is!

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