LOCAL tourism operators early this week get to learn how to effectively promote their businesses online using the digital market strategy as part expanding their business.
Most of the participants were part of a workshop held in Honiara on Monday at the Solomon Kitano Mendana Hotel.
Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) Australia facilitated the workshop by bringing in its “Advanced Digital Tourism Workshop” in collaboration with Australia’s Strongim Bisnis.
Its aim was to provide Pacific tourism operators digital access and the know-how to connect with international markets.
PTI Australia’s Advanced Digital Tourism workshop focuses on online payments and processing, as well how to increase direct bookings using Google’s ‘Digital Marketing Playbook’.
Two sessions were covered during the workshop.
The first session looked at ‘Payment Processing.’ It looked at how to secure and automated transactions for accommodation providers, showcasing Hotel Link Pay and Levart Pay, and for Tour providers via the Kovena Virtual Terminal.
Session two looked into ‘How to increase Direct Bookings’ where they explore strategies for getting more bookings from tourism operator’s websites, and how to use Google My Business, Google Free Links and Google Hotel Ads.
Speaking to Solomon Star, PTI Australia Tourism Manager Onorina Fugawai said, tourism is a major contributor to the economic growth in the Pacific, which is why for PTI Australia, tourism is a key focus area.
“Our job in that area is through the Advanced Digital Tourism program, to train and equip tourism operators across the region, to build their online capacity, to provide them with a tool to enable and empower them to attract and capture bookings.
“Because if you don’t have a website but only a Facebook page, a lot of tourists that are not from the Pacific Islands, they cannot find you on Facebook.
“To them, when they find your tourism website, they go “Oh, this is a formal business.” It’s more trust worthy and gives confidence to the operators as well,” Mrs Fugawai said.
She said, Advanced Digital Tourism is to empower digital operators, to have a digital presence, to understand the importance of digital presence through workshops and education so that once they go out there and apply their learnings, they have the capability to attract and accept bookings securely online.
Mrs Fugawai said, this will increase their revenue, grow their businesses and hopefully will get them to employ more people, which is PTI Australia’s mandate – increasing the livelihood of Pacific people.
The Workshop Facilitator, Craig Smith told the Solomon Star that the workshop was designed to help tourism operators to understand that a website is very helpful for the credibility and the perception of their business overseas.
“So, when overseas guests are looking to make a decision to come to the Solomons for a holiday, they will look for a website to make a booking in.
“So PTI Australia helps tourism businesses to become professionals, have a nice website, making it able for a guest to find your business and be able to book directly online and then securely and automated fashion process the payment of a credit card of a guest from overseas, so your staff don’t need to do any manual payment processes,” Mr Smith added.
Another one-day workshop will be facilitated in Munda, Western Province, tomorrow at the Marina Hotel at Lembu Bay.
PTI Australia is an agency of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS). The PTI headquarter is in Suva, Fiji and s funded by the Australian Government through its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Solomon Islands is one of the 16 member states of PIFS.
By AGNES MENANOPO
Solomon Star, Honiara
