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The Problem
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the East African Community Partner States’ tourism sector experienced an unprecedented decline that started in March 2020. The countries within East Africa also experienced a dampened recovery in tourism,due to guidelines that have been adopted to limit the spread of the virus for instance a strict vaccination policy to qualify for entry across borders and strict curfews
With the advent of COVID-19 and subsequent travel restrictions, international tourism, which was the bread and butter of the tourism industry within the EAC, plummeted. There was thus a need to focus on regional domestic tourism that had long not been prioritized
The Solution
In order to bolster domestic tourism, compensate for this downturn and decrease the over-dependence on international tourism, a social media influencer campaign including all six EAC Partner States to raise awareness of local citizens about the offers of domestic and regional tourism was conceived and implemented by Quantum Dynamics.
The influencer campaign dubbed TEMBEA NYUMBANI involved one influencer from 6 East African countries ie Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan
The primary aim of working with influencers on this campaign was to show the ordinary East
African that domestic tourism is affordable and attainable for them thereby breaking the
stereotype that tourism is for foreigners only through the use of relatable influencers and content.
One influencer was selected in each EAC state and contracted to promote the campaign among their countrymen via their social media channels. The influencers travelled to particular tourist destinations in their own country, created content and published it on their social media platforms for the target audience to view. The goal of this was to entice the target audience to travel around East Africa themselves.
Quantum Dynamics embarked on the mammoth task of organising the whole venture. This included research on the best influencers and destinations per country that aligned with the goal of the campaign, shortlisting the influencers from a plethora of candidates, organising travel schedules,modes of transportation, accommodation and itineraries for all candidates and their respective countries, monitoring and evaluating the content created ensuring all relevant hashtags and destinations were properly highlighted and organising all content from the 5 countries with final reports for stakeholders.
The Impact
Thanks to the diligent management and coordination of the influencer campaign from inception to conclusion by Quantum Dynamics, the Campaign was registered as a success. With an overall reach of over 2 million viewers, the campaign also proved itself to be a successful worthwhile investment in promoting EAC and its Partner States as destinations, where tourists can visit various sites across EAC Partner States easily and cheaply has created benefits across the region for the tourism sector.
With the influencer content, joint promotion, the adoption and promotion of EAC preferential rates for EAC citizens applicable to public tourist sites such as parks and museums has resulted in a resurgence of regional tourism which has brought life into what had become a fledgling sector with efforts to sustain tourism businesses thus restoring faith in the East African region as a top-notch tourist destination.