Tourism Solomons international marketing strategy hits the mark

Honiara, Solomon Islands – Pictured, the celebrity cast of the high-profile charity-oriented Australian ‘Adventure All Stars’ program in Roderick Bay in the Ngela Islands last week where they were filming takes for a two-part Solomon Islands TV special program to be broadcast later this year.

While in the Solomon Islands, the cast were filmed taking part in several activities in and around Honiara, on Savo and in the Ngela Islands. These included hiking the Tenaru Falls, visiting Hotomai Cultural Village, swimming with dolphins on Savo Island, cultural dance performances at Roderick Bay and snorkelling at Maravaghi Island.

Annually raising millions of dollars for charity, when the program goes to air in October the program will be beamed to some 190 countries around the world in the process reaching millions of viewers.

The Adventure All Stars visit caps off an amazing five-month period for the Solomon Islands tourism profile with its marketing activity reaping strong returns with major coverage appearing in some of the biggest Australian and New Zealand media outlets since the start of the year as part of Tourism Solomons ongoing International Media Visitation Program (IMVP).

These include major travel features in the prestigious Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, two of the largest circulated newspapers in Australia, and also the New Zealand Herald which since January has published no less than four major articles focusing on the Solomon islands unique culture, WWII history, and many of the activities tourists can enjoy while in the country – from diving and snorkelling to surfing and interacting with the local people.

The huge Australian-based News Ltd’ organisation is also scheduled to run a major travel story in its dedicated ’Escape’ national travel section read by an average eight (8) million Australians every weekend.

Feature-length articles have also appeared in Australian Fishing  News showcasing sports fishing in Santa Isabel and the Western Province.

Surfing too will be featured in the Australian ‘bible of surfing’, Tracks magazine following a  visit by a surfing journalist in January who surfed in Gizo and Papatura Island Retreat.

One of the Solomon islands biggest drawcards, diving, will come under the spotlight later this year when the first in a series of three in-depth articles will appear in the highly-specialised  SCUBA Diver magazine, the most widely-read dive publication in Australia and New Zealand.

Featured articles, supported by Tourism Solomons, will showcase the Marovo Lagoon., Gizo and a Master Liveaboard experience.

On the blogging front, adding content to support our strengthened and ongoing digital marketing Initiatives, Tourism Solomons has also been working closely with high-profile Hungarian bloggers, Peter Toth and Cecilia Fazekas whose social media followers number in the hundreds of thousands across Europe and the United States.

Planned activity for the remainder of the year includes a major media familiarisation for  Australian and New Zealand travel writers and also business writers from Papua New Guinea and Fiji who will focus on business links between the Solomon Islands and both countries with a key part of the overall coverage focusing on the leisure opportunities for visiting business people ‘after the deal is done’.

Travel industry activity too in Australia and New Zealand too is ongoing with the national tourist office engaged with two of the largest circulated titles, Travel Weekly in Australia and Travelinc Memo in New Zealand in a  series of several months long marketing campaigns.

Further emphasising the national tourist Tourism Solomons strategy to influence frontline travel agents and potential wholesale partners, plans for 2024 also include a visit by a large group of industry representatives  later in the year as part of the annual ‘Mi Save Solo’ tourism exchange in Honiara.

Tourism Solomons CEO (Ag), Dagnal Dereveke said the ongoing activity was indicative of the effort the organisation is going to in order to return the Solomon islands tourism sector to the success it enjoyed pre-COVID 19 when awareness of the destination  played a key role in year-on-year international visitor growth.

“With limited resources to hand, efficiency and creativity are very much in place as our guiding principles,” Mr Dereveke said.

“We work off fairly tight budgets so we know that everything we do has to achieve maximum impact.

“But we are optimistic, we may still be in catch-up mode since re-opening our border in 2022, but we believe that by continuing on with our current marketing strategy, we will be back to where we were before the pandemic struck and once again enjoying record visitation numbers.”

The Adventure All Stars visit was jointly managed by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism and Tourism Solomons in conjunction with Solomon Airlines and Travel Solomons which provided logistical support