THE E-TOURISM Africa Summit, a gathering of the most creative and pioneering tourism e-marketers in the world, kicked off this morning in Cape Town.

A collaboration between South African Tourism, E Tourism Frontiers and Cape Town Tourism, the summit is a two-day gathering of social tourism powerhouses at the forefront of the insightful and creative conversation and trends in the world of online destination marketing.

Over 350 South African tourism businesses are attending the Summit as delegates, with major global companies such as Facebook, You Tube, TripAdvisor, WAYN.com and Expedia all participating at the Summit, which is set to entrench South Africa’s status as global leaders in online tourism destination marketing.

“We have attracted a group of speakers who are the definitive word on e-marketing and social media in the world today. These are pioneers who lead the digital age; who understand trends and who are engineering how social media and lifestyle platforms influence travel, living and purchase decisions. It’s going to be a powerful gathering in Cape Town, representing a wealth of social media and travel intellectual property and intelligence,” says William Price, South African Tourism’s Global E-Marketing Manager.

South African Tourism has a powerful digital presence, which is set to increase in response to UNWTO estimates that 90% of all global travellers now search for and book their travel experiences online.

“Social media is where people meet to talk about travel and about their favourite destinations. South Africa needs to be at the heart of this global conversation. We need to inform the conversation, steer it and be an integral part of it. Everywhere in the world that people talk tourism online, we want them to talk South Africa, which is why the E Tourism Africa Summit is so important for us,” says Price.

South Africa currently works with the most influential social media travel platforms in the world. Its partnership with TripAdvisor, for example, has delivered more than 23 000 forum topics about South Africa in the last year and close to 7 300 reviews of South African hospitality establishments by TripAdvisor’s global participant base.

South African Tourism and TripAdvisor have signed a unique three year partnership, helping to bring awareness of South Africa’s tourism qualities to the forefront of the 60 million travelers looking for inspiration when planning their next trip. This partnership includes new innovations, such as entering the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) hotel grading system on TripAdvisor. South Africa will also be the first ever destination marketing organisation to have an interactive microsite live on DaoDao (TripAdvisor in China), along with a live interactive custom hub on TripAdvisor domains in their key markets: Australia, USA, India, Brazil, China, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

South African Tourism’s partnership with WAYN.com is equally impressive. The destination has 234 392 friends on the world’s largest travel-focused social media platform.

And in the last year alone, 188 452 trips have been booked to South Africa via South African Tourism’s online platform partners,  with 177 001 of these trips booked by foreign visitors who spent R655 million on flights and accommodation and a further R2-billion in South Africa.

“New technologies and platforms keep marketers on their toes and you can only maintain optimum results by leading the charge and being part of the conversation with people at the cutting edge of the social and online media. This summit provides great company for us at South African Tourism to keep and we are looking forward to learning from, sharing with and working with the best and brightest minds in the world to grow arrivals to South Africa,” says Price.

South African Tourism has sponsored the attendance at the summit of 100 emerging and small businesses in tourism to help them connect; meet with and exchange ideas with the heavyweights in global social media; and fast track their digital marketing efforts to grow their businesses and create much-needed jobs.

Some of the influential speakers at the E Tourism Africa Summit include:
South African Tourism Chairperson  Frank Kilbourn, who will speak on the contribution the digital and online environment can (and should) make to destination accessibility and growing tourist arrivals numbers
Damian Cook, founder and MD at E Tourism Frontiers, a business that has successfully trained hundreds of tourism professionals and has brought leading International experts and major travel firms and intermediaries to Africa to do business in tourism
Roel Spee, Travel Specialist for Europe, Middle East and Africa in Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook
Will Rocklin, Global product specialist at YouTube
Justin Reid, Director of Destination Marketing for Betapond, a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant, that specialises in Facebook apps for driving engagement on the social media site
Helena Egan, Destination tourist board specialist at TripAdvisor and head of destination marketing for the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions
Mqondisi Gumede, Online marketing specialist at South African Tourism
Ross Kata, Airline, hotel and destination experience negotiator at Expedia
Jerome Touze, Co-founder and co-ceo of WAYN.com deeply involved in developing web 2.0 strategies and developments
Nick Paul, Global media manager at Travelstart. He oversees social interaction in six countries and has grown online communities from a following of 2 000 to over 120 000 across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest

The E Tourism Africa Summit is being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on the today and tomorrow. For more information, visit www.e-tourismfrontiers.com