Ellen: New Yorker organises roadshow to market Tanzania in major US cities

Passing through Washington DC, Atlanta, and Orlando. With more than 100 invited travel agencies and advisors expected to attend and more than 50 tour and hotel operators from Tanzania scheduled to travel for the roadshow, this is set to be one of the biggest tourism and investment events to take place in the US following the Royal Tour three years ago.

Ellen, a PhD holder in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management from Clemson University in South Carolina, has extensive experience working in the tourism sector. She worked for 10 years with the Tanzania National Parks Authority, Tanapa, before emigrating to the US for further studies.

Now a New Yorker, Dr Ellen, who is professionally a researcher, depends on data in all the strategies she makes in the upcoming roadshow.

“Even after the roadshow, we will track all the vendors, hoteliers, and tour agencies who will attend and see how many tourists travelled to Tanzania influenced by our roadshow; we need data-driven evidence,” she said.

The multi-city marketing event is in close collaboration with the Tanzania Tourism Board, the Tanzania Embassy in Washington DC, and the Tanzania Investment Centre, both working a crucial role aimed at maximising all the opportunities that will be availed.

“It takes strategic marketing, experience, and partnership”, she explained.

Ellen is confident about her upcoming roadshow, In addition to her 10 years of experience working for Tanapa, she has organised events before, taught event planning and management for the last years, and also attended roadshows to see how it works, and it took her years to plan the upcoming event.

The cities’ stops were not random picks, they are among the top 15 cities with outbound tourist flights.

 The residents living in these cities travel abroad more than other cities in the US. So travel agencies in these cities are used to handling international travel; however, in all those top 15 cities, there isn’t a single outbound flight that has an African country as a destination.

“If you look at the flight records, Africa is not even in the top 15 of their travel destinations,” she said.

Americans love travelling abroad, so Dr Ellen sees this as an opportunity to market Tanzania. Published research and data show that Americans who travel abroad mostly visit Europe. She wants to establish herself and present Tanzania as an exciting travel destination. Her main aim is to connect Tanzanian vendors, tour operators, and hoteliers with travel agencies and advisors in the US. Showcasing Tanzania’s strong selling points, the safaris, beach and cultural tourism, and investments in tourism and hospitality and the conference industry.

“We are targeting big organisations who conduct conferences abroad, we want them to hold them in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar can host these conferences because they have facilities to accommodate them” she explained.

The Tanzanian government is working on ways to take control and dominate the global Tanzanite market, the gem that is only found in Tanzania, but has a large market in India. A roadshow like this could be an opportunity for Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), who are partner, to market Tanzanite to the Americans who are known for their love of jewellery, and Ellen sees the feasibility of this. As a person who grew up in Arusha, she always associates her home city with the gem.

There is still room for Tanzania tour operators and investors to register for the upcoming roadshow, what she is doing differently from other roadshows, is having pre-scheduled meetings, where Tanzanian vendors will already have booked meetings with American tour advisors and agencies, who would potentially work with, the pre-scheduled meeting helps the vendors make necessary connections and appointments right after touchdown and avoid the hassle of looking for the networks, all this is to ensure a successful event.

“We don’t want to just have participants, Tanzanian vendors are coming to get business deals, that’s when we know it has been successful,” she added.

She will monitor trips to Tanzania following the event, follow up on the hotels, and see how many new tourists will book rooms as a result of the roadshow.

At a participation fee of $5000 paid by August 1st, which will cover flights, meals, accommodation, and costs of leisure activities while in the US, the roadshow could be the door to a new lucrative market in the vast American market.

The aim is to make it as affordable as possible for Tanzanians flying over to look for clients. There is even an option to share tables, where two operators can share a space to exhibit their work, meaning they will pay half the price for the exhibition.

They can even opt for shared Airbnb accommodation to cut on the cost of hotel rooms and use buses to travel from one city to the other. To reduce the burden of carrying posters and banners from Tanzania, Ellen will have all of those prepared and handed to them when they arrive in the US.

As for the visa process to the US for the Tanzanian vendors, Ellen is working closely with the Tanzanian embassy in the US, to help them get the necessary documents to secure their visas smoothly and in time, she advises them to not wait till the last minute to apply for a visa, they should do it early in case there would need any facilitation from her or our embassy.

“Throughout the process, we will work closely with them, my email is [email protected], just in case any Tanzanian is interested in participating or just wants to reach out,” she said.

The seasoned travel and tourism researcher has studied the travel behaviour of Americans, just like other nationalities; each has a travel pattern that distinguishes them from the rest. Americans love to go to familiar places, so for an American to travel to a remote place, they will have to hear a person they know who has visited the place, or their travel agent, talk about the country, which would persuade them to travel. They will also have to know more about that destination and what it offers. They are also reliant on their travel agents to advise them on the countries to visit. Ellen hopes to connect with these American agents and equip them with information about Tanzania so that they can market the country to their clients. She insists on consistency in marketing the country.

Roadshows should be held regularly, and follow up on travellers as well to analyse Tanzania tourism and improve the sector. “We need follow-up and accumulate data to see the impact of our initiatives,” she said.

Dr Ellen was inspired by President Samia when the head of state decided to be at the centre of the tourism campaign; it made people stop and pay attention to what was going on, and her presence made people talk about the country.

“What she did was be hands-on, it’s like a farmer deciding to take the hoe and dig herself,” she said.

As a woman in tourism, she was inspired and impressed by her approach, and the Mult-city marketing event is motivated by The Royal Tour.

“What she did was very right, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel,” she said.

Right now, Dr Ellen is doing the roadshow on the East Coast of the United States, and hopefully next time she will be able to organise on the West Coast.