It is well known that more often then not an article or an
"independent" review worth more than tons of expensive advertising. Obviously this is nothing new for the
professionals responsible for the promotion of Oman as a tourism
destination. I am almost sure that there is an (albeit small) team in the Ministry
of Tourism, that works on putting together an agenda of international sporting,
cultural and media events to be hosted in Oman for 1-3 years ahead.
Coordinating bidding work, lobbying with sport diplomats, media people,
organizing fam trips for decision makers is all part of their daily work.
They must be thinking along the lines of sporting events that have wide international exposure and at the
same time Oman lends itself for them, such as Sailing, Rally, Golf, Cycling, Mountain
Biking etc. I can be confident that the
experience of hosting the 2010 Asian Beach Games is used as a momentum.
In terms of cultural events they
surely work closely with the ROH programming team and focus on widening
the reach beyond Muscat Festival’s traditional base and the Opera season.
They think of media productions
like movies shots, treasure hunt shows (like the US one Oman hosted some years
ago), extreme sport reality shows, documentaries (sea life, diving, historic
etc.). The press treasure hunt launched in Jan 2012 is a good initiative.
They conceptualize viral
initiatives using social media. Who does not remember posting for the best job in the world of Tourism Queensland calling for an island administrator
with not too much work on pristine Australian tropical beaches? I am sure
with a bit of brainstorming a number of comparable but not copycat ideas can be
generated buy our team and perhaps involving a few external people.
(On the movie note: take for instance the recent 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' movie with Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. It ended up being a great promotion
for Yemen. The paradox was that due to the instability in Yemen the movie was
shot not in Oman but, guess where...in Morocco.)
So coming back to our small team, since all of this is successfully happening,
the tourism decision makers are concerned on increasing the capacity and output
of this team to aim for more creative and innovative promotion of the country
and bigger tourism impact. But what if I am wrong?
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