By Julie King
Interview with Matt Stoeckel
In this second blog, Matt Stoeckel, CEO of Fiji Tourism, explains how Fiji as a destination has adapted since the pandemic and how their marketing and campaigning has shifted to rebuild and reshape the future of tourism.
Matt from our research and looking at global trends in marketing, at the moment, we’re seeing a massive shift in this new era from, what was many inspirational destination campaigns being developed, to much more human connected and authentic, emotional storytelling campaigns.
Can you tell us how your campaigns have shifted in this time to adapt to this trend? I know you have the Bulanaires’ Campaign and the Love our Locals campaign. Tell us more about the process that you went through to develop these campaigns and their impact?
We’re fortunate with this brand because we haven’t changed anything. We are all about authentic hospitality and Bula Spirit. Bula Spirit is ubiquitous everywhere in the destination. I can guarantee you, no matter what resort you go to, which tour operator or local bus you hopped on you’d get that same world-famous Bula greeting and that extension of genuine hospitality that’s always been there and we’ve promoted.
And there’s been a focus on these authentic stories. We have recently put in place a couple of programmes to help bring it to life. Because it’s one thing for the National Tourism Board to say it, but we needed a more authentic voice to communicate this message.
We’ve done this through Bulanaires, which is our take on the Forbes billionaires list. Instead of celebrating those with the most amount of money, in Fiji, we celebrate the people most rich in happiness. There are Bulanaires in every tourism business. We went out there and ran a process where each business could nominate their own Bulanaire, someone who embodied that Bula Spirit. And somebody who touched and impacted the lives of the visitors.
We gave them a profile, and we showcase them through social media. We encouraged all our industry to use them on the first wave of their PR and their promotions. And so we activated a grassroots medium for our industry to speak through their Bulanaires. They are their front-liners from gardeners or pool attendants, activity staff, housekeepers or duty managers; we pulled out those authentic characters.
“Through these Bulanaires, we can continue to tell stories and use an authentic message to be more engaging online because we know people want that authentic content. Fortunately, people aren’t looking for highly polished videos on social media and high production costs so that we can turn this around really quickly, and the results speak for themselves.”
What sort of feedback are you getting from visitors to the destination on this programme? Are they out there looking for the Bulanaires, and are they connecting with them and asking them questions?
Well, we would have known more had the pandemic not hit at the same time. When the pandemic hit in March, it was also a Happiness Month. There were many activities planned across the destination to bring Bulanaires to life, but the Bulanaires are still there.
And it’s a programme that will reactivate when the time is right again, but the feedback was great. People believed in it, particularly on the ground, so the industry is very supportive. The Bulanaires themselves are so proud to be recognised and showcased for the impact they make on visitors.
We intend that Bulanaires becomes an everyday word. When someone does something remarkable in Fiji to support a guest or goes that extra mile, they get a slap on the back, and someone says, ‘Hey, you’re a Bulanaire, you’re spreading your happiness with others.’
You have launched “Love our Local”, campaign and also recently aired the World’s Toughest Race, which was a huge production of sixty-six teams. Tell us more about these both?
Love our Local is our domestic tourism campaign. Compared with the US, Australia, New Zealand or Europe, we have a modest domestic tourism industry, but it’s still an excellent market for us. And, of course, its primary focus at the moment is to help sustain those businesses which have been lucky enough to operate through this period. Love our Locals is a great platform to encourage all Fijians to get out there and check out their backyard and support the local tourism industry. It has surpassed all expectations way beyond what we thought we’d achieve with it.
On the World’s Toughest race, I might get this wrong, but I’m reasonably sure Fiji was the last destination, about ten years ago, and now it’s the first destination and back into production. A Mark Burnett production, it’s available on Amazon Prime for anyone who’s interested. It is a fantastic piece of content. The adventure race is fantastic, and it takes cameras right into the core of our interior and never before seen places. It’s a stunning piece that aired through online mediums, and it’s a significant programme for us. It’s a pity about the timing, but still great to have that content out there showing that Fiji is a lot more than the sun, sand and surf, and we’ve also got some fantastic natural areas and experiences that people can participate in.
It is close to ten episodes and is available online, so anyone that wants to can binge watch Amazon Prime. There’s Fijian teams in it as well, which also finish the race. They’re fantastic to follow and embody the Bula Spirit. Throughout the whole programme participants, pull over on the side of the road and, someone will run out with a nice fresh coconut, or the school kids are running down to greet the competitors as they ride past. It’s just beautiful and shows up, not only our landscape, terrain and experiences but also the people’s culture.
We’ve seen people consuming digital content day and night from the start of the pandemic. Are there any changes that you’ve adapted for your marketing strategies moving forward? Or was digital a key focus before for you? Has that shifted in the way that you approach this new stage of marketing and what are you focusing on now?
I think we’re pretty broad focused, meaning that we don’t take anything as an assumption anymore; we need to challenge everything. We’re likely not going to get it right the first time; we just adapt and optimise what works, what’s getting a connection and achieving the best outcomes we can.
Much of it is framed in our four stages of market re-entry; we’ve done a lot of forward-thinking and planning about which channels might work best for our messages and communication objectives, so that’s naturally guided a lot of it. But we will continue to test and challenge our assumptions and practices and optimise them with confidence about what the future looks like and what consumers are looking for.
