By Julie King
Interview with Sherin Francis
In the third blog about Seychelles, the CEO of the Seychelles Tourism Board, Sherin Francis, explains their marketing strategies during the COVID -19 pandemic.
We are seeing from a lot of our research and global trends a huge shift in marketing and what the expectations will be moving into the 21st century. Inspirational campaigns are now shifting into more human connected campaigns and authentic & emotional storytelling.
How has your campaigns shifted in this time to adapt to this trend? I know that you’ve had several campaigns out; “Dream Now Visit Later “ campaign that I believe came out in April. In September, “Experiencing Seychelles – Our home Your Sanctuary”. Tell us more about these campaigns and what your thought process was behind those.
It’s vital and important to communicate your key messages to the world. The first campaign we launched was when every country was in lockdown. And while many countries perhaps felt that staying quiet was the best thing, our strategy as a destination was clear; even when people cannot travel, you cannot deny them from having a dream.
And if you want people to travel when the time is right, you need to stay in their mind and especially, as we know, screen time was even more during the lockdown periods, so everybody had more time on their phones and various digital gadgets.
We wanted to be there in that space. Other than the Dream Now Experience Seychelles later, we also had many campaigns in various markets where they would get people to participate, for example, on their Instagram campaigns telling us why Seychelles is on their bucket list?
So we were keeping them engaged as well. Of course, our strategy has always been, keep them close, keep Seychelles top of the mind so that eventually, when we open the doors, and the conditions are right, Seychelles will be one of their choices when the sun shines.
That was complemented by our next campaign, which was Experience Seychelles: Our Home Your Sanctuary. And essentially, what we wanted to achieve with this campaign was that Seychelles is our home; there are people who live there. And we’ve done a lot of work to keep our people safe and keep our country safe. But now we were ready to welcome visitors, and we wanted to tell them it’s a safe place for you to come for your holiday. It’s your sanctuary. And so, you’re welcome into our sanctuary as well. But always be mindful that there are people who live there and follow the health measures when you come for a visit to Seychelles.
Our message was quite clear; it was building on the fact that we are being seen as a safe destination, which is one of our very strong points for them.
You also had Richard Quest, from CNN and he came out to Seychelles earlier in the year. Tell us a bit more about that, and what’s the objective behind the series that he’s creating? When will that be aired? And will that be aired to the world?
The programme is expected to be aired very early in January. The idea is to have it somewhere over the holiday period. And we are quite happy that right when travel is starting to pick up, Seychelles will be featured in the Quest World of Wonder.
Richard’s shows are amongst the most watched on CNN and the holiday period is when people are very much glued to the TV. Because TV viewing is the highest over the Christmas and New Year period, for us it’s very much in line with our strategy of while we focus on individual markets, we must not forget that all these other peripheral markets hold an equal chance of contributing to our visitor’s basket right now.
And, of course, going on global shows and having global campaigns also helps in keeping the visibility worldwide where we’re not just focusing on a handful of markets, but we’re reaching a global audience that potentially is looking for holiday options.
And I also hear you’re a bit of a culinary expert. You have been showcasing your cooking skills with your chicken coconut curry – are you going to be doing that for different countries? Tell us a bit more about that?
I’d love to be doing that. And my first experience was a big hit, and it was all over social media. I didn’t realise that people always see me in my role as the CEO of the Tourism Board and talking very seriously, on TV and to the media, about the tourism outlook.
Seeing me involved in something different, which is cooking, was a different angle of looking at Seychelles. The nice thing about it is that in Seychelles, almost everybody cooks, and of course, everybody knows how to cook great chicken curry.
And it says a lot about our destination, where we tell people, yes, we may have the world’s best sun, sea and sand but I think the best thing you will learn about Seychelles when you visit is the colours and flavours of Seychelles. It’s the people; it’s how different we all look, yet there is unity within the small nation, which is just amazing. And the fact that when you get underneath the skin of the destination, you will see this fantastic food, the chicken coconut curry is but one example of this very flavoursome gastronomy from Seychelles.
I think more and more is this is the kind of content we want to push out to people. And in Seychelles, we have more than just natural beauty; we have unique experiences; amazing cultural experiences, especially as this year we celebrated 250 years since the first settlement of Seychelles. And it’s a world to discover, a world that awaits our visitors.
In the past, the destination has become quite renowned for many festivals and marathons; What will happen with those in the future? Will they still go ahead under different rules and regulations? Or is there going to be a change in direction to these events and festivals?
Unfortunately, this is one of the travel segments that need large amounts of people, and right now, these are not in vogue. So many of our large events we used to hold we will not see, at least not for 2021. There may be some, but they would have to be very niche, very specific and where you would have to satisfy the health protocols and guidelines in term of social distancing and other measures in place.
Also, we have to take into account that Seychelles was hit very hard economically. Many of these kinds of events depend a lot on private sector sponsorship to make them happen. In 2021, the private sector could not support us in these kind of events, so it would be difficult to stage them.
But of course, it doesn’t mean that there would not be anything. I know some events go virtual. There are things we can do virtually and we will look at the possibility of these events, Perhaps like our golf competitions. If we can do it with a smaller group, more niche, a bit more targeted, perhaps, we make it more exciting where we say it’s only the top ten who can make it for the finale to Seychelles.
So, it’s not a large group of people, but you can still keep the events, and if we can do that, we would be happy. Because at the end of the day, all these events need a lot of helpers in generating visibility for the destination.
