SA Tourism Japan initiated an online promotion in June on For Travel, the largest travel blog/tour booking online platform in Japan, to promote South Africa as an attractive travel destination for tourists.
‘My South Africa Story’ is designed to help promote tour products to SA marketed by trade partners in Japan as well as dispel harmful rumours from the Ebola outbreak.
As part of the promotion, three travel bloggers visited South Africa at the beginning of the year. Their personal experience of SA, featuring key tourism offerings in Cape Town, the Kruger National Park and Durban, were posted on For Travel, including a series of authentic, non-fictional My South Africa Stories.
SA Tourism Japan said the non-fictional stories by local travel bloggers played a powerful role to highlight South Africa to the Japanese market and that word of mouth was the most important source of destination awareness and information for its target audience in the country.
On the launch of the promotion, SA Tourism and For Travel invited bloggers to win an opportunity to be hosted in South Africa and more than 8 300 applications were received in a three-week period. Two successful For Travel bloggers have been selected and they will visit South Africa in early September and in late October to post additional My South Africa Stories.
