Wildtouch Adventure

We have been working on voice thread this week. It was difficult to choose what we wanted to put on the slides and it made it even more difficult because our schedules were all different so meeting up was not an option. We split up the voice thread as we did our paper. Each talked about what they felt most knowledgeable about. With this, we wanted to finish up the missing parts from our research paper. We had to finish the executive summary and add and delete a few things that were missing or out of place. It is a stressful time as we are preparing for finals and the last of the projects for this semester but it feels good to put all this research we have done this semester together and see a potential marketing plan for a real business. The biggest challenges we have faced so far are trying to analyze her business in a financial way due to the lack of direct financial information given. We are trying our best to figure out ways to help and understand the tourism industry to give the best recommendations possible. We also were faced with the challenge of the competitive analysis section and primary research. We need still need to compare WildTouch directly to other tourism companies in the same area. Also, we need to continue to find a primary research individual who will be willing to talk and answer questions for us.

This week has been rough. With finals coming up and having our voicethread due soon, it has been a hectic week.

This week we decided to focus on the other half of our SWOT analysis, the PEST analysis. We decided to begin with the same set up as our SWOT, with the matrix with four open boxes since this set up worked so well for us last week. We labeled our boxes respectfully: political, economical, social, and technological. We then thought about what we had researched about and tried to place them in the correct areas. The political section was easy, rising taxes, Ruth said in one of our talks that the rising taxes was something that worried both her and her husband. The economical section was also easier due to Ruth’s husband. He told us that the cost to get a Visa was 50 dollars which is fairly cheap. Although, we found through our research that interest rates are on the rise, at 12.18%. For the social section we found that primary school attendance was rising throughout the country which is good. This will increase the education of the country as a whole. Lastly, the technological the president of Tanzania, Magufuli, is starting his Five-Year Development Plan. That will help stimulate the economy which would be good for small businesses like Ruth’s. Hopefully with this plan it will bring in more tourists as the President said, he is trying to make Tanzania a tourist destination stop for the world.

This week we really wanted to focus on our SWOT analysis. This was easier to do towards the end of our project because we already had all the information, we just needed to put it all together. To begin we just did an average matrix with four open boxes labeled: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT was the easier of the two to begin with because those are the most evident with Ruth’s businesses. We then just began to place all of our thoughts into the appropriate boxes. Her strengths were things like small tour groups and offering the Northern Circuit as a tour option because that is the most popular option. Her weaknesses included the evident lack of marketing and the poor-quality website that has been suspended for well over a month now. Her opportunities included that she was open to partnerships and that Tanzania isn’t over run with huge tour companies and so she could potentially grow. But a threat would be that a bigger tour company can always decide to open up or expand to include Tanzania. One we had our SWOT analysis down in our matrix it was more organized and we could see exactly what went were. That was helpful when it came to actually writing out what we planned to say in our paper. From our bullet points we made sentences and from there it just came right to a full page. We decided to leave the matrix in the paper as well because we thought it was a nice little summary of our work. We are almost done with our project and for that, we are happy. 

 Our group researched China this week. We found that China has been the first focus of attention for a number of strategic reasons; over the last decade, China has developed its status as Africa’s largest outbound tourism market.

This graph shows An important cause for this growth is because the number of outbound tourism destinations have increased to 153 countries and regions and among them 65 have provided a more convenient visa policy for Chinese tourists. According to a recent survey done by the China Travel Guide, 43.2% of Chinese citizens are willing to take an adventure and explore natural scenery and 34.2% want to relax and reduce stress.

The Chinese like to travel in groups of people, and stay within the budget. Chinese care most about the attractions so safaris work really well with this group of people. The also care about traffic and foods next. Africa is already a new destination that the Chinese want to explore, so if Wild Touch could market to them and directly adapt to some of the things they look for then there is a big potential for a target market.

This week we were studying up on the USA’s market for international penetration. The USA has the worst days off policy. They have on average 10-14 days off. This is lowest amount of days off across the world. 10 days per year. That is insane. To make matters worse, most people don’t even take those days off. They would choose to NOT get paid vacation and just stay at work. This is something that blows my mind. I will never understand why people don’t want to take a vacation, whether it is all at once or multiple separate days. But knowing this we have to take that into account when people are planning for a safari. The main people that should be marketed to safaris are people with extensive time off, such as students or teachers. They have their whole summer off to go on a crazy adventure that a business man/ woman lifestyle would not easily permit leaving for Africa. The trip to Tanzania alone is something to ward a lot of people off, it is an all-day trip. Which is extremely exhausting and time consuming, especially when you only have 10-14 days off. Overall, the USA is just not that great at knowing how to take a vacation.

On Tuesday October 3, we were able to talk to Ruth for the second time. She gave us some more information about the company in general. There are four people working for Wildtouch (herself, husband, brother, driver). They each have access to the internet for several hours during the week. She explained that this year she has had 4 trips with about 3-6 people in the group. When I heard this, I immediately thought that there is a lot of work to be done. She emphasized that it is a very small company which is still growing. She recommended us to look at the Tanzania investment center. We also learned that the Tanzania population is very friendly, and welcoming to tourists. Ruth also sent us her business plan which is shown below:

As midterms come closer and closer, the more our marketing plan is coming together. I have learned so much about Americans and how the pick there vacations in the past week. A study done by the AAA this year amazed me, it was about the most common places American’s were going to travel to this year. 

1. roadtrips (79% of respondents)

2. national parks (51%)

3. theme parks (40%) 

4. international destinations (33%)

 5. cruises (22%)

Also, I learned that more than one third of Americans were planning to go on a vacation with their family. The AAA defined “family” and taking 2 or more immediate family members. 

But even though this is amazing information, the information that left me speechless was a study done by Forbes. They said that 1 in 4 families choose there vacation location based on how well their photos will look on their FACEBOOK PAGES. 

This is called the Facebook Effect. 

And surprising to me, men were more susceptible to do this. 

Being “unplugged” while being on vacation is being less and less popular. People will seek out what will look best on their profiles and make their friends click the coveted like button. I had no idea that our culture has gotten to this point. Perspective is everything. Image is everything in this culture.  Good thing safaris are extremely beautiful and will insure you many, many likes on your Facebook posts. 

I’m not going to lie, the stress of the weight of this project is starting to take place. There is so much information that it is hard to funnel it down and pick the information to include in our report. Working on the report this week has proven to be a blur. Dropping charts and statistics within every subsections has made our report look a little crazy. Messy is good though, it means you have a lot to work with. We are currently trying to just finish these 5 sections for our midterm (it is due in two weeks, yikes). 

But enough ranting and onto some things we have learned this week. 

I for one knew flying to Africa from the USA was expensive, but I didn’t know just HOW expensive it was. It’s like $1,500 USD for a to and from flight to Africa. Which, in comparison with flying to Europe, is pretty standard. I mean, its a tad bit more expensive but not by much. But when I said expensive I didn't quite mean money, I meant time.  Time is money in this day and age and a lot of people don't want to spend their vacation on an airplane. The big difference between taking a flight to London, UK and taking a flight to Arusha, Tanzania is how long it takes to get there. An average trip to Heathrow International Airport is around 7-10 hours long if you leave from Dulles International Airport and you have to option of non-stop flights. An average trip to Kilimanjaro International Airport is around 30-40 hours!!!! THAT IS TWO DAYS OF FLYING! I was not expecting the flight to be that long. That is 4 days of traveling. That is long and taxing on a human body. But, if you want to go on a safari, you have to do it in Arusha, Tanzania because that is the best place to do it. I mean, overall, what is 30 hours to standing next to a real lion, elephant, etc? Experience is another form of currency. 

This week has been a busy week for all of us. Connie finished up her presentation about Kenya and Tanzania and we have finally began working on our Marketing Plan template. 

We have learned about how political strife can decrease inbound visitors from coming to your country and so we expect Kenya to experience a decrease in visitors. Tanzania shares a border with Kenya and the expectation of people visiting Tanzania instead is hopefully going to increase. 

Africa is at the top of the inbound visitor growth along with the middle east. Every year more and more people are packing up their suitcase and leaving their home country for vacation. A staggering 1,235,000,000 people went to a different country for vacation in 2016. Tourism accounts for 17.5% of Tanzania’s GDP. The country has stated that they will be marketing itself as more of a tourist destination. 

Tanzania’s main competition for safaris are the Kenyans but since there is such a political disruption the competition should be weakened. Another thing we have learned this week is how safaris became a top bucket list item. 

Back in the 18th century trade routes were used to trade between the middle east and Africa. This was the first loose format of the safari we know today.

Once the 20th century came around safaris moved on to exploring and hunting. Now though, safaris are flocked with people who come to take pictures of the animals and enjoy the wildlife in their natural state. 

Next week we will be having another conversation with Ruth, the cofounder of WildTouch. Hopefully then we can get some more of our questions answered.

On September 5th, librarian Andy Kulp came to our class to discuss research methods and processing. Through our school’s databases, we began looking for sources to start our WildTouch journey. We decided to start our research with a broader approach and eventually break it down into smaller details. One helpful tip that Andy mentioned was that adding an asterisk after a word will include all forms of that word.

 The first search we tried was Safari* and Africa. The most valuable information we found under this search was an article entitled “A Wild Weekend”, where we found the link to a website travelangentcentral.com. Our plan with this website is to get in touch with a travel agent who specializes in African safaris to further our plan.

 The next search we tried was Safari* and Tanzania. Under this we found the link to apta.biz: APTA Stands for the Association for the Promotion of Tourism to Africa. We were able to obtain the contact information for an APTA representative, Beth Lincoln, who we hope to get in touch with within the next week.

 We then searched Safari* and Marketing Mix. The only articles cane up was entitles “S” and it contained hundreds of things that go into making a safari enjoyable (all which start with the letter s).

 After this we decided to restrict our search to get a little bit more depth. We searched Safari* and Marketing Mix, followed by marketing plan* and Tanzania. Here, we were able to gain some more specific details on who usually goes on safaris, the planning that going into the trip, and what some of WildTouch’s competitor’s plan’s look like. We’ve found that most of their competitors are luxurious safari companies, maybe differentiating is something we can build into our marketing plan.

~MAP OF ATTRACTIONS ~

Tuesday, August 29th was our first call with Ruth, the company Wildtouch Adventure’s cofounder. She talked about how her business is still in its growing phase since it is only 3 years old. In order to run a tourism business in Tanzania is impossible to work alone. Partnerships with big companies are a must. We were shocked to learn that she had zero social media in affect because she believes it is too time consuming at this moment. The main marketing techniques that she is uses are word of mouth from former clients, self promotion in a trade fair in June, promotions in the Tanzania Embassies, and her husbands promotion through TIC. She claims that the money makers for the business is the beach and the northern circuit safari. We learned a lot about the Tanzanian seasons, the High and Low seasons along with the Dry season. We learned that Tanzania is a very safe country to visit and that she has never had a customer have a bad experience. We are excited to work along side her and as she said, “the sky is the limit” when it comes to growth. We did have some reflection after the call and realized we still had more questions for her. Such as: 

 What does she see as the problems in her business? What exactly does she hope to gain out of this project? 

Today we had to privilege of talking with Conchestar Rwejumra, who is from Tanzania, to further our education on this African country. She taught us more about the community cultures within the smaller towns. She also talked a little bit about the political climate within the country. She said there is a lot of corruption within the government. We learned that these political problems mainly effect the urban areas because the rural areas are main illiterate. Tourism brings in 47.3% of Tanzania’s income. She touched on that while English may be one of the national languages it doesn't mean that everyone knows it. Only the wealthy know English well because it is only taught in high school. Which can be a problem for our company because they need tour guides who can speak English.