Canary Island Tourism: Social Media a Vital Tool to Build Loyalty

There is currently a lot of talk about the need for the Canary Islands to cultivate the loyalty of their visitors. The debate however, has to a large extent missed the point. It has focused only on what we can do while our tourists are in the Canaries. The hugely important subject of how to stay in touch and build loyalty once they have gone home has been ignored. 

With Canarian tourism now in its sixth decade, customer service and amiability should be second nature. Rather than pinning all our future hopes on smiling a lot and providing good customer service, we need to move the debate towards what happens once our visitors have left the islands. In short, we need to stay in touch with our visitors and make sure that they come back.

In the past the Canary Islands attracted tourists with large outbound marketing campaigns in magazines, on television, and in travel agencies. Travel agencies and tour operators then rounded up the tourists and sent them on down to the islands. There has never been a permanent relationship between visitor and destination.

“A recent article in Canarias 7 stated that it costs five times as much to attract a new visitor than to bring back a previous one”. 

The internet, and specifically social media, now gives us the ability to stay in contact with our visitors once they have gone home. We now have the tools to build positive and permanent relationships with everyone who has visited, or is thinking about visiting the islands.

Social media allows us to share beautiful images, interesting information and engaging videos every day. By providing our visitors with a regular reminder of the highlights of the islands we can build a community of loyal fans who act as voluntary advocates for the islands.

“Social media reach: The Gran Canaria Info Facebook page has over 2,500 fans and reaches 10,000 people per week. That is 10,000 people who see attractive images and videos of Gran Canaria each week: Over half a million people per year!” 

The massive opportunity that social media presents is time-limited. The Canary Islands must jump feet first into this brave new world of inbound marketing before our competitors build a huge online platform and leave us behind. Destinations are exotic as the Philippines and Australia are already using social media to advertise themselves. It is only a matter of time before closer rivals in Morocco, the Caribbean and North Africa start to do the same!

“The Canary Islands are leaders in their sector of the European tourist industry. Successful use of social media marketing will enable us to stay on top!” 

The keys to successful content marketing via social media are quality imagery and native language community managers. Photographs and short videos have an instant impact, are highly shareable, and are the best way to show off the Canary Islands as a destination. Native speakers are able to communicate effectively with their target audience.

This article by Alex Bramwell first appeared on the Sunshine Guide to Gran Canaria