Internet Marketing Opportunities at the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa - Part 2

With the FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament starting in South Africa in June 2010, there is an enormous opportunity for the hospitality industry to utilize internet marketing to boost their revenues. It is expected that there will be more than 350,000 visitors coming to South Africa over the 4 week tournament and this means a cash injection into the economy of around $1.3 billion. A large chunk of this money will go into accommodation, restaurants, pubs and sightseeing.

South Africa has always offered outstanding hospitality services. The standards of the hotels, restaurants and pubs is extremely high and, being a sport-crazy country, coverage of the soccer will be virtually everywhere. The sports-bar concept has been in existence in South Africa for a number of decades now, and almost every pub has television coverage of sporting events on view at all times.

The smaller accommodation facilities such as motels and bed & breakfast establishments are possibly not as well marketed as the larger, well-known hotel groups and this presents an excellent opportunity to the small business owner to sell their establishment on the internet. By utilising the services of effective internet marketing consultants, they can compete with the established groups on the internet global village.

There are always those visitors to countries who prefer to avoid the "tommy tourist" packages and like to do their own thing, such as hiring a car, doing their own sightseeing and going to restaurants and pubs recommended by locals. These visitors usually don't enjoy the package tour concept and often prefer to avoid large crowds. This presents a niche that the smaller businesses can target in their internet marketing campaign.

There also exists a huge opportunity to the entrepreneur tour operators, especially those that operate in the townships such as Soweto, south of Johannesburg. Soweto, now world-famous, is a vibrant city with hundreds of places of interest. Some of these include the Apartheid Museum, Hector Pieterson Memorial, Mandela Family Museum and, of course, a vibrant and exciting nightlife at the famous "shebeens" or taverns throughout Soweto. This market niche presents excellent internet marketing opportunities to the small tour operators.

South Africa is a beautiful country with thousands of places of interest. The locals are extremely proud of their country and are well-known for their warm hospitality. It is widely known amongst South Africans that tourism is a key industry and it represents economic growth and employment. It also give South Africans the opportunity to showcase the country they are so proud of as well as the massive social changes they have undergone over the past 15 years.

With the exchange rate well in the favour of the visitor, their spending power in South Africa makes it a worthwhile experience. Whether the visitors is buying the local currency with dollars, euros or sterling, they are getting an excellent return and will have great spending power. This will allow visitors to buy local products and take advantage of the huge curio industry in the country.

The internet marketing opportunities available for the hospitality industry in South Africa are unlimited over the next few months to the FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament and the best time to start a campaign is now.

In Part 3, we will look at the retail industry and how to use internet marketing to increase revenue during the 2010 World Cup.

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