Public Relations Proposal for Oman Increasing Awareness About Oman as a Tourist Destination

March 29, 2017

Sabina Leybold

Cait Noonan Julia Frazee

Madeleine Bellard  

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OMAN

Capital: Muscat Languages: Arabic, Swahili Population: 4,572,949 Points of Interest: • Sultan Qaboos Grand

Mosque, • Bahla Fort • Bait al Zubair • Royal Opera House

Muscat • Jebel Shams • Jebel Akhdar • Wahiba Sands • Hajjar Mountains

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ……………………………………………………….. 3 Situational Analysis ……………………………………………………….. 4 SWOT …………………………………………………………………. 5 Objectives …………………………………………………………………... 8 Target Audience …………………………………………………………... 9 Strategies .………………………………………………………………… 10 Tactics ……………………………..……………………………………….. 11

Social media …………………………...…………………………… 12 Events ………………………………………….……………………. 15

Measurement & Evaluation …………………………………………..… 16 Timetable ………………………………………………………….………. 17 Appendix ………………………………………………………………….. 18      

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Executive Summary

Sabina Leybold Cait Noonan Julia Frazee Madeleine Bellard

Our agency has started a public relations proposal aimed to increase travel and tourism in Oman.

Oman is located in the Middle East, which is often an uneasy topic due to current issues and media

perceptions given to the public. Our goal is to boost tourism to Oman and bring awareness to the

country, as well as changing the perceptions of traveling in the Middle East. We are targeting people

ages 25-45 with a passion for travel, adventure, and culture. We plan to use different tactics through

social media and events to target our demographic. Our goal is to partner with well-known travel

bloggers through Instagram, YouTube, and written blogs to show the beauty and experiences shared

in Oman. We plan to host Virtual Reality and pop-up events aimed to change the perceptions of

traveling in the Middle East. We will measure the success of our campaign through social media and

tracking media impressions. By using multiple tactics, we hope to attract a following through multiple

platforms to reach out target audience.

Thank you.

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About Our Agency

Brought together by the Roy H. Park School of Communications, Sabina, Cait, Julia, and Madeleine have started a PR firm dedicated to attracting tourism to different regions of the world. After working together in college years ago, the group found themselves pursuing different careers in the public relations field. While exploring other options the group came together after revisiting Ithaca

College and decided to act upon a common interest: travel. Now the agency is working out of New York City, working with different clients and campaigns in

order to boost tourism and awareness to regions not often explored.  

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Sabina Leybold

Sabina Leybold is the Research and Content Analyst for the Oman

tourism campaign. She graduated Ithaca College in 2014 and has spent the last few years developing

public relations strategy for lesser-known travel

destinations. She loves following the journeys of

travel influencers and checking out new

locations.  

Cait Noonan

Cait Noonan is the Creative Director for the Oman

tourism campaign. She is responsible for the creative content developed in order to boost the campaign. She graduated Ithaca College in

2013 with a bachelor’s degree in communication

management design. Cait has taken her knowledge into the

public relations field previously working for

different clients and firms.  

Julia Frazee

Julia Frazee is the Oman tourism campaign

implementation specialist. She manages all strategies and tactics to bring tourism

and awareness to travel opportunities in Oman.

Julia graduated from Ithaca College in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in

Communication Management and Design and has since then worked for various Public relations firms. She has a passion for social media and uses that

passion to create compelling travel

narratives.  

Madeleine Bellard

Madeleine Bellard is the Oman Evaluation Specialist,

focusing on the operations of her team members as they try

to execute a successful campaign to increase tourism in Oman. She graduated from Ithaca College in 2015 with a

bachelor's degree in Integrated Marketing

Communications. She’s passionate about photography

and pursues that in her free time.

 

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Situational Analysis Oman is the oldest independent state in the Arab world, and yet it remains relatively untouched by tourists. According to Times of Oman, three million tourists visited Oman in 2016, with the largest numbers coming from other Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar), India, Great Britain, Pakistan, and Germany. Oman has amazing potential to become a popular tourist destination, however, given its location on the Arabian Peninsula and its wide array of terrains from desert to mountains to beach to city. Oman’s location also lends itself to a wide variety of adventure tourism options, including world-class SCUBA diving. TravelWeekly reports that adventure travel has increased by 65% from 2009 to 2013 and continues to rise; it’s important to capitalize on this trend to boost general tourism to a destination. Currently Oman is seeking to bring in more travelers, especially given that many tourists are wary of European and Middle Eastern countries due to rising anti-migrant violence and political unrest.

Tourists from the United States, in particular, are an untapped market for tourism to Oman. Many Americans haven’t even heard of Oman, let alone visited. A hashtag analysis of #middleeast reveals that most online conversation about the region discusses news about U.S. positioning and power within the Middle East, battles, oil, terrorist groups, oppression, and radical Islam. Based on this Twitter conversation, it is clear that people generally perceive the Middle East to be an aggressive, dangerous area, especially for Americans. In contrast, the #Oman hashtag reveals that its perceptions lean towards adventure travel, food, photography, and safety.  

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Safety is a common theme in the tourism discussion surrounding Oman, and this is a key idea for a public relations campaign to highlight because of the Middle East’s reputation. Daniel Adamson of The Guardian writes, “The traditional [Arab] outlook can be manifested in extreme hospitality: the only danger visitors are likely to face is being overfed by an Omani family – the FCO has no current restrictions on travel in the country.” Oman’s safety is an especially important feature to highlight when targeting women travelers, who may be concerned about spending time in Muslim countries where women have fewer rights than they do in the United States. Annabel Abel writes in Forbes, “I never felt unsafe because of unrest elsewhere in the Middle East, nor as a (modestly dressed) woman traveling alone.” Oman’s biggest competitor is likely the United Arab Emirates, where Dubai stands out as a wonderful destination for luxury shopping, modern architecture, beach access, and lively nightlife and has a similar appeal of Western expectations of safety. Fodor’s Travel calls Dubai “one big adult playground” where the focus is having fun. According to the World Tourism Organization, Dubai alone had roughly 10,000 tourist arrivals in 2013, while all of Oman received around 1,500 people. Dubai’s relative popularity, however, can also be seen as an opportunity to distinguish Oman as an exciting up-and-coming destination. Unlike the United Arab Emirates, Oman has maintained a “hidden gem” quality that we can promote to show its authenticity, natural beauty and preservation, and historical appeal. Travelers who want to get off the beaten path are a huge target group for our campaign on Oman; we can appeal to the “innovators” and “early adopters” of tourism, rather than technology. Oman’s emergence as a travel destination presents lots of opportunities for awareness campaigns. Influencers on social media will be powerful channels for boosting tourism to the country, as their followers are more likely to trust their assertions that Oman is a safe and beautiful place to travel. Partnering with travel bloggers/vloggers is a key tactic for our campaign to help dispel fear and grow interest in the region. We also aim to insert positive conversation about Oman into discussions about the Middle East to help distinguish it from the negative coverage of neighboring countries.    

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SWOT Analysis

Strengths ● Oman has been relatively untouched by tourists, so travel

experiences are authentic/genuine vs. clichéd/crowded ● Oman’s location includes all terrains: desert, mountains,

beach, city ● Oman has a lot of natural beauty and historical appeal ● Many activities center around outdoor adventure travel

(including SCUBA diving), cultural exploration, and food tourism

● Omani people are very hospitable and welcoming to tourists ● No travel restrictions in Oman; it is a very safe place to travel ● Easy to get to Muscat from most major airport hubs with

only one change of plane ● Can see and experience Muslim culture ● Winter months are mild

Weaknesses ● Many Americans haven’t even heard of Oman, let alone been

interested in traveling there ● Most of Oman’s attractions are not family-oriented ● Traveling to/within Oman is relatively expensive, including

accommodations ● Oman has very little public transportation, so you need to

hire a car, guide, or tour to get around ● Few festivals for people to partake in (beyond Muscat festival) ● Summers are blisteringly hot (March to October) ● Culture leans towards conservative, which can be off-putting

for some travelers

Opportunities ● Travel blogger/vlogger influencers with large followings can

help dispel myths and establish trust in Oman ● Oman has a lot of natural beauty; as social media has shifted

to favor photo and video content, this can be displayed in a compelling way online

● Oman will appeal to “off the beaten path” travelers who want to explore a place before it becomes a hot tourist destination

● People who haven’t even heard of Oman may be surprised to hear all its strengths

● Adventure travel is on the rise, Oman has many choices for this type of tourism

Threats ● People generally perceive Middle Eastern countries as

dangerous ● Anti-migrant violence, bombings, and political disturbances

are rising in Europe and Middle East ● Female travelers may be hesitant to go to the Middle East

regardless of any individual country’s safety levels ● Dubai is a serious competitor for safe, accessible travel to the

Middle East

 

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Objectives Given its location on the Arabian Peninsula, Oman has amazing potential to become a popular tourist destination. It provides a wide array of terrains from desert to mountains to beach to city. Oman’s location also lends itself to a wide variety of adventure tourism options, including hiking and biking trails, cave exploration, world-class SCUBA diving on beautiful beaches, and various mosques and museums. Our program aims to achieve two main goals, which include (1) an increase of American tourism to Oman, and (2) to raise overall awareness that Oman is safe for travel. In order to achieve these goals we have come up with two measureable objectives:

1. Raising the number of American arrivals in Oman to 80,000 by end of 2018.

2. Reaching 300,000 media impressions for messages about safety between April 2017 and December 2018.

 

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Target Audiences Oman is a destination that concentrates heavily on authenticity and culture. The main attractions range from beaches, to hiking trails, caves, and culture rich foods. Oman is a destination for adventurous travelers, which is why we decided our key publics would be seasoned world travelers between the ages of 25 – 45 years old. Additionally, we aim to target singles/couples without kids, or who travel without kids. We would like to attract adventure seekers who enjoy the outdoors, hiking, biking, and food as well as individuals who have a passion for experiencing new cultures. We chose to specifically target American tourists in order to increase the amount of American tourism to the Middle East, which is currently rated very low. As mentioned previously, travelers who want to get off the beaten path are a huge target group for our campaign. We aim to appeal to seasoned travelers, or “early adopters” of tourism because they are more likely to seek an authentic cultural experience. Persona narrative examples: Gabriella and Chris are a married couple without kids traveling to Oman for the first time. Gabriella is 34 years old and Chris is 32. They have been together for 10 years and have spent the last 6 years traveling to destinations such as Peru, Egypt, Costa Rica, and Barcelona. Gabriella works as a data analyst at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and Chris works as a creative director for a pharmaceutical company. Their annual household income is around US$180,000, and they both hold post-graduate degrees. They have a passion for travel and immersing themselves into authentic cultures. They are frequent flyers of Delta Airlines and enjoy beaches, hiking, and music. Jen and Kate are old friends from college. Both women are 28 years old. They studied abroad together to Italy during college and traveled around Europe during that time. Jen is a middle school teacher in an NJ school, and Kate is a Therapist located in Connecticut. Both Females are currently single and enjoy food, adventure and biking. Although they are well traveled, both women are wary about safety during their travel. They are concerned about spending time in a Muslim country where women have fewer right than they do in the United States. Although they have heard that Oman is a very safe place with culture rich attractions, they have decided to look more into travel safety in Oman.  

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Strategies Our program aims to achieve two measurable objectives, which include (1) raising the number of American arrivals in Oman to 80,000 by the end of 2018, and (2) reaching 300,000 media impressions for messages about safety between April 2017 and December 2018. Oman’s emergence as a travel destination presents lots of opportunities for awareness campaigns. In order to reach these objectives our program will include campaigns through social media and pop-up events. Influencers on social media will be powerful channels for boosting tourism to the country, as their followers are more likely to trust their assertions that Oman is a safe and beautiful place to travel. Additionally, partnering with travel bloggers/vloggers is a key tactic for our campaign to help dispel fear and grow interest in the region. The overall goal of these campaigns is to increase positive conversation and awareness about safety in Oman and increase rates of American travel. In order to achieve these objective/goals we have set up three main strategies, which include:

1. Create a highly visual campaign to spark interest in Oman as a travel destination.

2. Use influencers to portray the safety of Oman as a travel destination.

3. Execute in-person PR events to raise offline interest in Oman.

 

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Tactics Social Media: In the past few years we have seen the huge impact that social media has across multiple industries, including the

travel marketing industry. According to a research study done by Redshift Research, “approximately one-fifth of

leisure travellers worldwide turn to social media platforms for inspiration within different categories of their travel

planning”. A main component of our campaign tactic is to use social media influencers to highlight travel and

attractions in Oman. Influencers on social media will be powerful channels for boosting tourism to the country, as

their followers are more likely to trust their assertions that Oman is a safe and beautiful place to travel. Additionally,

we aim to partner with travel bloggers/vloggers as a key tactic for our campaign to help dispel fear and grow interest

in the region. We also plan to insert positive conversation about Oman into discussions about the Middle East to

help distinguish it from the negative coverage of neighboring countries. More specifically our tactics include the

following: ● Use popular Instagram influencers such as

Sarah Richard (@coffethentravel), and Miriam

(@adventurousmiriam) to highlight travel and

attractions in Oman, by posting two weeks

worth of travel content. Oman’s safety is an

especially important feature to highlight when

targeting female travelers, who may be

concerned about spending time in Muslim

countries. Since these Instagram influencers

are single female travelers who tend to

explore more remote locations, their travel

posts will highlight the safety of traveling in

Oman.

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● Partner with a well-known YouTube travel personality to create a series of five videos on Oman’s attractions and

food. The YouTube vlog, STORYTRAVELERS, is a collective of artists who share interesting travel experiences

through beautiful visual storytelling, and they do it very well. Their passion for travel is obvious while watching

their videos. The way they use visuals to tell their travel stories is very compelling and will allow people to get a

unique perspective on travel in Oman that highlights the beautiful destinations it is known for.  

● Partner with travel blogger Shannon O’Donnell, (A Little Adrift) to create a six-week series of weekly posts

about Oman, including attractions and safety messages. A little adrift is a great resource point to motivate and

encourage other travelers through stories, advice, and photography. This particular blog focuses on local level

grassroots travel, connecting to cultures through food and service, practical advice for planning long-term

travels, how to travel as a vegetarian, tools and resources for living/working abroad, and creating a supportive

community motivating others to travel. http://alittleadrift.com/about/

● Create a BuzzFeed feature/news article on Oman travel and safety. The overall goal is to influence public

opinion about safety in the Middle East especially perceptions about Oman specifically. BuzzFeed is a great

resource that allows us to reach a wide range of people across multiple channels such as Facebook, and

Twitter.  

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● Create a Facebook campaign about myths/facts about the culture

and safety of Oman, including sponsored posts that target key

publics. Not only is this a great tool to provide information about

traveling in Oman, but it is also a great way to interact with target

audiences.

● Publish op-eds and opinion pieces in the New York Times and

Huffington Post about travel to Oman to raise awareness of the

country as a interesting destination. These sites are seen as being

reputable sources that many people trust. They are also shared on

multiple channels such as Facebook and Twitter, which will help,

spread the word about traveling to Oman.

● Partner with Insider travel to make a video highlighting the

attractions of Oman to be posted and seen through social media.

This visual aid will help dispel fear about traveling to the Middle

East while simultaneously showcasing its beautiful attractions and

rich culture.  

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Events: Oman’s emergence as a travel destination presents many opportunities for awareness campaigns. Therefore, in addition to multiple social media campaign tactics, we aim to use pop-up events to generate overall awareness. Pop-up events have become increasingly popular in the last few years, and play a key role in educating and engaging consumers. These campaigns will allow us to interact with our target audience, while generating conversation and awareness through documentation over social media. Some of the more specific events include:

• Executing an interactive pop-up event in larger cities such as, New York, Boston, Washington DC, and Los Angeles with a chalkboard campaign re: perceptions of the Middle East to show how Oman is different.

• Carry out pop-up event in New York, Atlanta, Seattle, and Chicago that includes virtual reality tours of Oman.

 

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Measurement and Evaluation

Our campaigns main intention is to bring more tourists to Oman. By monitoring the popularity of the destination, seeing an increase in flight bookings and reservations at hotels, we will be able to determine whether or not Oman is in fact becoming a popular destination. It is our intent to raise the number of American tourists in Oman to 80,000 by the end of 2018 and must monitor if that number is going up significantly or declining. We intend to utilize social media to track the success of our campaign. By monitoring the views, we get on our posts; we’ll be able to determine if we have successfully reached our target of 300,000 media impressions. If we monitor the page views from when we start our campaign in April 2017, it will be easy to track the campaigns progress. Additionally, by tracking unique visitors specifically, there will be fewer variables when calculating the actual amount of individuals that are being reached. With the different events we plan on doing to raise awareness for Oman, it is important to establish a calendar that we can stick to. A calendar will hold us accountable for the release dates of new videos, information, articles and photos, which is important because we want to stay current during the course of the campaign. In line with staying current, we want to personally engage with our audience. While not all people have the opportunity to travel to Oman, we would at least like to give them information and give them the chance to learn about the Middle East as a travel destination. We want to be able to connect to individuals through our pop up events in New York, Atlanta, Seattle and Chicago that give participants a virtual reality tour of locations in Oman. It is important for us to create contacts and network, gather names for email lists to extend the relationship further past just the pop up event. By tracking the number of people that engage in our pop up events, we will be able to gather a statistic of the amount of people we are able to reach and adjust our approach for increased success.  

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Timetable We begin our campaigns in April of 2017 with the launch of our website and social media platforms. With that launch there will be content posted by travel bloggers that we have partnered with in order to gain attention to our organization. Through April, we will be starting our campaigns and gain more traction by launching one of our pop up events at the end of the month.

As we are approaching the spring and summer months, we want to gain traction by travelling around and doing pop up events through the city. In early May, we will hold an event in New York that gives individuals the opportunity to have a virtual reality tour of different locations in Oman. We choose to start in New York as it is a large tourist city itself, it is a popular city with enough traffic that we would have the opportunity to engage with a lot of people and out of convenience for it being close to our headquarters. The benefit of having these events in person is connecting with others face-to-face, but it also gives us an opportunity to record the event and post it to social media. By showing people’s genuine interest and reactions to the sites in Oman, we believe that their personal interest will come naturally. Mid-May we will be partnering with travel blogger, Shannon O’Donnell for a 6-week series on traveling in Oman. By choosing to do that 6 week long piece at this time, we believe that people’s interest will grow and as they approach time off in the summer months, they will consider Oman for their travel destination.

Continuing into June, we will launch our Facebook campaign that tackles the myths that are associated with travel in the Middle East. We will be posting information about Oman and the great things about traveling there in order to further convince of the safety in the Middle East. To gain traction and attention to our Facebook page, we plan on releasing short videos to platforms like Buzzfeed and Insider Travel. Both are platforms that will reach a large audience and it is our hope that once these sources of information are introduced to Facebook, we will be able to keep them relevant on people’s news feeds.

Through the summer months, we will continue to host pop up events but want to maximize our usage of Instagram. From June to August we will promote Instagram travel accounts. We will come back with a different travel Instagrammer around November to keep travel in Oman relevant throughout the year.

Pop up’s will continue through the fall in warmer locations like Los Angeles and Atlanta so we still are able to gain foot traffic. Additionally, we will reach out to the Huffington Post for an article on the top travel destinations throughout Oman in Early October.

We will ramp up our presence towards the end of November, as the holiday season that approaches in December is a popular time for travel. By posting a series on traveling Oman with a popular YouTuber, we will be able to highlight Oman as a beautiful destination to escape to.

At the end of December, we will reevaluate the entirety of our campaign and see where we found the most success and what we can improve on going into the next year. We will measure our campaigns success successful statistically by the engagement we’ve received over the course of the 9-month time period since our campaign launched.  

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Appendix

We plan to use YouTube travel vloggers to show off Oman and their passion for travel through their videos. A YouTube series allows viewers to see the attractions of Oman and the beauty of the country.

A chalkboard pop-up event in popular cities attracts a crowd and can get people thinking about topics for our campaign such as their perceptions of the Middle East to show how Oman is different.

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This is an example of a solo female travel blogger that shares her experiences exploring new places while traveling alone. Partnering with blogs like Adventurous Kate would help change perceptions about the safety of Oman and the Middle East, coming from a solo female traveler.

We plan to campaign through Facebook by partnering with Insider Travel and circulating an “Insider Oman” Facebook video around. This will help attract our target audience, which is people age 25-45 using Facebook and sharing posts with their friends daily.