Pilot online promotion in China has fruitful results

The Marianas Visitors Authority has just completed the first phase of online promotions in China on Sept. 15 and it said the effort has showed encouraging results.

More than 33,000 netizens visited the MVA mini-site, http://www.mymarianas.com.cn/diary/index.html in the four weeks—Aug. 15-Sept. 15—since its launch and the number of registered users stands at more than 3,800 netizens, who are prospective travelers to the Marianas—Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. This is an 11-percent registration rate, a high rate by industry standards, according to MVA.

In addition, there were over 4,300 referrals or a 113 percent forward rate indicating an extremely high viral efficiency: 1 registration generated 1.2 emails forwarded. The return on investment, in this case the amount spent on online media placement and online permission eDM (electronic direct marketing), was well over two and a half time the investment.

“Most importantly, the promotional campaign has resulted in increasing the interests of visitors to going to the Marianas—Saipan, Tinian, and Rota as a tourism destination.” MVA said.

According to Tinian Dynasty Holidays, they received more than 200 calls inquiring about traveling to the CNMI and 150 callers bought the packages over the phone during the four-week promotion period. Also, in the first two days, the 12 half-price discounted packages provided by Century Tours and Tinian Dynasty Holidays were sold out.

“We hope MVA can do the more promotions like this to increase our sales,” said Peter Pan, marketing promotion manager of TDH.

Another incentive to encourage netizens to visit the website was the five complimentary tourism packages to the CNMI, provided by CT and TDH. The lucky winners came from Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, and Guangzhou.

“I am so pleased to have a chance to tour these beautiful islands,” said Yang Feiyong, a winner from Suzhou.

As a part of the promotional campaign, the MVA will carry out a direct mail campaign aimed at human resources and administration departments of large companies to promote the Marianas as an outstanding new destination for incentive trips. Also, the MVA will be following up with those who will visit the Marianas as a result of the online promotional program and with the 8,270 people who either registered on or were referred from the online promotional program.

“We are quite pleased with the results of this promotion, as our research indicates that interest in touring the Marianas—Saipan, Tinian, and Rota has certainly increased among Chinese netizens. We are now looking into organizing the second phase of this successful online promotional program,” said MVA managing director Vicky Benavente. (PR)