The first thing you notice when you see the new website is that it’s big and bold. The colors are vibrant, the font is large and the buttons are big. The new design captures not only part of the spirit of the island, but it also speaks to what people expect of a Caribbean island. No classical symphonies and sipping grappa in a garden here; this is salsa and cocktails on the beach.

Besides a great design and tons of content, the new website also has some interesting features. With the booking widget tourists can instantly book their trip through Travelocity, with the Vacation Matcher they can get hints about what to do on Curacao, with the discussion boards they can give each other tips and the list goes on.

Like every good website, this website is not finished yet. Over the coming months the site will get more content in the languages besides English (not everything was translated yet), more e-cards will be added, imagery will be updated and maps will be added.

We believe that the new curacao.com is an important step in the right direction for the Curacao Tourist Board and Curacao tourism in general. This new website will perform better in the search engines, it speaks more to what people expect from a Caribbean island (while also showing the uniqueness of Curacao) and it gives the CTB and the visitors more tools to interact with the website.

Dragonfly Media will continue to handle the website’s content and maintenance, as well as the advertising on the site. If you want to advertise on curacao.com, contact Claartje or Bo for rates and specs.

About TIG Global
TIG Global is the leading provider of full service, customized e-marketing solutions for the hospitality industry. Through its strategic approach to online marketing, TIG Global executes integrated marketing plans that leverage the latest e-marketing tools and consumer trends to maximize your results and investment. Created by hoteliers over seven years ago, TIG Global has honed its internet expertise to meet the unique needs of the hospitality industry.

Based in the Washington, DC area with a European office in London, TIG Global currently serves over 800 hospitality clients worldwide. TIG Global blends the creative talent of an ad agency with customized, Internet marketing solutions covering every angle – from initial website design and promotional email campaigns to social networking and statistical analysis of your website traffic. TIG Global also offers the most dedicated account service team in the industry.

The choice was limited; “SI” or “NO”, but the last few weeks the referendum was about the only thing people could talk about. We followed the discussions and campaigns in the newspapers, on tv and radio and -of course- online.

This referendum was the first major political event on Curacao that saw the battle being waged on the internet alongside the traditional channels. So, what happened online?

Websites
The NO-camp was first with a website about the referendum, vota-no.com. The Vota No website is a Wordpress site with a free template. When the site launched they not only advertised with it in the newspapers, but also online. This got them a lot of attention and for a while they were doing pretty good in the search engines.

The Vota No website’s design was a bit busy, but they largely stuck with the original template which something proves difficult on Curacao. It featured a lot of video and audio and was updated regularly. A pretty good site and an effective campaign. They could have paid more attention to SEO though. This would have given them many more visitors.

The next website was a website from the SI-camp, kuradigital.com. This website was a Joomla website with an edited template. The site was launched with a minimum of attention but since it was the first SI website it soon became the site to be associated with for the politicians of the SI-camp.

Kuradigital.com was a very straight site with mostly text. They had videos but these weren’t easy to find.The updates were always fast and they were the first ones of these sites to put te results of the referendum online. This website also did not pay any attention to SEO and were therefore not easy to find on the searche engines. Kuradigital.com had information in multiple languages, giving the site a better chance in different language search engines (although this can be confusing to visitors, especially when the languages are all mixed up like this website had).

The last major referendum website to launch was desidido.com, a Joomla website with an edited template as well. This website received a lot of attention with mostly off-line campaigns. Large billboards were erected, advertisements were placed in all newspapers and they handed out desidido-parafernalia at every event of some significance.

The people behind desidido.com obviously have design skills. The site looked very slick and its design was carried through well. Technically it wasn’t very good though. Like the other websites, they updated their content regularly and fast. They were late with launching the website and implementing SEO, but they are the only site that did do something with SEO. In the last week before the referendum this website was the only referendum website that could consistently be found in Google with different related search phrases.

Other websites of note were awelsi.com (a SI site for young people), vota-si.com (a NO site with videos) and referendummei15.com (objective informational site).

It’s difficult to say which camp did the best job with their website(s). The NO-camp was the first (which scores big points in my book) and was the most cohesive, but they also played a slightly dirty trick with the vota-si.com website. The SI-camp had the better looking site and they did well in the search engines in the end, but they were divided with two main sites and they were very late. I would rule this one 52-48 in the favor of the NO-camp.

Social Media
The campaigns were not only waged through dedicated websites, but also through social media.

The Si-camp was very active in social media. As the invented personality ‘Se, Sua‘ they created a Hyves page and a FaceBook group. Lawyer Eric R. de Vries created a LinkedIn group and Bob Harms created a FaceBook cause. The SI-camp even sent out a chain e-mail (yes, very 90-ies) which people had to forward and cc to the originator.

The NO-camp was notably less active in the world of social media. The only thing we could find was a FaceBook group with only a few members. There is a hyves page on votano.hyves.nl, but this one was made by the SI-camp to block it for the NO-camp (so, it’s -1 vs -1 in the race for the ethical award).

Neither of the camps was active on Twitter. Some individual protagonists were active on Twitter (NO: @sablikatriumph, SI: @ovel), but there appeared to be no cohesive effort in that arena.

Real-time
The internet is specifically useful when you want to provide information/opinion in real-time. The Curacao “Registro Sivil” updated their website in (near) real-time when the results from the voting booths were coming in. This meant that they regularly uploaded two images with numbers and graphs. So, by continually refreshing the site you could follow the results coming in.

While the results were coming in TeleCuracao updated its status on FaceBook to communicate the results and we did the same on Twitter. After the final result was in there was a massive flurry of activity on Twitter, Hyves and Facebook when people updated family and friends.

Next elections
All in all it seems safe to say that - for the first time in Curacao history - part of the campaigns for this referendum was wagered online. It would take more metrics and insider information to gauge the impact these campaigns had, but we believe that they did have an impact for the simple reason that people are looking online for information. So, the campaign that’s more visible will have a bigger chance of having their say and influencing people’s opinions at the next elections.

Next year we will have ‘normal’ elections again. If the above trend continues we will probably -hopefully- see that the political parties will become more active online. If you look at the state of the websites of the political parties now (if you can find them) you will see that some are not finished and that the only party website with information about the referendum is of one of the smallest parties. This means that there is a lot of work to be done, but it also means that this is a big opportunity for the parties to score.

The reason I’ve placed it here is the amount of views and comments this video has gotten. At the time of writing this video was viewed 32,847 times and got 263 comments. Even worse (for Sears that is); when you search on YouTube for Sears it’s in the 8th place (in 5th if you search for Sears dishwasher). And if you search for a Sears dishwasher in Google there are 3 results on the first page with complaints about Sears.

I don’t know Sears intimately but my impression of the company right now is not a very good one…

At last night’s “Best of the Best Awards” Gala HSMAI Curacao’s Director Steven Damiana and President- Elect Rosann Jansen were awarded with the best Small Chapter in the categories of Websites, Communications & Customer Interaction Program.

We are very proud of the HSMAI Curacao Chapter for this superb achievement and we’re doubly proud because DGF built the website and our own Bo Loefstok-Schillemans is VP of Communications at HSMAI Curacao.

One of the latest additions to Twitter on Curacao is the local radio station Dolfijn FM. They inaugurated their account today under the moniker @dolfijnfm and appear to be very enthusiastic about it. They even put a widget with their updates on their website the same day.

Some resources for Twitter on Curacao:

• Twhirl - a stand-alone application built on Adobe AIR that you can use to follow Twitter from your desktop
• WeFollow - a directory of Twitter users ordered by tags and the amount of followers (tag Curacao)
• CuracaoTechnology - a blog post about the use of Twitter on Curacao (in Dutch)
• Wordpress plugins - some tools and widgets to put your tweets on your blog
• Some of the other Curacao Twitter users - @acesuares, @basvandorst, @CuracaoNieuws, @curacaotechnews, @MementoVivi, @Morap, @TheoCuracao and our own account is @dgfmedia

LTR: Cezanna, Raoul, Bride, Groom & Friendly Kooyman Dude

The reason they invaded our, already pretty chaotic, office was to deliver VIP invitations to their Wedding Fair opening on April 3rd. To get some promotion going for this fair they put two beautiful people in a wedding dress and tuxedo, hired a big Lexus and went to the media and their contacts.

This is a really good example of creating some good buzz on a local level. Sure, you can only reach so many people in a day this way but these people all tell their friends, blog/twitter about it, put it on FaceBook, etcetera. The word-of-mouth factor is not to be underestimated when you do something original like this.

Two thumbs up for Kooyman Gifts & Garden and we’re definitely going to their Wedding Fair to see what else they’ve come up with.

Coming monday Curacao’s largest marketing campaign in the US to date will be kicked off. The campaign is called the Curacao Treasure Hunt and participants have a chance of winning a trip for two to Curacao every day as well as the buried treasure of $500,000. That’s half-a-million bucks!

The idea of this campaign is to raise awareness of Curacao in the US market. The lack of awareness and name recognition has been a problem for Curacao in the US for a long time. Since being aware of a destination is the first step in booking a trip this has held back visits from the US in the past. With this new campaign the Curacao Tourist Board aims to not only increase the amount of US visitors in the short run but also in the long run.

Visitors to the Treasure Hunt website can enter the competition by answering a Curacao-related question. If they don’t know the answer, they can find it on curacao.com. There’s a new question every day for 70 days and every day people answer the question they get a chance to win the grand prize of $500,000. So, answer the question 70 times and you have 70 chances. Participants also have a chance every day to win a trip for two to Curacao as a day-prize.

After the 70 days of the competition a big raffle is held and 10 participants are drawn to come to Curacao somewhere in August to compete in the actual treasure hunt.

The marketing for this campaign is extensive. There are television commercials, a dedicated iPhone app (a Caribbean first), heaps of display ads (online & offline), search engine advertising and loads of PR and buzz.

The teams of M&C Saatchi, KSL Media, Hill and Knowlton and the CTB US office are also working on what to do when those 10 treasure hunt participants come to Curacao and how to use this in the US. There has been talk of Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Ray and/or Ingrid Hoffman coming to Curacao during the actual hunt but that’s still in the gossip stage. Judging by the all the marketing that’s going on now we do think it will be a huge event.

I’m talking about the people of Carmabi.
Carmabi is a foundation that researches, protects and maintains a lot of nature areas and reserves at Curacao. They also educate children, which is very, very important to preserve nature on this island and preserving nature is very, very, very important for tourism. Who wants to visit a dry, desert like island shattered with trash?
Through my former job, at an eco-tour-company, I really saw how important it is to maintain our island. I also learned how beautiful our island is. We have many natural treasures no amusement park can beat.

Since their subsidy has been cut with 75%, Carmabi has to become more commercial to survive and that’s where we come in. Our job is to create several websites that are commercial and attractive, but also reflect the work that Carmabi does. And, without being boring, they have to give information about the nature reserves and the research station.
In order to get a good feel for what exactly Carmabi does, we have to do some field research.

Our first mission was a Sunset Deer Spotting Trip in the Christoffel Park. Some of us didn’t even know that we had deer on Curacao. I knew, but never saw one.
Off we went, all seated in a Landcruiser, covered with anti-mosquito spray, well-guided by Cyriel and Michelle from Carmabi.

First they showed us the heavy job they are doing with restoring the Savonet plantation house. Next year it will be an interesting museum with all kinds of exhibitions.
While driving further through the park we all enjoyed the serenity of the park, the stunning views, the knowledge of the guide, and - of course - the deer! We actually saw them, a mother and a young. A little further on, we found the remains of a dead deer calf. There we met the researchers! While other people would never touch a dead animal, Michelle jumped out of the truck to collect every little bone. Right now, there’s probably someone puzzling the pieces together to a complete dear skeleton.

After the beautiful sunset we drove back to civilization. It might sound weird, but we all had the feeling we had been out of the real world for a while. That’s what the Christoffel Park does…

Our next field trip requires us to be able to swim…but it’s best if we don’t have to!
We will also have a look into the past and the future at the same time. So stay tuned!

This entry was written by Claartje Visser. Dragonfly Media’s content editor extra-ordinaire.

The Chapter organizes various events throughout the year, for its members.

For the event on March 26, the topic is: ‘The Tenacity of Tourism: How to Thrive on Turbulence’

Dr. Ryan Peterson, Dean of Hospitality & Tourism Management Studies at the University of Aruba, will be guest speaker for the Curacao Chapter, and will talk about global economic turmoil (incl. recession) and competitive turbulence, how this impacts (island-based) tourism economies and destinations, why the Caribbean should get its ‘tourism act’ together, what the strategic capabilities and essential competencies are of thriving in competitive turbulence, and what tactics enterprises and executives can (and should) consider adopting.

This event will be held from 5:30 - 6:30 PM at the Flamboyant Center at Breezes.

Tickets are available at the CHATA office, Kaya Junior Salas 1, phone 465 1005, or van be reserved by mail: info@hsmaicuracao.org.

HSMAI members pay Naf 50,00
NON- Members pay Naf 75,00
HSMAI student member pay Naf 25,00
ALL other students pay Naf 35,00

About Dr. Ryan R. Peterson:
Ryan R. Peterson is a native of Aruba, father of two sons, and his heritage reaches back to Irish-Caribbean explorers of the 19th century. Dr. Peterson holds different academic degrees and doctorates in the areas of psychology, business, technology, governance and economics.

He is the vice-president of the University of Aruba and the founding Dean of the new Bachelor and Master programs in International Tourism and International Business at the University of Aruba. Previous to his current position as Dean of Hospitality & Tourism Management Studies at the University of Aruba, he was Professor of Strategic Management, and Director of Research & Development at the Institute for Technology & Innovation in Europe.

His portfolio spans over fifteen years as international business researcher and strategic advisor for different multinationals and tourism-related destinations, and includes over seventy publications in international academic and business press. Dr. Peterson has worked across several continents and at least forty different cultures. He has researched, consulted, and written on topics ranging from management to marketing, productivity to personality, strategy to sustainability, and the pathologies of politics.

Dr. Peterson is a ’specialized generalist’ in the area of designing and developing high-performance systems at both micro and macro levels. His current work focuses on strategic governance and sustainable competitiveness of business enterprises and (tourism-intense) island economies.

He is actively involved in several international and national (tourism-related) committees, the YMCA, UNWTO, UNESCO, and several other community-based initiatives. He serves as the chairman for the Aruban Tourism Intelligence committee and is vice-president of the National Commission for Sustainable Aruban Tourism. In his free time, he can be found enjoying the wonders of nature, in the water and on land, from swimming, to biking, hiking and running, and ideally in combination in (off-road) triathlons

The times are tough, although Curacao is still a very popular vacation destination for various markets (Royal Dutch Airlines KLM is adding 30% capacity to their flights to Curacao!), we need to stay alert.

We highly appreciate this article posted by Hotelmarketing.com on February 20th, ‘Top 12 Revenue Management Initiatives for 2009!’, the 4th initiative reads:

Treat your third party Internet partners as an extension of your revenue team.
Strategic relationships with your third party Internet partners are important, now more than ever. In bad times, as in good, treat your third party partners as an extension of your revenue team. Good market managers have their fingers on the pulse of the overall market and can provide great insight into broader trends that you may not see.

• Share need periods, discuss production targets and how you can work together to achieve agreed upon goals.
• when those targets are met and have open discussions when there is a shortfall.
• Re-evaluate your distressed/last minute channel strategy based on feedback from your market manager and the needs of your hotel.
• Research if there are any sites that can drive business into your market with which you do not currently work.