Playing the Safari card
Think wildlife, think Kenya. The national parks there offer a superb safari experience. Most of all, though, for somebody visiting from India, it comes as a huge surprise that a Government-run forest service can be a Superbrand.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) manages the countrys 35 national parks and reserves. And they manage it well enough to have received Superbrand status in 2010, selected by the London-based The Centre for Brand Analysis (TCBA), an independent arbiter appointed by Superbrands East Africa. A tour of some of Kenyas safari parks, where a friendly customer service officer greets you at the gate – which you enter by swiping a smartcard (called Safari Card) – shows efficient management.
Curious, BrandLine tracked down Race Musumba Tavasi, Head of Marketing and Product Development, KWS, and discovered that the Service has worked hard at introducing product and marketing innovations, customer service initiatives and finding the right pricing mix. Excerpts:
When did KWS become a Superbrand? And how?
KWS received East Africa Superbrand status in 2010. The inception of Superbrands in Kenya was only in the year 2009. An initial list of over 1,030 brands was considered from across East Africa. This was cut down through research and short papers to approximately 293. The shortlist was then sent to the East Africa Council which scored each brand. These scores were collated and a league table devised. The highest scoring brands earned the B2B Superbrands status.
What were the factors that led KWS to be chosen?
Superbrands had to be good ‘all rounders, have natural high awareness but in addition, engage understanding and positive feelings amongst their customers. The selection criteria included ‘How were they built, ‘What do they offer and ‘Where they are going.
KWS has always had a strategic vision. It is currently developing a strategic plan 2.0 which will guide the organisation to the year 2017.
This is a build-up over the previous strategic plans. The key milestones over the strategic plans were the implementation of Gemba Kaizen ideology and ISO 9001:2008 certification in 2009.
And what are the marketing planks of this strategic plan?
Pricing: On this front, we segmented the different parks and reserves into various product categories which include premium parks, wilderness parks, urban safari, mountain and marine. The pricing takes into cognisance the carrying capacity to ensure sustainability of the product.
Bed Nights: According to Vision 2030 of the Kenya Government Blue Print, tourism arrivals in the country will grow to three million visitors.
But even as the Kenyan Tourism Board is working on promoting our products and services to increase the number of visitors, there is lack of adequate bed capacity and overusage of parks and reserves.
Given this mismatch, KWS embarked on a process of bed night expansion by inviting private investors to invest in Tsavo East, Tsavo West, Meru, Kora, Bisanadi, Kisumu Impala, Ndere, Ruma, Kakamega, Aberdare and Mount Kenya, among others.
Expansion of bed capacity is also being done through our community enterprise programmes where we help communities that live within areas endowed with wildlife to embrace the tourism business while at the same time assisting in increasing wildlife space. We also encourage expansion of bed capacity outside protected areas.
We have also re-positioned Mount Kenya National Park as the highest revenue earner for the country.
Promotion: We have embraced e-marketing and social media as key communication channels. And there is a lot of use of technology in communicating to customers.
What are the marketing innovations that KWS has done?
Since 2005 KWS has worked on a park branding exercise. This was after the realisation that despite the product being nature-based there was need to add value, and from the consumers perspective, be able to clearly identify the unique selling proposition of each park. This exercise has been highly successful as stakeholders and consumers alike are able to differentiate each of the different parks in Kenya, which is a land of contrasts and where the product portfolio is very large.
Within the park branding exercise, new products have been developed. For example, in Mount Kenya National Park we have the Via Ferrata that makes it easier to climb the mountain. With this, the place is no longer restricted to only technical climbers. Then, a new health spa is under way in Hells Gate National Park. We did a total overhaul of Kisumu Impala Sanctuary by introducing new species and redeveloped the product.
KWS has also developed capacity as the only organisation worldwide that can translocate large mammals. Some of the species translocated include elephants, rhinos, hippos and ungulates.
Through the use of science a lot of research is carried out to areas where we translocate different species to improve on product diversity.
For instance, we have translocated white rhinos to Nairobi National Park as these are more visible to clientele in comparison to the black rhinos, rhinos to Ruma National Park to boost the western circuit, and various wildlife to Amboseli National Park, Lake Nakuru National Park and Shimba Hills National Park. As a result of our expertise in this programme, this is packaged by some tour operators as a safari where they can follow this amazing movement of wildlife where possible.
The Safari Card that visitors use to enter the parks also appears to be an innovation – how does it work?
The Safari Card is an electronic-based ticketing system used at KWS by its visitors to enable them get access to select National Parks and for services such as camping in these parks. The card is issued and loaded with money at the Point of Issue and Point of Sale respectively and deducted at the park entrance Point of Access. The future of the Safari Card is to extend the service to all the national parks and reserves, develop a loyalty programme and looking at developing it into a national tourism card payment system.
(This correspondent visited Kenya at the invitation of the countrys Tourist Board.)
Tags: Brand Analysis