45 Small and Micro-Enterprise (SME) tourism business owners are attending an e-Marketing Support workshop in Nadi jointly organized by the Fijian Ministry of Tourism and the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) from 20-22 April.

The aim of the workshop is to support participating SME tour and activity operators by providing them with the tools and training to make optimum use of the Internet for online sales and for processing online bookings.

The training includes digital marketing, assessing the market readiness of SMEs, collecting digital content (photos and written content), building websites or providing booking buttons for all participating SMEs and providing booking and channel management tools.

The Assistant Minister for Tourism, the Honorable Lorna Eden whilst opening the workshop stated, “Fiji has been a member of SPTO for 27 years and we see programmes such as this as an ideal way to strengthen this relationship. The exchange of knowledge and experience between member countries will continue to move the region forward as a force to be reckoned with amongst our partners and competitors in the global marketplace.”

SPTO CEO Ilisoni Vuidreketi said, “SPTO is pleased to collaborate with the Fijian Ministry of Tourism on this pilot programme that will assist our local SMEs keep up with the evolving changes in technology and to be able to leverage their business sales with today's tech savvy traveler.”

Workshop participant and RTR Transfers owner, Rusiate Ratakele said, “I am so impressed with the presentation. Prior to this workshop, I relied on word of mouth and a Facebook page to do my marketing. However, my next step is to create a website for my business as this training has really broadened my knowledge about how I can improve my business sales with a website”.

The workshop is funded by the European Union under the Pacific Regional Tourism Capacity Building Programme (PRTCBP).