INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANT WITH TOURISM EXPERTISE TO SUPPORT CREATION OF CONTENT FOR KAZAKH TOURISM

Title/Position: TOURISM EXPERT

Level of Effort: TBD

Period of Performance: February-May 2023

Travel Dates: n/a

Place of Performance: Kazakhstan

Work Plan Activity ref. No.: 4.1.9 Sponsored Media Campaign for Kazakh Tourism

BACKGROUND

The goal of USAID’s Trade Central Asia activity is to improve region-wide trade connectivity to accelerate economic growth and increase economic opportunity in Central Asia through harmonization of customs and border procedures, increasing public-private dialogue on trade and investment, improving cross-border firm-to-firm connectivity, and addressing gender-relevant trade issues. USAID Trade Central Asia activity will support women traders and businesses in the region by reviewing current trade policies and practices for bias against women and designing activities to help women overcome these challenges.

Given the impact of the security situation in Ukraine on Central Asia regional tourism, TCA proposes a campaign of online social media promotion to counteract international perceptions of regional stakeholders as potentially unsafe tourism destinations in indirect relation to the Ukraine issue. This campaign leverages an effective form of marketing to take advantage of a period of relatively quiet travel advertising in order to build brand awareness of Central Asia as a destination and inspire travelers to visit the region during the upcoming summer peak travel season in Kazakhstan. Online marketing is regarded as the most cost-effective form of tourism promotion for any market. It can provide multidimensional exposure to very targeted audiences. For example, story-telling in text and video as well as photography to showcase mountain hiking, cultural attractions, and city break opportunities. Content for this social media campaign will be based on existing publicly available online content.

In line with TCA strategy on promotion of Central Asian travel industry during the current crisis, TCA proposes using existing creative content. The social media campaign will convey a message about safe travel in limited numbers to offbeat destinations in order to stay on top of the current mood – emphasizing the country as a safe destination in spite of perceptions of bordering countries. TCA will mainly publish identified existing content on social media channels of Kazakh Tourism and/or push their own content through paid ads to a wider audience. The main message of the content is to promote an idea of safe travel and to encourage readers to consume content now to prepare a trip for the coming tourism high season

OBJECTIVE

TCA will hire an international consultant to work directly with the national tourism committee and their affiliated social media accounts. Facebook and Instagram both offer robust analytics and reporting as well as strong ad-targeting to focus on desired markets. This campaign will be discussed with Kazakh Tourism to identify their interest prior to implementation as it should agree on providing the consultant with ‘Admin’ or ‘Editor’ to national boards’ Facebook and Instagram pages. The unified message will come through the following Kazakh Tourism’s social media accounts that were promoted by summer bloggers on USAID marketing campaigns in 2019 and earlier:

• Kazakhstan Travel (Facebook | Instagram)

TCA plans to post on Facebook three times per week and Instagram twice per week, for a total of 5 posts per week during the promotion period to a total of 12 Facebook and 8 Instagram per month. Based on reporting results from USAID’s past blogger campaigns, purchasing advertising of $100 per post can increase reach by 8X on Facebook and 18X on Instagram. Facebook average reach per post without promotion seems to be around 1000, and with ad spend would grow to at least 8000. For Instagram posts natively around 1000, and with advertising 18,000 or more. TCA predicts this advertising spend will reach at least 240,000 readers per month primarily from European English-speaking audiences (unless other preferred audiences are identified by the national tourism board). Expected minimum reach of 720,000 over a three-month period inclusive of February to April of 2023.

TASKS

The consultant’s primary tasks associated with this activity are to:

• Review existing page content on Kazakh Tourism’s Instagram and Facebook channels;
• Compile a list of existing online content to use for promotion of national tourism awareness in Kazakhstan, and assess that content for suitability against current page content to avoid short-term duplication of content and ensure long-term coverage of all stakeholder focus areas in each destination to the greatest extent possible given the scope of existing content;
• Submit content in advance to TCA and Kazakh Tourism on a monthly basis no later than five (5) working days before the beginning of the month.
• Kazakh Tourism should approve all posts or to decline individual posts and replace each declined posts with content that they provide no later than the beginning of the month;
• If Kazakh Tourism declines individual posts but do not provide alternate content, the monthly posting total shall be reduced accordingly;
• As an alternative, Kazakh Tourism may curate and post their own content and the consultant should be provided with ‘Advertiser’ page access. Thereby, consultant shall manage sponsored post demographics and spending without control over content creation;
• Maintain a regular schedule of content publication on the country’s destination page, at an average rate of 12 Facebook posts per month and 8 Instagram posts per month from February to April 2023;
• Manage creation and publication of sponsored post advertising on participating Facebook and Instagram channels to expand activity reach to the largest relevant segments of existing and potential online audience for each page;
• Compile a record of post reach and engagement metrics for Kazakh Tourism and for the activity overall and submit this information after the three-month scope of this activity.

DELIVERABLES

1. Curation and posting of a 3-month content including monthly submission of content calendar 5 working days previous to end of month. By 15 April 2023
2. Submission of three-month reporting that refers to three-month summary of all posts’ audience and engagement metrics after the third month of posting, broken down by month and platform. By 30 May 2023

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Demonstrated experience managing social media campaigns and supporting development of tourism sector in emerging markets, preferably in Central Asia;
• Excellent knowledge of the region and its culture;
• Experience in the identification, planning and implementation of donor funded activities supporting the private sector.

REPORTING:

The Consultant will report directly to TCA’s Objective 4 Component lead.