The Ultimate South Africa Travel Massive Road Trip

Remember when we told you about the upcoming Ultimate South Africa Travel Massive Road Trip? Well, it’s complete and the photos are awesome! Take a look!

In June 2016 the Johannesburg Chapter set out on a 16 day Road Trip around South Africa (Well 19 if you include the 3 days at the Tourism Indaba in Durban).

 Photo Credit: Justin Lee

We had a few reasons for creating this awesome adventure 

Travel Massive as a concept in Africa is fairly new, we wanted to promote Travel Massive and encourage more people to join us, in order to instigate change in travel.

Influencer marketing has not yet been embraced and we wanted to not only show people, but also prove the concept. (We definitely succeeded)

All too often the smaller operations do not have the large marketing budgets the larger corporations have. We wanted to discover and highlight the lesser known, unexplored people, places and activities on offer.

Who jumped on board?

It was open to the global Travel Massive community, but we ended up with 9 insiders from Johannesburg and 1 from Cape Town. The group consisted of bloggers, writers, photographers, videographers and  product developers.

(We had no specific requirement, other than a firm commitment)

Let’s get real, who was paid? 

No one was paid (other than the videographer who was “sponsored” by one of our extended partners)

Why not you ask?

Travel Massive is a not for profit company, and we felt that by giving our time, we not only build trust, but build long term relationships which will lead to paid work for our members and sponsorship opportunities in the future.

(We weren’t wrong)

What did it take to organise?  

Six months of planning to sum it up.

Photo Credit: Justin Lee

The End Result?   

We worked with over 57 sponsors (who offered accommodation, meals and activities in exchange for blogs, images, social media promotion, articles and assistance in marketing).

The campaign reached over 6 million accounts, had 25 million impressions, we made the TV  News 3 times as well as finding numerous articles in local papers and interviews on multiple stations).

Any advice to other chapters wanting to do something similar?  

• Keep it small (maximum 10 people)
• Make sure your sponsors receive a return on their “investment”
• Under promise and over deliver
• Keep it professional – remember you are not only representing Travel Massive, but you are also representing your brand
• Make sure you provide reporting (we used www.hashtracking.com)  
• Start building a record of what your chapter can achieve. It opens doors.

To see more of the trip, check out: #TMRoadTrip #TravelFord

Photo Credit: Justin Lee

Neil Jansson, co-organizer of Travel Massive in Johannesburg and startup founder at Wemvula, a community-based venture creator. His latest venture 24 Hours is aimed at assisting and promoting the Tourism and Hospitality industry Globally, as well as highlighting the extraordinary lives of the people behind it. Wemvula aims to help SMME’s with product development and innovative ways to ensure sustainability through joint ventures and strategic partnerships.