Instructing Northern Tourism Entrepreneurs on the Fine Art of Networking
Instructing Northern Tourism Entrepreneurs on the Fine Art of Networking
Most small tourism service providers in northern Montenegro have yet to benefit from the recent wave of tourism at the coast, as the northern region has yet to distinguish itself as a popular tourist destination. One reason for this, is that few businesses have the experience or means to effectively market their services. To address this issue, the Centre for Sustainable Tourism Initiatives (CSTI), through a grant from the USAID CRDA-E program, invited promising entrepreneurs and NGO leaders from 16 firms and institutions to attend two regional fairs METUBES Budva and IFT Belgrade. The main goal was to give stakeholders exposure to professional trade fairs in order to learn from the example of more established firms and to gain instruction on networking and promotion from CSTI itself.
Many of the participants had wanted to attend, but didn’t have the budget or the know-how to seize the opportunity. Bringing them together under the grant activity not only made participation more cost-effective but allowed CSTI to more easily guide them through preparations and the event itself. During the project, CSTI attempted to address key issues unfamiliar to stakeholders such as market trends, segmentation, pricing, presentation and negotiation. CSTI shared the knowledge of how to prepare, design and organize the stand, how to display promotional materials, keeping records on business contacts.
One of the biggest achievements is that the groups that used to see each other as direct competitors had the opportunity to work together and discover the benefit of presenting the destination before presenting their individual service. The stakeholders worked together with CSTI to arrive at an agreement on how to share the confined space, creating strict schedules for meetings. Though some in the group were resistant of restrictions at the beginning, eventually they all appreciated the harmony of activity achieved through compromise.
The response of the participants to this project exceeded expectations of organizers and they were particularly pleased by an unexpected visit at METUBES by U.S. Ambassador Roderick Moore and Minister of Tourism Predrag Nenezic, both of whom actively support the expansion tourism traffic in the north.
Zorica Vujanovic of Anitra Travel Agency made the following comment: “What I think made this exhibition different than the others was cooperation at the stand and the great atmosphere created by CSTI/MA staff. We rarely encounter such professionalism. Our stand was different - it looked very business like all the time. People were coming for meetings and not simply to be social. The meetings were scheduled and people took turns at the tables, it was all well organized. We like the fact that we were exhibiting under the brand of northern Montenegro.”
The progress made during the second fair was remarkable, as well as the overall satisfaction of the participants. CSTI will finalize the evaluation and indicators by the mid March. CSTI gave interviews to two TVs from Serbia during the fair. It is estimated that participants obtained more than 500 contacts, and distributed more than 16000 copies of various materials – catalogues, brochures and leaflets.