Experts in tourism sector from Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc that includes governments from the Horn of Africa, Nile Valley and the Great Lakes region, today, conclude a three-day meeting in Kigali at which they have been charting ways to market regional tourism products and address the obstacles to the sector’s development.

Among the items ways mooted to help promote tourism in the region includes the use of social media, where the participants urged all regional citizens to play their role in the drive. Social media has changed the way we do things, from interactions to business and marketing. Tourism is not any different.

But how are citizens expected to be important players in social media marketing of the region’s tourism potentials? Customer care and being warm and welcoming to visitors is not enough to raise tourism.

Tourism experts at the meeting were quick to observe that regional initiatives like East Africa Tourist visa, use of ID cards as well as open skies and joint marketing through various platforms such as international fairs, would boost intra-regional tourism in Africa. But there was not much they mooted with respect to how social media would be used to market tourism.

It is not enough to just ask citizens to be active players or pick interest in tourism. The ‘how’ of it is equally important. While governments can be challenged to ease access to technology to make social media tools such as smart phones and data more affordable to citizens, highly subsidizing tourism for regional citizens would be one way to pique their interest.

Alongside this would be patriotism. There is no way a citizen who doesn’t give a hoot how his country is run is going to be interested in something like tourism. Every country’s attractions should be a source of pride to the common man. Leaders at the national and local level can ensure this pride is at its highest and that is how the people would get animated in talking about their heritage and its tourism potentials.

Only when the issue of pride and patriotism has been dealt will we see citizens actively promoting their heritage on social media for the world to take note of.