Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 13, 2016 (SKNIS): Prospective patrons of the St. Kitts Music Festival, who reside overseas, are encouraged to make travel arrangements immediately because as it gets closer to the June 23 – 25 date, flights usually become filled to capacity.
This advice was given by St. Kitts Tourism Authority’s Communications Manager, Saju Ng’alla, who was one of the guests on the government programme “Working for You.”
“I am sure we have listeners all over the Caribbean – you need to book right now, the flights, they are going pretty fast or they’re going to get extremely expensive,” Mr. Ng’alla said, noting that it will be near impossible to come to St. Kitts during that week. “We are looking to add charters, we are looking to get people on fishing boats to come over here. We do get quite a big Caribbean following.”
Mr. Ng’alla revealed that the St. Kitts Music Festival is traditionally well attended by Caribbean nationals mainly from Antigua, St. Maarten, Dominica, the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. He emphasized that the Caribbean airline carrier LIAT is usually booked to capacity during the weeks leading up to the three-night event.
The Communications Manager said there are several marketing tools that are used to promote the St. Kitts Music Festival. Social media was named first, with the revelation that methods such as posts on Facebook and Instagram effectively reach the mainly youthful festival audience, but that it is also free of cost. Social media also documents the number of viewers that particular posts attract, enabling agencies such as the St. Kitts Tourism Authority to document whether the information is reaching the targeted audience.
Another revealed marketing tool includes advertisements in Caribbean inflight magazines such as LIAT’s “Zing” and Caribbean Airline’s “Caribbean Beat.” Promotional videos are also being aired on the Caribbean Media Corporation’s (CMC) Caribvision as well as on the local television station, ZIZ. It was also revealed that there was an arrangement with Caribbean Cinemas that allowed for the airing of the music festival video promo during the pre-movie previews, in the islands where the movie franchise operates.
Radio stations were also another effective method of advertisement, not only for the audio promos but also enabling contests that quiz listeners of music festival and create a hype among patrons. Marketing agents have also been contracted in the United Kingdom, the United States and in the further North American region to promote the event. Promotional tours have always been used, since the inception of the St. Kitts Music Festival some 20 years ago.
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