SERC Travel and Tourism students’ Digital Marketing project hailed a great success
June 16, 2017
The Mayor, Councillor Brian Bloomfield MBE was delighted to welcome Travel and Tourism students from South East Regional College (SERC) Lisburn to Lagan Valley Island recently.
These local students had recently completed a digital marketing project with the Council’s Tourism Section. The project gave the students an invaluable insight into the use of the digital platforms utilised by the Council’s Tourism team, to engage with visitors to the Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council area.
As digital technology rapidly changes and young people more often use digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to access information, rather than more traditional methods, the Tourism team recognise that it’s imperative for tourism providers to be maximising digital opportunities to creatively engage with younger generations, as opposed to being more reliant upon other methods.
The Mayor, Councillor Brian Bloomfield MBE, speaking at the reception, said: “Throughout my term I have had many young people attend a Mayoral Reception and I am pleased to welcome students from our local college. As a retired teacher I understand the importance of both educating and communicating with the younger generation. I am pleased that the Council has been able to partner with young people to enhance its services to meet the growing social media trends of our younger generation.”
It was a privilege for the Council to engage and work alongside students at SERC, providing insights into some of the new digital platforms used by its Tourism section. The Travel and Tourism students delivered to a high quality new ways of tapping into youth markets that will better equip the Council to target these markets in the future. The concept of experiential tourism was not missed on the students with a real sense of things to do and see for 18-25 year olds. From this pilot project the Council looks forward to working closely with SERC students in the future as the importance placed on social media for marketing and promotions continues to grow.
Catherine Anderson, Course Coordinator, School of Hospitality, Management, Tourism and Languages, SERC explained the how the project had benefitted the students: “The L3 Travel and Tourism Year 1 students at SERC were delighted to be offered the opportunity to work with the Tourism Section of Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council this year to develop Digital Marketing Campaigns to attract more 18-30 year old visitors to the Lisburn Castlereagh area.
“It is vital that our learners gain a "real life" experience whilst studying on their course and this was successfully achieved during the project. The engagement this project delivered along with development and communication skills for the learners has been invaluable and has also strengthened our relationship with the Council.”