by James Ruggia
Last updated: 7:00 PM ET, Fri February 20, 2015
It takes a village to do a lot of things; raising children is just one of them. No destination has assembled a more integrated tourism industry than Tahiti Tourisme.
Like a village, the stakeholders in Tahiti's tourism industry each have important roles to play to make the whole thing work as a unit. In the life of this village, agents play an important part in the mix along with tour operators, hoteliers, the tourist office and the flag carrier Air Tahiti Nui. There's no one better than Tahiti Tourisme North America's President and Managing Director, Jonathan Reap, when it comes to working collaboratively with agents to get the message out.
Right now there are about 250 certified Tiare specialist agents who do the heavy lifting of moving people to paradise. "We have created an ascending tier system for our Tiare agents. The more they sell, the higher they climb. The higher they climb the more intensely we work with them." Reap believes that informed agents are the agents who are going to be most comfortable selling Tahiti. That comfort level is important because even though it's just an eight-hour flight from Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti is perceived by American travelers as a very long-haul journey.
Tahiti Tourisme does a full schedule of trade shows in order to meet with agents and keep that essential "village" familiarity strong. Reap personally attends as many as possible.
Reap and Tahiti Tourisme also work closely with hotels, tour operators and Air Tahiti Nui to create products that move seamlessly through the agent network toward the point of sale. Over many years, Tahiti has learned that the more distant and exotic the destination, the better it is to show the client an air- and hotel-inclusive package, with as low an entry price point as possible.
It's been working. Between 2009 and 2014, North American arrivals to Tahiti rose from 40,780 to the 58,500 it reached in just the first 10 months of last year. Tahiti is riding an 18.5 percent growth out of North America in January through October 2014, and 9 percent overall.
According to Reap, they owe their success to three pillars" advertising, public relations and travel agents. "We are using such niches as dive, LGBT and honeymoons to keep our focus and really target the right travelers," said Reap.
For a long time, Tahiti has enjoyed a reputation as the top island paradise in the world, but those sorts of laurels can only be sat on so long in the competitive market that is Pacific island tourism. Currently, in its latest branding campaign, Tahiti Tourisme is highlighting a deeper destination mystique beneath the surface of Tahiti's "picture postcard" beauty.
The new brand identity has been described as a celebration of the place, the people, the history and future of the destination. The new approach extends the legendary beauty of the islands to include the beauty of the people.
There are 118 islands and atolls spread out over five archipelagoes covering an area as large as Western Europe in French Polynesia. No matter how many times you've been to Bora Bora, you probably have a lot more to discover about the Tahitian islands. Tahiti Tourisme's new branding will drive the distinctions that separate these islands from the competition.
Going forward, Tahiti has a new icon for the face of its tourism, an icon whose roots reach into Tahitian history. For many of us, Marlon Brando was the one who planted our deep image of Tahiti as a paradise in the 1962 film version of Mutiny On the Bounty. All these years later, The Brando, the actor's vision for a sustainable resort, finally opened on the island of Tetiaroa.
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