MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falkland Islands Tourist Board Facebook page reaches 1,600 fans

Jake Downing, General Manager of the Falkland Islands Tourist Board.

The official Facebook page for the Falkland Islands has attracted over 1,600 fans in its first five months.

The page was launched in September 2009 by the Falkland Islands Tourist Board, and aims to increase awareness of the Falklands as a holiday destination by getting people to talk about their love for the islands.

“Our target was to attract 500 members in our first 6 months, so we are absolutely delighted with the results” said Jake Downing, General Manager of the Falkland Islands Tourist Board.

Fifteen percent of the fans are based in the Falkland Islands and the remaining 85% are from 19 other countries around the world, the most common locations being the UK and the USA.

The page has generated some enthusiastic discussions and debates such as which is the islands’ best pub and who the most memorable characters are. It also serves as a place where prospective visitors can request advice and information, as well as being a place for people to share their photos and their memories about the islands.

“It’s wonderful to see so many people talking about the Falklands in such a positive and proud way. As word of mouth and personal recommendations are so important for people choosing their holiday destinations, you couldn’t really ask for more”, said Mr Downing. “The fans are essentially becoming ‘walking brochures’ for us”.

One of the tourist board’s objectives was to showcase the Falkland Islands to an audience from around the world by allowing fans to publish their photos. To date this has certainly been one of the page’s great achievements, with an impressive level of photo sharing by the fans.

“The opportunities we have for marketing the Falkland Islands are changing fast and in today’s economic climate it is vital that we continue to look at new and exciting ways to promote the islands,” said Mr Downing. “The Facebook page has been a great success because it has given us the chance to encourage word-of-mouth promotion of the Falkland Islands at very little cost.”