LONDON, February 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Social Media Campaign Delivers Outstanding Results for JoburgTourism

- Perceptions Shift to Make City a Top Destination of Choice

Johannesburg Tourism is enjoying the results of a highly successful
social media campaign on the travel and lifestyle social networking community
website WAYN.com (Where Are You Now) (http:///www.wayn.com) which has helped
change perceptions and create endorsement for the City as a major
international traveller destination.

The campaign which launched on November 17 had the multiple objectives of
engaging travellers, addressing negative perceptions, building user generated
content, driving site traffic and promoting brand awareness.

Using the strapline "Joburg - a world class African city", the campaign
celebrates the South African capital hosting Miss World and forthcoming
international events like the Confederation Cup, Lions Tour and FIFA World
Cup. In a first for both parties, Johannesburg Tourism and WAYN devised an
all-embracing strategy to reach and engage members and visitors. Key elements
included member surveys; a holiday prize competition; newsfeeds about Miss
World, banner ads; a newsletter and internal communications promoting the
JoburgTourism profile to WAYN's 14 million members across 193 countries.

Results to date have been highly impressive. Over seven weeks from
November 17 the pre and post survey showed a significant change to highly
positive perceptions of the City and it becoming a top destination of choice.

Mean while the increase in site traffic resulted in
http://www.JoburgTourism.com jumping 150,000 places*; advertising generated
9.5 m. impressions and nearly half a million WAYN members acquired the
JoburgTourism skin to their profile and generated 650 new traveller reviews
and opinions.

Lindiwe Mahlangu, CEO of Johannesburg Tourism said: "These results have
been outstanding and exceeded our very best expectations. We wanted to
exploit and integrate the unique range of tools that the social media
environment offers and deliver a real and tangible ROI. We set WAYN some
tough objectives and I am delighted to say that they delivered on all fronts.
We are especially pleased about how well the social medium worked in
persuading people to re-assess their perceptions about Johannesburg and how
user generated content can be leveraged to endorse our messages.

Said WAYN joint CEO and founder, Jerome Touze; "Johannesburg is fortunate
to have one of the most innovative and forward thinking DMO's in the
industry. Johannesburg Tourism has demonstrated how imaginative use of social
media such as WAYN can go way beyond simple brand awareness and how an
integrated strategy can be used to deliver both marketing and sales
objectives. Through their work Johannesburg Tourism is well on its way to
placing South Africa's capital on the premiere list of must visit
destinations. This is a very exciting partnership and we look forward to
developing more integrated and bespoke campaigns for Johannesburg as a world
class destination"

*Alexa.com traffic rankings

About http://www.Joburgtourism.com

The Johannesburg Tourism Company is the official destination marketing
organization of Johannesburg. It operates a convention bureau aimed at
attracting major international events to be hosted in Johannesburg of which
Miss World 2008 was a recent example. Previous major events include the World
Summit of Sustainable Development in 2002, the Cricket World Cup in 2003 and
a host of other major cultural, business and sport events. The Lions Tour and
2009 FIFA Confederation Cup will be hosted in July 2009 to be followed by the
FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010.

About http://www.wayn.com

WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?) is the world's largest travel and lifestyle
focused social networking community website. The site operates in 193
countries and membership has grown from 45,000 users in March 2005 to over
14.5 million today. WAYN.com allows its members to keep track of their
friends' whereabouts and make new friends based on where they are now, where
they have been and where they're going. Services on WAYN.com include travel
guide and trip planning tools, unlimited photo and video storage; interaction
tools such as email, SMS and instant messenger, forums and travel related
tools and products. Headquartered in London, WAYN was founded by
entrepreneurs Pete Ward, 30, and Jerome Touze, 29, who started the site after
returning home from a 'round-the-world' trip in 2003.