Marketing Officer for HLITOA

***Only candidates with the relevant right to work will be considered***

KEY INFORMATION

Job Title: Marketing Officer for HLITOA
Sector: Tourism Sector
Position Type: Consultancy
Duration/Level of Effort: 180 person days over nine months (September 2022 to May 2023) 20 days per month on average
Position Location: at HLITOA premises in Jerusalem
Reports to: Workstream 2 Lead

BACKGROUND

The Trade Facilitation and Customs Support programme (Tasdeer) is a three-year programme funded by UK Aid from the British Government and implemented by a consortium led by Cowater International.

The objective of the Tasdeer programme is to improve the Palestinian private sector’s competitiveness and the PA’s capacity in the fields of trade, customs and import policy regulation and administration. The Tasdeer programme aims to increase sustainable private sector-led economic growth, job creation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the PA’s fiscal sustainability while ensuring equitable access to increased trade and improved institutional capacity. Gender Equality and Social Inclusion is a main tool and objective for Tasdeer to ensure the benefits of the programme are equally accessed by the diverse groups of men and women in the supply chain.

Tasdeer is designed to be flexible and adaptive and works politically and technically to make progress across four keys interrelated Workstreams:

• Workstream 1: Support to expedite the movement of goods and reduce transaction costs. This workstream aims to develop systemic interventions that will seek to expedite the movement of goods and contribute to impactful reductions in transaction costs for Palestinian imports and exports.
• Workstream 2: Support to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and business enabling environment. This workstream aims to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and strengthen the trade operating environment.
• Workstream 3: Support to improve the private sector’s skills and innovation to export and create jobs. This workstream supports activities that will help Palestinian firms increase their exports by applying a market-driven approach. This market-driven approach will identify potential buyers/markets while exploring the linkages between the buyer, the firms, and its suppliers.
• Workstream 4: Support to improve PA’s Customs readiness to assume functions from Israel to collect revenues from trade-related taxes. This workstream aims to provide technical assistance to enhance the capacity of the PA (Palestinian Authority) Ministry of Finance Customs Department, including the possible transfer of additional custom functions from Israel to the PA and to limit fiscal losses from inefficient clearance mechanism of trade-related taxes between the PA.

The interventions implemented by each workstream are designed to take into consideration the roles and needs of women, youth, and people with disabilities, including those in marginalized areas (i.e., East Jerusalem, seam zone, area C and Gaza), ensuring that all interventions and activities are GESI (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion) responsive.

Holy Land Incoming Tour Operators Association (HLITOA) is the incoming tour operators’ representative body in Palestine and is considered a major player in organizing the Palestinian tourism industry. HLITOA is a non-profit organization run by an elected board and has a membership of 48 tour operators who sell tour packages not only to visit Palestine but also to visit Jordan and Israel.

Tourism plays an important role in the Palestinian economy. Palestinian areas receive more than one million visitors each year. However, many tourists stay for only a few hours, and the revenue and employment benefits to the Palestinian economy are correspondingly lower than for regional counterparts. Palestine currently receives two large streams of foreign visitors: religious tourists visiting Christian or Muslim sites, and 1948 Arabs and Palestinians residing abroad visiting Palestine for various family and other reasons. Increasing the economic impact of the tourism sector will require expanding the value added from these two existing streams of visitors while engaging in strategic tourism promotion to expand the number of visitors and the money they spend in Palestine.

Holy Land Incoming Tour Operators Association (HLITOA) is leading an initiative to improve the tourism sector in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) with the aim of increasing the number of Free Independent Tourists (FITs) who visit Palestine. Currently, the incoming FITs to Palestine form 10% of Palestine's total number of tourists.

Tasdeer and HLITOA plan to utilize an effective tourism message that reflects Palestine's diversity and richness, whether it is religious, cultural or experiential, to be used on social media targeting individual international visitors.

Tasdeer and HLITOA seek a Marketing officer who will be responsible for Digital Marketing, Content creation, social media, and public relation related activities for the Yahalah portal. The expected activities are:

1. Subsidization of 3 tourism packages targeting FITs
2. Updating YAHALAH.com portal

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SUMMARY OF THE POSITION

Tasdeer is looking for a project coordinator to conduct the following tasks:

1. Manage and maintain the YAHALAH.com portal and any related pages on HLITOA’s platform
2. In coordination with the Director of HILTOA, coordinate with all service providers involved in the pre-assigned tourist packages
3. Create Content with the goal of promoting and updating Yahalah portals information
4. Promote the tourism packages utilizing different tools to reach a wide spectrum of tourists, local and international tour operators, local hotels, and media outlets, including social media 
5. Support the project coordinator in the operations of the tour packages, including time and logistics
6. Ensure effective and efficient implementation of the interventions, including preparing progress reports, collecting related monitoring and evaluation required information, and preparing final reports

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Based on the scope of work, the hired coordinator will be responsible for:

1. Provide support to HLITOA ‘s director in marketing the Yahalah Portals.
2. Carefully study the “Assessment report” of the current status of the Yahalah portal which will be done by the Digital Tourism Think Tank and follow up on the recommendations given in the report.
3. Manage the implementation of the Marketing Plan (with the help of Digital Tourism Think Tank) and carefully follow up with the Digital Tourism Think Tank.
4. Undertake content marketing initiatives (on diverse tourist attractions and proofreading descriptions and articles before publication), engagement tactics and linking them to Commercial goals and cover the entire customer lifecycle for different audiences or personas.
5. Identify and create Social Media Channels suitable for Tourism marketing such as Facebook and Instagram. In particular, the expert needs to create pages, and admin pages, design the best post, engage fans, create a community, design social media ads suitable to the Channel chosen to targeted audience, create lists, organic reach vs paid reach, provide reports on Facebook Algorithm of the page.
6. Work with standard digital marketing activities including e-mail marketing and paid media and ad platforms.
7. Identify possible sales channels to sell the services of Yahalah.com such as hotels and hold meetings with the businesses senior management to sell Yahalah services utilizing PR publications created specifically for that channel.
8. Accompany tourists during the tours to document the trip, capture the tourists’ reflections, obtain comments and create a story.
9. Handle the management and constant update of the Yahalah portal content.
10. Packages operations coordination: in coordination with the Project Coordinator setting the schedule of all packages, including the guide, sites to be visited
11. Prepare progress reports to reflect the following:

• Collect related monitoring and evaluation required information,
• Provide detailed reporting on the Yahalah platform success in promoting to the targeted tourists, , collected data from Yahalah social media channels.
• Specify any special features to develop further the Yahalah platform and related pages
• Prepare final reports

1. The job can be handled remotely with the approval of the HLITOA manager.

The Marketing Expert will report directly to HLITOA’s Director, and their contract will be managed by Tasdeer’s Project Manager. The Marketing Expert will be expected to maintain regular contact with the Tasdeer workstream 2 lead. 

The assignment deliverables are:

No.  Deliverable

1 All related reports as per the SoW and main responsibilities. develop plans and report on implementation.

2 Weekly progress report

3 Website marketing content

4 Monthly status report on the performance of the packages

5 Monthly status report on the portal, including traffic

6 Report on the delivered training to local guides

JOB REQUIREMENTS

• Proven work experience in Digital Marketing, Communication or Content and Social Media Management
• Experience undertaking marketing research using multiple sources
• Familiarity with collaborative tools such as Asana
• Experience of digital design tools such as Figma and Mural
• Experience with Adobe Creative Suite (please specify)
• Experience of no-code web development environments such as Webflow
• Knowledge of Meta Business Suite, Google Ads and Google Analytics
• Confidence in partner coordination and negotiations
• Excellent writing and editing skills in English is a must
• Strong reporting skills
• Proven experience in content creation is a must, (for tourism related products is a plus)
• Strong professional abilities in marketing and social media
• Female candidates are encouraged to apply

If you’re familiar with producing online content and have an eye for detail, we’d like to meet you.

Please submit your Full CV and (two-page limit, A4) cover letter explaining why you are the right person for this role, based on your work experience to [email protected]

The deadline for receipt of applications is January 31st, 2023. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview. We will interview on a rolling basis.

For your application to be considered, please upload your documents as follows: Candidate Last Name, First Name, Date, Title of the Position.

Cowater International is an equal opportunity employer, basing employment on merit and qualifications as they relate to professional experience and position expectations. Cowater does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, age, or any other basis protected by law.

We thank all applicants however only those shortlisted will be contacted.

ABOUT US

With more than 35 years’ experience, Cowater International is Canada’s global leader in management consulting services specializing in international development and has managed the implementation of over 800 projects in more than 80 countries around the globe. We work with governments, partner organizations, communities and civil society to design and implement sustainable solutions that generate lasting social, financial, and environmental impacts. Our adaptive approach to management has led to our award-winning work and recognition as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Cowater International also has corporate offices in Montreal, Quebec; London, United Kingdom; Nairobi, Kenya; and Brussels, Belgium, in addition to project offices in a wide variety of other locations across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

We thank you for your interest in building a better tomorrow with Cowater International.