A Bahamian technology executive used his address to an Internet conference to lure the same event to this nation in 2019.
Jason McDowall, chief executive and president of BahamasLocal.com, took the spotlight at IMPACT 18 Holland, an event hosted by the Internet Marketing Association (IMA). The latter is one of the fastest-growing professional organisations in the world, providing knowledge-sharing platforms for proven online marketing strategies.
Mr McDowall was invited to speak on his company's expansion plans and entrepreneurial journey, which saw the business develop from a two-man operation with no advertisers into a heavily-used website, featuring over 15,000 companies and supported by 160 advertisers. BahamasLocal.com now has more than half a million unique visitors a month, and 400 million total advertiser message impressions.
"I was able to use the evolution of BahamasLocal.com into a multi-million dollar business as an example of how The Bahamas could become the tech hub of the Caribbean," said Mr McDowall, who presented to an international mix of leaders in online marketing.
Revealing that the Bahamas will stage IMPACT 19 next year, he added: "It will be a fantastic opportunity for some of the top Internet marketers to come and see what The Bahamas has to offer. Since coming up with the idea for The Bahamas to become the "tech hub" of the Caribbean, it has taken a long time to get IMPACT to come here."
The Internet Marketing Association (IMA) prides itself on carefully assembling life-changing, career growing experiences in some of the world's most spectacular venues. At IMPACT 18, Mr McDowall stayed at the Hotel Des Indes, a luxury collection hotel, located in The Hague, and joined other attendees on a VIP tour of Amsterdam that took in museums, canals and the 327-year-old Nolet Distillery, the makers of Kettle One and Nolet Gin.
At the distillery, which survived the French Revolution and two World Wars, Bob Nolet Sr, the 11th generation, and Bob Nolet Jr, the 12th generation, owners provided insight on its new and innovative marketing strategy for a range of spirits.
"The presentation was valuable and offered the opportunity to harness the knowledge of a frontline leader. It gets one thinking," said Mr McDowall.
An online information resource, BahamasLocal.com is a search engine owned by Caribbean Local Ltd, a software development company specialising in e-commerce with offices in the US, the Netherlands, Bonaire and The Bahamas. Over the next 12 months, Caribbean Local Ltd is expected to roll out BonaireLocal.com, CaymanLocal.com and JamaicaLocal.com.
Launched in 2009, BahamasLocal features 15,000-plus businesses, a directory of telephone numbers, calendar of events, classified ads from jobs to goods for sale, weather reports, and news updates every two hours.
Viewers can read movie reviews and reserve tickets, see which companies are recommended, sign up for activities, follow links to thousands of sites, and check restaurant menus and reviews.
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