Ongoing List of Social Marketing Efforts from Vacation Destinations, Convention, and Tourism Bureaus

Above: A photo I took on a recent trip to North Shore Oahu, inline with my plans to fulfill operation bluewater.

Recent data around interactive marketing spend indicates that the hospitality industry was ripe for spending on social marketing above all other industries.  Why?  This form of consumer marketing could be dependent on the human emotion and story telling between individuals, or through compelling word of mouth marketing campaigns.

As a result, Christine Tran, Altimeter Researcher and myself are kicking off this list, and encourage you to add  examples by leaving a comment.  The scope for this is list is a tourist destination –not a hotel, airline, or specific restaurant.

• Bahamas Island Film Challenge, The Bahamas Tourist Office UK
  This video contest campaign encouraged filmmakers in the UK to submit videos with voting encouraged from the crowd.
• Caribbean, Caribbean Travel Organization(and islands)
  YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are present on the main site, but yet each of their other travel, blog, and other sites.  See Carribean Travel, OneCarribean lists out various social properties, Antigua’s forums, and Aruba’s Facebook integration.
• Visit Dublin, Dublin Tourism
  Site has flickr, YouTube, podcasts and Twitter integration.  They also sport a Facebook page.
• Hawaii’s GoHawaii, Stories of Hawaii
  Hawaii has used a variety of assets such as Facebook pages, Twitter, and even created a Pandora station, in the past, Hawaii has catered to a group of bloggers who spread the word to their readers on a blogger tour. Disclosure: HVCB is an Altimeter client.
• Memphis Travel
  I recently met the wonderful head of social media, Kerry, at Memphis’s travel bureau on my travels, they have Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr account links on their site but haven’t yet integrated with their site.
• uwishuknew, Philadelphia Tourism Marketing
  An online source for an insider’s view of Philadelphia.” It’s a blog written by staff and local bloggers who are “in-the-know.” Here’s an example of their blog on dining.
• The Best Job in the World, Tourism Queensland
  You may have heard of the Best Job in the World campaign, a popular campaign garnering international media attention, and over 35,000 entries worldwide on youtube. The winner blogged about his entire experience.
• Ultimate Thailand Explorers, Tourism Authority of Thailand
  On the heels of the Best Job in the World, Thailand launched its own campaign. Contestants produced a 60-second YouTube video, and rallied for votes from their own existing social networks, effectively becoming destination ambassadors and spreading engagement.  Do see the related blog.

If you’ve got examples, please leave a comment below, with a description and URL, we’ll add.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 5:16 am and is filed under Industry Index, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.