Practical Social Media for Tourism and Travel Industry

June 11, 2010 By Des Walsh

Social media practitioners Becky McCray and Sheila Scarborough offer new course for tourism operators

Tourism these days is a significant element of the economy of many countries and according to one report I read the share of tourism in international gross national income is 6%. Tourism also plays an important role in specific regions and localities.

And like any social media professional who travels, domestically or internationally, I see examples all the time of where the tourism opportunities of particular places could be enhanced significantly by some astute use of social media.

Closer to home, I live in a small town which has a strong focus on tourism and is this weekend seeing an influx of thousands of visitors for an annual festival and still I see opportunities going to waste. Often, I believe, because the business owners just don’t know what’s possible. I mean, we’re in a prime whale-watching area and you could go through this town and not know it.

But where is a busy manager of a local tourism information center, or a B&B owner or cafe proprietor or tour operator going to find the time to go and do courses on social media for tourism. And how would they know whether the people delivering the course could help them in practical ways? Give them value for money

Enter Becky McCray and Sheila Scarborough and their Tourism Currents, delivered online and priced not to need a bumper season or extra bank loan to pay for it.

I was and am very excited that Becky and Sheila got together to develop and deliver this course. I’m saying that not just because they are my friends, which I am proud to say they are. The fact is, these are two of the most practical and at the same time most clued-in people I know on the social media front. And each has her particular strengths. Becky, for instance, understands at first hand the challenges of being a small business owner and doing that in a small rural community: that’s why other small business owners pay her to consult with them – she walks her talk. Sheila, an inveterate traveller and former senior officer in the Navy, has first hand experience of many places, across the USA and around the globe. To adapt slightly the words of an old song, she joined the Navy and has seen the world.

Both are born teachers, quick on the uptake and each with a great sense of humor. I know that anyone in the tourism and hospitality industry who does their course and doesn’t immediately get ideas and practical tools for improving their business will not have been paying attention.

And yes, I am privileged to be an affiliate of their program. But they know I would be recommending them anyway.

To find out more, check out the Tourism Currents site. And if this is not for you, perhaps you know someone in the industry who might find this of interest.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Social Media, Tourism, Travel

Cool New Tool for Finding and Sharing Travel Information

May 29, 2009 By Des Walsh

Some cool people I know have produced a cool tool for creating short map links for your email, Twitter, social networks and blogs. aMAP.to is a tool to guide people to destinations with travel-related information for their trips.

If you have ever gone through the process of trying to send to someone, successfully, a link to a Google map, you will know that the process is, putting it politely, a nuisance. The URLs are just so long!

This for, instance, is the Google map for where I live

View Larger Map

This is the URL:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-28.184858,153.544257&spn=0.038205,0.077248&z=14

I’m always concerned that, in transmitting a link like that, in an email or on a forum, it can get broken up and thus not work.

So up till now I’ve tended to use one of the standard URL shorteners, like TinyURL or SnipURL . So if I use, for example, TinyURL, that long URL comes out something like this: http://tinyurl.com/tweedhds

Which is ok, as far as it goes. But for the recipient it could be a link to any web page, not necessarily a map.

What if the shorter URL was more obviously a map link?

This is what the application aMAP.to provides.

How it works, basically, is that I go to the site, http://amap.to and enter the location I want. A Google map is produced and I can create a link, or links. For example, the long link above becomes, in the short version, http://amap.to/a3dqp I can also generate a longer link, more informative than either the source link from Google or the short version from aMAP.to, spelling out the street and street number, town/city, zip/post code, country. I can even create my own custom link (with a bit of extra code tacked on), such as http://amap.to/wheredeslives.._362g5

In the example here, it looks from the map as if I am living in or on the Tweed River. In fact, although I live on the shore of the Tweed River I don’t live on the river itself. Although there are some perfectly lovely houseboats nearby. Why it looks that way is that I’ve moved the red marker because I can’t show my exact address (long story, but it won’t show on Google) and if I put the marker closer to the house it comes up with a street number that’s not ours (and I don’t know who lives there).

Incidentally, the red marker impressed me, because I can’t see with the original Google map how to have a marker like that.

There is more to it than that. There is a huge amount of information loaded into the aMap.to tool, including over 140,000 hotels worldwide, some 200,000 Wikipedia pages with travel-related information.

For example, one of my favorite hotels, which I recommend whenever someone is looking for an excellent, not expensive hotel with free wifi, close to transport, clean, helpful staff etc etc, in New York City, is the Pod on E 51st St. In the past I’ve given people just the URL for the hotel. Now I can give them a customized map referenced URL with more information – and the map! Here it is: http://amap.to/podhotel_2m6mz (no liability, not responsible if you get a grumpy desk clerk etc etc etc).

aMap.to is a project of Social Horizon, a development team based in Brisbane, Australia. They are seriously smart, creative and passionate about what they do. And they’ve traveled a lot.

This is what they say about aMap.to:

We think that there is still a lot more that can be done to improve the way that people find and share travel information via the web and mobile devices. aMAP.to is the first of our tools that will help guide people to a destination, supported by travel related information that they may need to plan their journeys.

I like it. And not just because the people at Social Horizon are friends.

But they are nice people, with real smarts not just about tech things and worth talking to if you have a project you think they might be able to help with.

Filed Under: General, Social Media, Travel Tagged With: aMap.to, Australia, Brisbane, Google maps, map links, Social Horizon, Travel, travel information

Twitter-Generated Business: China Travel 2.0

May 22, 2009 By Des Walsh

I have to admit I have no idea how pervasive the online social networking site, Twitter, is in China, let alone its current relevance for doing business in China. This post is about one instance in which Twitter seems to have served a good business purpose – i.e. putting a couple of entrepreneurial people together, who then developed a big picture project, combining online social networking with the offline world of business.

This might not be a story you would pick up from the online media. As far as the mainstream media goes, Twitter gets plenty of flak, for being trivial, time-wasting, lowbrow – you name it. As an example, you could read Stephen Matchett’s less than subtle piece in the Australian newspaper this week (I usually enjoy reading Matchett who has a great sense of irony, but this was apparently an irony-free day for him).

Is there a lot of trivia on Twitter? Undoubtedly.

Is there a possibility of serious business on Twitter, or enabled by Twitter? There are two guys in China who would say so.

Winser Zhao and Peter Davison met through Twitter and have now launched an ambitious venture under the banner China Travel 2.0.

China Travel 2.0 is a two week tour of China, from June 1st to June 14th, for travel editors, and aims to incorporate an understanding of how travelers learn about possible or planned destinations. The tour is framed in a perspective of “past, present and future” – looking at historical China and also at the changes taking place.

There are six editors listed by name so far on the site, with a strong presence from the social networking field: Julie Schwiertert Collazo from the Matador Network, Maria Kosmatos from Offbeat Guides, Donna Airoldi from TravelMuse, Craig Martin & Linda Martin from IndieTravelPodcast, and Janelle Nanos who runs the Intelligent Travel blog at National Geographic TripFilms will also be represented. There is an impressive list of sponsors.

As the website explains, the China Travel 2.0 logo incorporates “YouYou” the Panda. The logo is intended as a reflection of modern Asia, with China as its biggest country and “YouYou” the panda, with suitcase and lantern, is ready for travel and adventure.

Chalk one up for the Twitter-helps-business records.