Tracking Tourism - Thoughts from the first ever travel industry bloggers summit

Nov 21, 07 | 8:57 am

Why might a tourism business want to engage with blogging and how can it possibly help with marketing and customer research?

I joined tourism industry bloggers from around the world as part of the first ever travel industry bloggers summit, at the PhoCusWright Conference, Orlando. 

The bloggers summit was an opportunity for those currently blogging and those destinations (and tourism businesses thinking about beginning blogging) to participate in workshops and discussions.

Tourism industry blogging is beginning to take off and can have powerful benefits for businesses. The well attended workshop sessions explored what those benefits are.

As Kevin May, blogger and editor of Travolution explained to workshop participants, "A blog is incredibly cheap to set up, if not free. If you are trying to differentiate yourself, for example with a niche or unique product, a blog becomes search engine friendly very quickly."

Steven Joyce of the Travel & Tourism Technology Trends blog highlighted the communication opportunity that blogs offer for businesses. "Blogs are really story books. For small operators that do something unique, it is an opportunity for them to tell their story the way they want to tell it. A blog post is an individual's perspective on their experience and a reader shares in that. Things that are interesting and engaging when they pull people in."

There were some great examples of destinations and businesses that are really getting this right. William Bakker of HelloBC.com, British Columbia's marketing board, gave a fascinating example of how they as destination marketers are tapping into the long tail of tourism experiences through blogs and user generated content.

William's team has integrated first staff blogs and then public blogs into the main destination site, highlighting appropriate (moderated) blog content alongside their main site, as you can see in the example here.

William explains the benefits of the approach, "Now we can really tap into the tourism experiences that we don't have the resources to cover ourselves. Incorporating the blog content alongside our site content gives a nice balance of official and user generated content and it allows us to really to represent tourism experiences that are off the beaten track."

The way HelloBC has effectively recruited an army of unpaid fans to extend their content and marketing messages beyond the scope they could possibly deliver alone is a terrific example of the harnessing user generated content as part of an authentic marketing conversation. 

A major concern from the travel industry audience was how do you manage the potential negative aspects, such as those that appear on review sites - do you really want unfavourable comments or feedback appearing on your blog? The panel of bloggers agreed that transparency and authenticity is essential and that complaints have always existed and been managed in the hospitality industry.

Jens Thraenhart of the Canadian Tourism Commission and the Tourism Internet Marketing blog explained , "Every bad review is an opportunity. It's the art of turning it around. If you have your blindfold on that is lost for ever. The same as you would manage a complaint at the desk, you manage it online and you commit resources to that."

Steve Joyce agreed, adding, "Every comment is the start of a conversation. Every positive comment I thank the commenter. Negative, I thank the commenter and continue the conversation. It is an extension of the customer service that already happened in the travel industry".

A final benefit about tourism industry business blogging (and this extends to engaging in social networks) is the free market research opportunities it offers. Ram Badrinathan, travel analyst with PhoCusWright in India commented that, "blogs are proving consumer to business feedback without conducting research. You get feedback direct to you. You can integrate that into your product."

This is an interesting point. Blogging and activity in social networks is not going to replace the need for research, but it can enhance it, because it offers a direct opportunity to hear and participate in conversations about your business that previously happened behind closed doors. Encouraging these conversations into the open means you will learn more about your customer's thoughts and their experiences of your brand and product than ever before. This knowledge gives you power to act as appropriate.

Do you have to blog yourself for your business to benefit?

Blogging takes time, requires passion and isn't for everyone. How can tourism companies use bloggers without blogging themselves?

HelloBC shows that you can incorporate the blogs of others. It was also suggested that you encourage those taking press and familiarity trips to blog about their experiences, thereby dramatically increasing the content online about your business.

There is also clearly opportunity to engage with existing bloggers, though this has to be done with sensitivity due to the transparent and usually unpaid nature of blogs.

As Steven Joyce explains, "Integrity has to be a part of it. There are different way of approaching bloggers and leveraging coverage, compared to traditional travel press. How do you invite bloggers and get them involved? In most cases they're looking to be appreciated for what they do. They're looking for acknowledgment that its valuable." Just like the press, they're looking for original content, but press releases simply don't cut it. Blogging is about genuine stories, not PR releases.

Understand what others are saying about you

To conclude this quick post from sunny Orlando. The way customers are consuming information and marketing messages is changing. Again and again at this conference, marketing is being described as a conversation, rather than the old one-way process of pushing information out.

Blogging and engaging with social media can enable tourism businesses to hear the conversation (market research), participate in the conversation (marketing strategy) and act on the conversation when required (customer service and general management). Powerful stuff.


Source: Highland Business Research