chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

EricCarterr — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:40:39 -0000

Great info indeed

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Essay Writing — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:14:01 -0000

Amazing !!
i read complete Article, this article is very informative

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

ridwanzero — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:01:10 -0000

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Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Mauritius WHL.travel — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:57:12 -0000

It would be a great concept but I believe that it will NOT work in countries where special interest groups are not able to hijack the Tourist Board/Blog.
Even worse scenario is where Tourist Board have become a Political tool or a few persons private playground to favor some take holders.
Take Mauritius, Why does the Tourist Board and the Tourist Authorities not list all Accommodation providers from the B&B to the 5 star Resort to the little tour operator on their website?
This way they would support the every stakeholder equally and if there should be a tip to one of the sites; should it not be in the favor of "The Other Side of ....." promoting the country hidden asset such at the little Eco & Adventure operator, the off the beaten track lodge/guest house rater the big hotel group or the Resort part of an International hotel chain. I mean it not be course of Hilton or Taj that I travel to a country without saying that these hotel have not right to be part of a Tourist Board/Blog.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

jessie voigts — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:30:39 -0000

this is a great topic for conversation. we've got two trips scheduled in the next few months and have contacted the major tourist boards so that we can share events, attractions, and restaurants with our readers on our site, http://www.WanderingEducato....

here's what happened:

chicago - contacted both tourist boards (and the chinatown organization) several times - NO response.

minneapolis (actually, explore minnesota) - lots of help and really getting us into both major attractions and off-the-beaten-path events.

you can bet that minneapolis (a cool city in and of itself) will get a lot more face time on our site, and many more recommendations, than will chicago. explore minnesota gets a lot of credit from me.

why don't more tourist boards pay attention to these sorts of things? we have a large readership and a highly educated audience.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Stephen Chapman — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:14:14 -0000

Interesting topic and thread of comments. I think local blogs are a real asset to areas keen to encourage tourism and they should definitely be recognised more by tourist boards, but is this idealistic? Probably, but should tourist boards change their attitude?

Like Juliemarg mentions above - Tourist boards need to see something in blogs that will help them to achieve their goals, and their goal is to motivate people to visit and spend lots of money in their area.

The type of places I like to read about in blogs are off the beaten track, the small local secrets, not the places I can go to spend all my money. I think that unless tourist boards can see the obvious value in promoting destinations as a whole, rather than focusing only on what brings in the big money they will be reluctant to support this type of blogging.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Ron Mader — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:14:00 -0000

Tourism boards will work independent bloggers, flickerers, twitterers if we give them an incentive to do so. Perhaps the best way to encourage national, state and local government websites is to work with them to create a buzz. How to work with them? Perhaps we could offer incentive in the form of awards.

It makes sense to encourage government leaders to provide the basic information for visitors. Yes, we would like to see more current information on government portals about local services, upcoming events and things visitors should know before they arrive. We would also like to see more details about ecotourism, responsible travel and indigenous tourism services. A plus would be an understanding of the Web2 channels, including Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

As an incentive for government websites, Planeta.com hosts the Ecotourism Spotlight Award for portals that are innovative, engaging and informative. Nominations for the 2009 Award open in May.

We are also updating an Index of Tourism Portals and adding a link to this essay as recommended reading.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Tim Russell — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:37:56 -0000

Interesting posting Chris. I live and work in a city (Saigon) that doesn't have a tourist board, just a local tourism 'authority' staffed by clueless government types who know practically zero about tourism. Thus, there is no destination marketing whatsoever. For those of us working in tourism & hospitality, this is bad news. Means we have to do it all ourselves.

The pieces below, designed for visitors to the city and the sort of thing you'd expect a tourist board to put out, have been very popular:

http://heartofsaigon.wordpr...
http://heartofsaigon.wordpr...

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

juliemarg — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:53:11 -0000

If you want to work with tourist boards, you have to offer them something that helps them achieve their goals. Their goal is not to tell the unvarnished truth it's to motivate people to visit and spend lots of money in their area. It's not to show people the small off the beaten track establishments, unless those establishments have joined the tourist board. It's not to show people how to spend as little as possible while visiting, it's to motivate them to spend as much as possible.

As readers we're looking for the off beat, the quirky, the truth. But it's silly to think that the raison d’être for tourist and convention boards will change.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

rick byerly — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:06:57 -0000

tourism boards need to promote people and blogs from their own areas to be the go to people to find out what's going on in an area. with pittsburgh, for example, there are a lot of people who live in the area who don't know the depth of the art scene and local govt and tourism related efforts may not even know as well.

rick byerly

fine art photographer, pittsburgh pa

pittsburgh art events
www.PittsburghGalleries.blo...

uniquetake photography
www.uniquetake.com

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

InhaleExhale — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:37:01 -0000

I was part of this press tour with Chris, and here are a few thoughts.

This tour was done very well. Here are a few key things that made it work:

1)Because it was arranged in cooperation with the new media/blogging community of Pittsburgh who helped figure out our itinerary.

2) We were also lucky to have an extremely sophisticated thinker about Pittsburgh, blogger Jim Russell, on the tour with us. He gave us a multi-layered take on the history and cultural geography of Pittsburgh.

3) Along with taking us to some really fascinating places, they gave us time to chill, blog, and wander around unchaperoned which led to cool serendipitous discoveries and interactions.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Alina Popescu — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:46:55 -0000

I believe the stories that are not related to the traditional tours are the ones that need to be told and promoted. And locals would know them best. They know that the best restaurant in town is pretty hidden and no tourist will ever find it, that one of the most authentic place to see isn't on any tour, etc. Tourists might also discover them when deciding to just forget all recommendation and just wander around a city/region driven by their gut feeling.

For example, the best day I had in Amsterdam was when we just wandered around the city and stopped and visited whatever happened to be on our way. Also, in NYC, the best place to eat was a small diner hidden by construction works, close to our hotel. We went in because it was raining and it was the closest place possible. No one was recommending it.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Soultravelers3 — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:09:26 -0000

Hi Chris! Thanks so much for this post and your previous one on this topic. Like you and so many here, I think it is essential conversation.

I think the combination of local bloggers and travel bloggers adds a greater dimension to any place. That, will bring more people!

There was a mention of London in a few comments, including one from a native and my friend Pam mentioning how expensive it is.

We have started our third year of traveling the world as a family and two areas that we focus on in our blog is finding family educational opportunities while traveling and living large on little with lots of keys on how to do that, even in expensive cities.

We spent months in the UK this summer, including London on very little money, had a great time and found endless educational opportunities for families! London has been smart by making all their museums free, so that worked well for our goals and I would love to see more cities follow that example.

We have visited 4 continents, traveled over 50,000 miles, visited 27 countries... and spend 25K a year in total expenses for a family of 3! We find we can travel the world for much less than living at home ( and we have been mostly in "expensive" Europe).

Like many travel bloggers, we blog about what we learn and experience while we travel. We have introduced our readers to new places to add to their list of "must-see"'s, given them new ideas on how to explore places that they know ( like how to live large on little even in expensive places), and challenge them on how to find fun educational enrichment through family travel.

Each blogger will bring their own voice which can not help but add to a sense of place, if it is a high quality blog.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Ron Mader — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:09:10 -0000

Great post. We are linking to this from the Planeta essay on Web2 in Tourism
http://planeta.wikispaces.c...

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

James — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:04:33 -0000

Being a person that blogs, chats, writes and discuss issues on travel related destinations it does surprise me that more tourism regions don't reach out to connect with bloggers. The opportunity for tourism destinations to share and discuss the wonderful highlights of the destination is very easy, but why aren't there more doing it?

I have had some great dialouge with many global destinations and they have been open to share what they have to offer, which I have been more than happy to share through my blogs. While others I guess are still sitting on edge of the pool wondering which toe to dip in!

Great post Chris..

Cheers James
www.littlenomads.com for parents that love to travel.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Kelly Shibari — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:09:58 -0000

Interesting topic! Being from a filmmaking background, I know that more than a few states are trying to bring in outside money in the way of tax rebates if a production company decides to shoot a film in their state rather than in California.

How cool would it be to start a national blogsite of different states and different cities, where locals can post their homes' pictures for consideration for filming locations? Restaurants can offer catering services, and hotels can offer discounts for entire film crews staying in their town. State film commissions can get involved too.

One of the hardest things a production company faces (in addition to finding local crew, which is a large component of becoming approved for the tax rebates) is finding the satellite support needed in regards to filming - truck rentals, furniture rentals, filming locations, housing for the crew, catering...a national blog site like this might be really helpful!

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

pam — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:32:11 -0000

There's so much food for thought in here that I don't know what to pile on my plate first. I'm going to respond to two items:

1. (Barb)If you’re blogging in return for goodies from the places and services you review, why would I trust your review?

I think this is a faulty assumption who's time has come. I'm a little weary of the preconceived notion that comps automatically equal positive reviews. It ain't necessarily so.Building relationships with bloggers you trust (if you're a reader or a provider) should prove this.

2. (Todd)Enthusiastic local and travel bloggers may or may not have the skills for sales/competitive marketing. Being a skilled place blogger doesn't automatically translate to being skilled in marketing a place. Are you suggesting replacing ad sales bucks AND work with place blogging? I agree that getting those two groups together would be valuable and they do indeed have a lot to learn from each other.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

todd lucier — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:30:24 -0000

Web 2.0 is a new medium for marketing tourism regions and like the recording industry which saw tremendous changes in economics due to technological innovation - the relationship between tourism boards & tourism operators needs to undergo such a sea change.

Bloggers need to play a central role.

1. Bloggers deserve to earn money from their services.
2. The money needs to come from those who benefit from their work.
3. Tourism Boards aren't in the business of spending money, they are in the business of taking money from operators and distributing that money to their staff, overhead, and traditional media exposure and marketing for tourism businesses.
4. Fees from operators support the tourism boards. The financial relationships between tourism boards and operators is generally based on long term relationships, not tracking of sales leads and results.
5. Bloggers have something of quality to offer - not the tourism boards, but to the operators, and thus bloggers are often seen as competition for the tourism boards.
6. Bloggers can offer great value to operators that is trackable.

I see four ways bloggers can be engaged to earn dollars from sharing stories:
1. Tourism Boards can hire them as staff to take over the sales work of traditional paid placement advertising, replacing the tourism boards value offer to operators with something measurable, and effective - stories about their establishment(from a traveller perspective) and exposure in other Web 2.0 services.
2. Compete with local tourism boards and provide a value proposition and services directly to local operators.
3. Bloggers can offer training services to operators - How to Blog and enhance your Web 2.0 presence!
4. My proposition is that the best scenario is to bring these groups together for a day of training to understand the value of working together, to inspire trust and gain confidence in each other. B to B relationships are seeded through these relationships.

We have had a great deal of success bringing these groups together in Canada at Experiential Tourism workshops, cluster workshops, internet marketing workshops for tourism businesses and regional tourism training days inspiring attendees to work together to create the content needed to sell tourism online today.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Heather Rankin — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:19:48 -0000

I started out trying to do a pure Real Estate blog, but in the Lake Powell area there is not enough RE to fill up a blog. So, with a little push from a couple of online friends, (cough Teri L - cough) I've started down the voice of the community road. We are a complete and total tourist area. The main city, Page, AZ, has about 9000 year round residents and then smaller outlying communities. This year estimates are about 3 million tourists came through here.

I worked 16 years, in some form or another in tourism, and I know this place like the back of my hand. For now, the blog is coming together and better yet, I am having fun :-) I love this place and sharing the magic that lives here not only in the views and water, but in the human and natural history. Gonna sprinkle real estate in there as well. Cheers!

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:57:29 -0000

Wow, Nathan, I don't know about a couple of your suggestions. If you're blogging in return for goodies from the places and services you review, why would I trust your review? It's hardly objective at that point. In fact, I would think you should disclose any payment received, or other financial/reciprocal relationship.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

compassioninpolitics — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:50:01 -0000

1) Leverage tagging to aggregate blogged reviews
2) Utilizing the Yelp API for other reviews

I think an incredibly important issue is that the tourism bureaus should incentivize more reviews with:
1) cash
2) revenue sharing
3) iTunes or Amazon gift certificates
4) free stuff from the restaurants + events + businesses + locals reviewed
5) contests

Doing so is a bare minimum to demonstrate respect, to help create an equal relationship, and to insure further reviews.

My response stems largely from "HorsePigCows" criticism in "Stop Crowdsourcing Me" Simply expecting reviews for free just because you gave someone a platform is bunk. I won't say this is a rule in all cases, but a general principal which I hope will guide social media campaigns in the future.

Cheers! Great post.... Lots of insight!

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Matt McGee — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:20:06 -0000

Good stuff, Chris. My wife and I jointly write four hyperlocal blogs, one for each of the main cities in our area. We sometimes write about popular local events, stuff that the tourism board people also promote.

We'd welcome an informal relationship with the tourism board, but I wouldn't be interested in any kind of partnership with them where I'm obligated to always write sunshine about our town and local events. That doesn't seem honest to me.

BTW, for folks interested in local blogging, I write a blog called Hyperlocal Blogger which is dedicated to the topic. URL is in my name above.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

P0_P0 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:26:43 -0000

Great post. I live in an city where there is no tourism board or CVB (Fremont, CA). The place is really ethnically diverse and great restaurants and little stores can be found, if you know where to look. There are several different chambers of commerce, and some neighborhood and business associations. It would be a great idea if we could get together and have a workshop or meetup regarding getting local bloggers to blog about your city. The first thing to do, I think, is to educate the local associations about the advantages of being blogged about. Then we can find our local bloggers.

Right now, I get Google Search alerts about my city. Currently, there have been hardly any blog posts - just press releases, and the occasional flickr geomapped post. We can try to do a blogger outreach (maybe) and then see if there are any changes in my Google Search Alert. Maybe I should set up a tweetbeep thing too.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

Shannon — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:49:49 -0000

Chris - Yet more words of wisdom comes from your greatness. I would like to echo the thoughts of a few of the commenters regarding tourism boards focusing on local bloggers. This isn't just on a city level, it is also on a state level.

I live in Louisiana and I am just going to throw myself out there and call them out for not being supportive of locals like myself (excluding the SW Louisiana area which is golden in my book). I've written NUMEROUS travel guides about this state and her various regions and many feature stories. I can't tell you how many times I want to bang my head against the wall when just trying to speak with these people. I even met with a local tourism board for a major city near me. I had to go to NC to get a 15 minute meeting with these people who work 10 minutes from my home. They were all nice and positive, yet when following up with them, NO RETURN CALLS. Oh wait, I did get an email, about 6 months later asking me to recommend them for a professional society.

It is very frustrating. I want to be able to tell people new things going on my area, but when the local tourist boards won't even help me with PRINT stories, I find it very hard to believe they would embrace a blog.

The great thing about blogging is that there is no one to dictate the subject of the post. If I want to write just about the chef that cooked me a fantastic meal, I can do that and I am not limited to the two sentences or so I'm allowed in a print pub to highlight a great experience. I've found wonderful treasures in blog when I research before I travel anywhere, whether for business or pleasure. Many times I will return on my own to a destination after attending a media fam, just to talk to other visitors and get their impression of an area.

Tourims boards need to do their research and coming to this blog is a great start for them to dip their toes into social media. Thanks for this post, Chris.

Re: How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism Boards

PodChicks — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:17:34 -0000

My husband and I were exploring the possibility of having a residence outside of the U.S. and came across a bunch of ex-pat blogs that give the inside scoop to people who are going to visit and/or contemplating a move. These blogs give a true sense of what to expect and can point people to the gems that visitors might miss if they just relied on a tourism guide. It might be good if tourism boards considered linking to a few of these "living like a native" blogs