How To: Promote Tourism Through Social Media

Tourism is an important pillar in almost every country’s economy. While some countries are really good at promoting themselves, others need some serious work.

For example, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” was an instant hit, and Las Vegas can’t seem to find something better to replace it. On the flip side, Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” tagline didn’t work too well for her.

With a new tagline, “There’s nothing like Australia,” and a $4 mil campaign, we thought all would be well again. But I guess the tourism board didn’t see this coming: someone went out and registered the domain NothingLikeAustralia.net, and started posting spoof versions of the campaign.

Having no clue how to deal with this, Tourism Australia (TA) considered taking legal actions against the site. If you know anything about the people online, you wouldn’t want to consider legal actions. Laugh it off and leverage on the situation instead. Luckily, TA came to its senses before getting a severe backlash.

If concocting well-received slogans is so tough, and tourism campaigns are so expensive (and might go terribly wrong), what else can a tourism board do? It surprises me that tourism boards are taking so long to try out social media. Those who are already on it are seeing very impressive results!

Here are some things they did that I love:

1. Creating Valuable Information Platform

Planning for a vacation can be a complete nightmare. Sometimes, I don’t even know where to start. Having a place I can turn to for information would be a blessing.

Visit Japan 2010 has a Facebook page that aggregates all the travel info and links you’ll ever need! The layout is clean and information is organized. It’s the first place (not Google!) I would go to when planning for a Japan trip. Get updates through the page, ask questions and share your experiences with others. Who would you trust more, the tips and views of a fellow tourist or the tourism board?

New Zealand has a YouTube channel that not only shows you great videos, it helps you plan your trip as well (under slogan)! The channel links you to information about New Zealand, getting to New Zealand, places to stay, and a New Zealand map.