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Why might a tourism business want to engage with blogging and how can it possibly help with marketing and customer research?
Yesterday 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.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Destination research, Marketing strategy, Research tools, Social media measurement, Tourism blogging, Travel 2.0.
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16th November, 2007 at 1:03 pm
“…first ever travel industry bloggers summit” held in Orlando. Ok, we need to organize the same summit in Europe then. I have been discussing for months with different parties about doing this with sponsors. Kevin, Darren, Tim, Claude, Albert and others, are you up for it? I will send you an email to have your thoughts.
Cheers.
Guillaume
http://www.hotel-blogs.com
16th November, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Vicky ,
Great post,
Well, you are becoming “famous” !!!
regards from France
Claude
16th November, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I agree that we definitely need to do something in Europe and would be keen to help organise. It can only benefit us as tourism ibdustry bloggers and increase dissemination of knowledge. There were also many businesses and destinations who were thinking about blogging who used the summit to pick our brains - also a good thing.
16th November, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Great post…I found it on HotelMarketing.com today. Nice coverage!
16th November, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I found your blog via the “Blog Business Card” you gave me. It was great to meet you! Also… Great recap of the session. I look forward to becoming a regular reader and commenter here.
Aloha,
Dave.
16th November, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Ah, my blog business card 
I thought it was an Alice In Wonderland moment when we got offline business cards printed for our online blog. Thanks for visiting Dave
17th November, 2007 at 10:13 am
Guillaume,
PhoCusWright is going to London around April 2008 with Travolution partnership.
Ask Kevin.
But, if you want to make an extension for France market, I am open !
I see a need on the french market !
Cheers
Claude
17th November, 2007 at 11:07 am
Thanks Chris and Claude for your comments.
Claude, Guillaume - I know Martin Schobert in Austria (http://blog.austria.info) also has some thoughts, including Travolution in April that you mention Claude and ITB in Berlin in March. Is it worth setting up a facebook group or Wiki to pool thoughs?
17th November, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Yes, it would be great to have a Tourism bloggers get together in Europe. I attended the World Travel Market in London 12 - 13 November and several of the seminars were about Web 2.0 and social media. The consensus was to embrace tools such as blogs to harness the benefits for your business but that there wasn’t a set “best approach” that you had to experiment and discover what works best for you.
17th November, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Absolutely Karen. What I found fascinating at the Orlando bloggers summit, and why I think it would be great to do something in Europe, is that absolutely every single person was doing it slightly differently and had different tips and advice to impart.
I’ve already implemented two ideas that were suggested to me (sharing my del.icio.us links and putting posts related to my images on Flickr) and have a lot more to think about in the coming days.
18th November, 2007 at 6:22 pm
[...] Orlando - Why might a tourism business want to engage with blogging and how can it possibly help with marketing and customer research?Last Tuesday (13 November) 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.Get entire story on – Highland Business Research’s Blog [...]
19th November, 2007 at 2:23 am
[...] November 19, 2007 Thoughts from the first ever travel industry bloggers summit | Tracking Tourism [...]
20th November, 2007 at 5:55 am
Thanks Vicky for participating at the “first ever travel industry bloggers summit”. We are already working on an International version to be held at the upcoming PhoCusWright@ITB conference in Berlin in March. All travel industry bloggers, please stay tuned, we will work with the T-List group to get this coordinated shortly.
21st November, 2007 at 5:26 am
Wow! What a great recap of the workshop. I actually found it really hard to do a recap because I was in the session and missed out on taking notes. Overall I think the workshop was a resounding success and all the feedback we received after the session was positive. I recall a number of people mentioning that it was a the best workshop of the day. Big THANKS to Bruce Rosard at PhoCusWright for adding us to the roster and I look forward to participating in future sessions.
21st November, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Thanks Bruce and Stephen, and I can only echo your comments Stephen. Thanks again for the opportunity and I look forward to taking forward future activity and harnessing some of the enthusiasm shared here.
23rd November, 2007 at 1:11 am
Great summary - thanks. Guillaume - great to meet you in London. Look forward to the next time
23rd November, 2007 at 10:29 am
Great idea, really! Guillame, Vicky, Bruce, please, can you send me an e-mail about this European “industry bloggers summit” in Berlin (or London)? Keep in touch: we would interested in partecipating in this summit, sessions, meeting and more! 
26th November, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Will do Martina and sorry for the delay in replying!
10th January, 2008 at 3:42 pm
As an update to this post,
THE PHOCUSWRIGHT BLOGGERS SUMMIT
will take place March 5-6, 2008 • Berlin Exhibition Grounds • Berlin, Germany
PhoCusWright invites the blogging community to The PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit@ITB Berlin and are currently taking applications for qualified travel industry bloggers to participate in this exciting opportunity and program.
A post will follow shortly, but in the meantime, more information can be found here:
http://www.phocuswright.com/conferences_phocuswright_at_itb_2008_bloggers_summit
We will be attending and hope to see you all there!
29th February, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] will happen at ITB Berlin in March. There have been whispers of this event for some time (Jens, Vicky, Stephen) and it is now official! The summit has several components that will ensure a great time [...]
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