There are opinions floating around about the viability and usefulness of destination based Social Networks. Karin Schmollgruber for example doesn’t have a lot of faith in a social network for a single destination.
Karin is one of the thought leaders in the travel 2.0 blogging community and I respect her opinion a lot. But I disagree with her about this one. I think the CoolAustria and Holland 2.0 experiments have taught us a few lessons. But I don’t reach the same conclusion.
The destination based Social Networks mentioned above (and now Sweden as well) all implemented some form of “be like Facebook” strategy, combined with a plethora of Web 2.0 tools. The core challenge with this approach is that travelers who are planning trips need information and don’t necessarily want to become part of another Social Network, create a profile, make friends and more, they just want to plan a vacation.
With Holland as an exception, these social networks are also separated from their official websites, a huge missed opportunity. The result from all of the above is that all these networks suffer from low participation, where high participation is needed. facebook is great, but a ‘be like Facebook’ approach is not going to work for a destination. Karin is absolutely right about that.
Some suggest that travel related social networks is just another source for content. Simply aggregate User Generated Content from third party networks, and you’re done. New Zealand has done it, Canada has done it. This is definitely useful content for travelers. And I like simplicity, but I don’t like to oversimplify things. I thought Web 2.0 was about interactivity and two way communication. Aggregating User Generated Content and publishing it on a website is Web 1.5.
DMO’s need to build strong relationships with consumers, and help them plan and book vacations, before and during their trip, by allowing all relevant stakeholders to participate on a destination website. These stakeholders are:
- Travelers, planning a trip, or sharing experiences and content about a trip
- Residents, they are a sub-group of travelers, but a very important one
- The tourism industry, selling their tourism products
- The DMO itself, providing the ‘official’ information
The opportunity for a destination based social network is to harness industry, passionate residents and past travelers, and engage them in a dialog with travelers to assist them with their trip planning. This is a natural extension of what DMOS’s do. They sell the destination by connecting travelers with tourism product (connecting supply with demand). Destinations already have relationships with their industry. They need find and encourage their ‘brand advocates’ to engage on their networks.
Groups for cities, towns, sectors, etc. will form. There will be differences of opinion, and that’s ok. That’s how trip planners can evaluate the opinion of many against their own criteria and make the best decision. Certain content can be sourced from third parties. What’s the point of creating your own product rating system when you can source it directly from Tripadvisor for example. Other content will have to be created on a destination based social network.
With the introduction open social standard, there is an opportunity to leverage existing networks people are already part of. If somebody can take their social graph with them, all of a sudden we can leverage the existing connections (friends) people already have, adding a whole layer of additional usefulness and credibility.
The social network I envision and intent to create for HelloBC.com is a mash-up of our official information, aggregated third party content, combined with our resident advocates, passionate past travelers and tourism businesses, all interacting with travelers in an open and transparent way. The direct, and two-way interaction is an opportunity to add the credibility, objectivity and authenticity travelers are looking for. And it will be nothing like Facebook.
William,
Great post but don’t forget some points about other DMO’s around the World
- some don’t even know what’s Travel 2.0 is about (exemple for the managing director for the second city in France, I know the guy,I live here)
- many DMO’s have administrative process and peoples without etourism skills (specialy in France)
- Did you see french DMO’s or other in PhoCusWright. I guess you where only few leaders (Jens, You, some others)
You are atypic William and you lead the way.
Ask Karin about their presentation for Web 2.0 Open Berlin, it was about Travel 2.0 and I give here some slides about the french market.
I have a good feeling about Community of Sweden, they have passion and can boost the community. We will see…
All the best for your social network mashup
Best regards from France
Claude
Fabulous perspective…there is certainly a place for destination based social networks. From a technical outlook your idea is interesting and could yield fruit on a number of fronts including link building for a node of the mother site.
Hi William,
Interesting post. I was also recently pondering this subject in a post and concluded that critical mass was one of the bigest barriers to destination level social networks. (So many niche local networks that are inactive or insufficiently integrated with other content).
At least in this market, these destination sites and networks often have a point of reference that is based on a political/geographic view of the destination, rather than one shared by the visitor.
I think what you have achieved with HelloBC is to achieve a critical mass by obtaining this incredible reach and depth of user content.
I think your model is one of the better ones out there and the ambitions you descibe can work somewhere like here in Scotland at a national level – not by a top down big build that local destinations are expected to participate in, but by a bottom up approach using commin platform and technology.
The would allow the destinations to scale outwards (and inwards as you have) and connect to each other. The visitor would benefit by having a cohenrent, navigable experience but with rich, authentic and locally flavoursome content.
That was a bit of an essay! At least I didn’t add a graph. Bye
Hi William,
the problem is the “offline managers”, as say Claude. They are the true “digital divide”.
We are developing in Canary Islands a system like you say to can build this social networks of enterprises to destinations and SMEs and boost a more flexible and adaptative tourism system (http://www.eduwilliam.com/?p=70).
As say Vicky, the problem is the critical mass. It is absolutely true, but as you say, the mashups and opensocial can to fix it. i think in a web destinations, you must create a close local enterprises network, but an open social network (visitors and residents). The visitors are vistors of every destinations and residents are visitors the other destinations too. So, the networks would to interoperate and conect with other, run like ASP (opportunities to bigs and small destinations, local, regionals or national,…)and work with mashups. They must been aggregators with add value, not hosting!
Regards,
edu