Travel and tourism is a great example of an industry that has been impacted by social media. Not long ago online travel booking spelled doom for the travel agent. Will CVBs (Convention and Visitor's Bureaus) face the same fate?
Savvy travelers are very self-sufficient. They'll book they're own travel and research their own trips. Sure they may look at an 'official' site for a location or hotel, but more and more they'll use a site like TripAdvisor or another third-party site that is dedicated to their destination.
A great example is Disney. There are dozens of Disney-specific web sites such as The Disney Blog or Mouse Planet. These detailed fan-sites can give you tips galore, some of which Disney probably wishes they didn't.
One of the driving forces behind social media is the notion that we trust each other more than we trust media/business. We're looking for good, reliable information. If the CVBs aren't providing it, we'll look elsewhere. We want to know what's good and what's bad. We want honest opinions.
That's the crux of the CVBs though. You're never going to find a CVB web site say, "Don't stay at this hotel." Chances are, that hotel is a paying supporter of the CVB and they wouldn't like it too much if their 'marketing' organization was driving customers away. Perhaps that's why many CVB run social media sites are somewhat sterile.
Most CVBs are funded by tourism taxes (aka bed taxes) and are tasked with promoting their area to the rest of the world, i.e. 'Come Visit Beautiful X'. Swap out the X for your local city, county or state. Statewide CVBs often have huge budgets with large traditional media buys. In Florida, FLA-USA has a budget of $24.7 million and was asking for an additional $34.3 million this year.
CVBs realize that consumers are looking to social media for travel tips, they want to be part of that mix. However, is it even possible for CVBs to run a social media initiative?
Another issue is truth in advertising. CVBs often produce glossy 'Destination Guides' that showcase the beauty of a particular location. The problem is the real thing rarely ever looks as good as the picture. One CVB I know of features a picture of a private home's lakefront on their cover. In other words, the cover photo that represents their destination is somewhere you can't even go to.
Recently somebody created a web site that compares advertised food photos with the real thing. Some of the photos are quite funny. But what's sad is that it is a very similar situation with those guide photos. If you've seen the Dove Revolution video, you know what can be done with Photoshop. If we want to see the 'real' destination, we'll just search Flickr.
I've been thinking of creating a similar site that compares these guide photos with the real thing.
What can CVBs do in the social media world? How can they provide open conversation with potential visitors while not offending their supporting members?
In Part 2 I'll talk about some things that CVBs are doing right and some other options for them in the world of social media.
Visitor Comments
The Dove makeover reminds me of more that a few corporate bios I've read. Thanks for posting this.
Posted by: Joe Begalla | May 30, 2007 5:09 PM
The part about this post that caught my attention was the idea of planning vacations completely online. In just the past couple of days, I have explored the Disney website in regards to planning a trip. It really is amazing what you can do on the website. You can plan everything about your trip online, including your hotel, ticket package, recreation reservations, restaurant reservations, and show reservations. You can design your trip according to budget and purpose (ie romantic, relaxation, family vacation, etc.) It is simple and easy to navigate. It even allows you to create custom maps and itineraries for each day of your trip.
Anyway, the reason I found this post interesting is because I was considering several places for my trip, but the Disney website was far superior and way more helpful and informative than any other city website I found. Like mentioned in the post, most of the CVB websites I found were loaded with advertisements and links that didn't take me where I wanted to go. The CVB websites were confusing and not helpful, so I chose Disney. Now I realize that Disney is a resort only promoting itself, and a CVB is trying to promote lots of businesses in its city, even competing businesses. However, I do believe that it will be crucial for CVBs to really work on their use of social media in order to continue to compete with resort destinations such as Disney. Some CVB websites are relatively simple and can be helpful. For instance, I am a student at UGA in Athens, GA, and the Athens website is pretty good. But overall, my experience with CVB websites has not been a pleasant one when planning a trip. So much so in fact, that it decided where I would take my trip. I'll go to Disney World because their website allows me plan everything I want to do in a simple and easy way.
Posted by: Katie | June 3, 2007 10:54 PM
The idea of "social media" was new to me until a couple of days ago. (i'm not quite sure why...I mean, I'd been participating all along). But now I've truly understood how quickly it's taking over the Internet and the way we do things.
It totally makes sense why travellers would trust a blog about specific travel tips. There is something more trustworthy about a guy sharing his experiences than a CVB that has to uphold some sort of marketing duties. I'm sure advertisers and marketers will find a way to get around this...I just hope it doesn't ruin our information source.
Posted by: Katie Drew | June 4, 2007 8:42 AM
Josh,
I know this is not about CVBs but I recently had to make travel plans to South Africa. After being handed glossy over-priced travel brochures by travel agents. I chucked them and dived into message boards and sites like TripAdvisor. Boy did I make a smart move, I received an authentic experience that I have told stories from over and over.
Posted by: Geno | June 5, 2007 2:39 PM