Nice new destination blogs with social element
Two destination blogs (re)launched last week that both integrate social media elements in a very nice way:
Travel Oregon Blog
Travel Oregon (full disclosure: we work with them and provide content to them) relaunched their blog last week.
The blog was already considered by many one of the nicest and most successful destinations blog around before the redesign. The new blog is – in my opinion – even more interesting.
Travel Oregon now integrates not only videos (from YouTube, Vimeo etc.) but also Flickr photos into the blog. The “Oregon Snapshots” come from the Travel Oregon Flickr group. The blog footer invites readers to follow Travel Oregon on Twitter, the sidebar now includes a polling module. All great social elements for a blog and best of all – they do not cost a lot.
If you want to see best practices in action do not miss the RSS feeds offered for the blog – not only are different feeds for the different categories available, the feed page also explains how feeds work and offers good resources. We need more examples like this to drive RSS adoption to where it should be!
Experience Columbus
Experience Columbus launched their blog last week and while they are a little bit later to the party they for sure come in a nice dress. The blog includes several interesting social media elements.
In the sidebar all staff members (18!) who are on Twitter are shown with their Twitter icons.
Also listed are links to the Experience Columbus Facebook page, myspace page and Flickr group. Unique is the integrated delicious feed for websites bookmarked by staff on the social bookmarking site. This can turn into an interesting resource e.g. for journalists who are looking for background info on the city. The only thing I would like to see improved is an easier navigation back to the main ExperienceColumbus page, maybe in the top level navigation.
While playing around with the main Experience Columbus site I found some great elements other destinations should have a look at.
The individual listings for hotels, attractions etc. include nicely integrated Google maps. But other destinations offer that as well. What I have not seen anywhere else are events listings that are tied to the individual member listing and therefore tied to the map location. So if I look at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame I can see all events taking place at the Hall of Fame in an extra tab.
The infrastructure should allow Experience Columbus to very easily do even more as the events data is tied now to geo-data. Example: A Google map that shows all events taking place during a certain time within a certain radius around a specific place: “Let’s see what events are taking place within a mile radius from our hotel for the weekend we will be in Columbus”. Events are also available via a different RSS feeds.
Oh, the possibilities …
November 21st, 2008 at 10:56 am
This is a great sample of something that I can bring to our industry to graphically SHOW them why they need be uplaoding their info to Google maps. Thanks again for showing the way.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hi! Great post about tourism destinations with social elements. I know Oregon and Columbus’ sites well. I am the community manager for VisitPA’s Social Sites. We currently have a blog, which will be rolling out with a new design in the coming months, so keep your eyes on http://www.paadventure.com. We are also interacting on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Flickr. We have a large, loyal following of visitors from PA and neighboring areas. These folks are passionate about all things PA, whether it is sports and adventure, food, wineries and breweries or farmer’s markets. They share their experiences on each of our sites and we are so excited to be bringing them a new and exciting site soon.
Thanks again for the great info.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Nice post,i am writting from africa.the world is changing and i see tourism companies adding social media strategies to their campaign to attract international tourists and local tourists to experience a destination.
great post.