Wish you were here? Tourists make great customer evangelists
June 8, 2005
If any business thrives on word of mouth it must be the tourist industry. You go on vacation, send a few postcards, come home, tell your friends about it and then show the video footage to anybody who loves you enough and has three hours to kill.
The next thing you know, your mother’s hairdresser has booked two weeks at the same hotel
It’s hard to resist the notion tourist organisations have been slow to harness the possibilities this presents.
They spend enough money flying journalists out to cover the beaches and cocktail bars and in the past this might have worked well.
A recommendation from a familiar and trusted columnist is arguably almost as effective as word of mouth from your best friend. (Even if that same trusted columnist is recommending somewhere completely different two pages later.)
But with the decline of the mainstream media and its attendant influence, tourist organisations need to find new and engaging ways to spread the word. And surely the best resource for this they possess is their own membership.
Yankee Doodle comes back to town
This weekend, Connecticut launches an ambassadors programme to encourage residents to toot the horn for the Constitution State.
Having calculated more than 40% of visitors are friends and family from out of state (and thanks to Jackie Huba for the reference) the Commission on Culture and Tourism now wants to encourage residents to show them a good time.
Or perhaps a better time, starting off with Saturday’s Open House Day.
But what about the rest of the world? The other 59-ish% of visitors? It’s not hard to find proof that tourists who have a remarkable and personal experience of a destination tend to consider themselves friends, if not family, very quickly.
One way to reinforce this emotional connection is to provide a platform where they can keep in touch, to get the latest news from their new “friends” abroad. An example? Encourage the workers at the frontline - the tourist membership - to start blogging.
Keystone State scribblers
Last week, Pennsylvania launched a blogging initiative whereby it sent half a dozen residents out on road trips to keep a journal of their carefree travels through the state, logging the delights of PA along the way.
It’s a slick operation. So slick, as Business Week pointed out, a few of these blogs are a bit too close to cheery travel brochures. But points for effort. A lot of points for effort. As Kevin Dugan suggests it’s one way to bypass the traditional travel media and speak directly to consumers.
It would be nice to think these Pennsylvania bloggers will stick at it under their own steam when they get home. Then any loyal readers they have picked up along the way can keep in touch without having to read the tedious legal disclaimers at the bottom of every page.
Missing you already
But my vision of blogs in the tourist industry is rather different. I’d like to see enterprising tourist organisations offer every member a blog, followed by a lot of encouragement and a couple of free tutorials on how to use it. In practical and budget terms this might involve striking a deal with a company such as Six Apart to provide a white-label blogging solution.
Sure, the take up might be small in percentage terms but the potential value in terms of consumer relations could be significant.
Then when your happy campers return home, they can keep in touch with their new holiday friends, spread the word. And, best of all, pass around a few essential links to all those relatives and colleagues who had been thinking of hitting the internet for inspiration for their next vacation.
Tags: tourism, reputation management, blogs, blogging, customer evangelists, customer evangelism, word of mouth