Highlighting Top Users of Tourism Social Media – Part One
February 19, 2012 
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Social Media is a topic that still seems to be the biggest single area that I will get calls or expertise requests on from travel and tourism operators. Interestingly it’s a subject that so few of us seem to be talking about here on the Tourism Industry Blog.
When I deliver talks or workshops around social media I find that the one thing everyone wants to hear is of other businesses that are doing it well. I thought I’d open a conversation on tourism companies that do social media well without seeming to spend a fortune. Let’s start highlighting and congratulating the companies that are awesome role models. For this post I’m going to highlight Jucy.
Jucy Rentals
A company that I’d say is amongst New Zealand’s best tourism brands, has done a great job at growing the companies Facebook page to nearly 12,000 fans. Whilst the page is well designed and has some nifty features like booking tabs and a virtual branch, what makes Jucy standout is how they capturing the imagination of their customers through their content and engagement.
Some of the things they do, that you should too…
- They explicitly ask people to post their photos, videos and experiences
- They introduce and highlight their team members, putting a real face to the brand
- Respond to every post and actively use it as a platform to answer questions
- They take reservations straight off Facebook & Twitter
- Encourage people to connect through social media offline with signs in their branches, information in their email confirmations, social media icons on their cars, boats and in the hotel
Sure there are lots of other companies that have bigger numbers of fans, but I’d be surprised if you can find a tourism operator that gets this level of engagement without constantly doing giveaways on their page. Plus, if you want an example of return on investment, just look at the amount of direct bookings made or requested on their Facebook page and Twitter account.
Good work Amelia…oh, I mean Lucy! 
I’d love you to take the opportunity to share the tourism businesses that you think do social media well and what makes it good! Would be brilliant to feature them here too.
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Engagement is very important in social media. We currently have over 2700+ Twitter followers and slowly building our Facebook numbers (370+).
We post most week days and have regular engagement with our followers.
From a B2B prospective social media has give us a “casual” way of introducing ourselves to some of the bigger players, such as Kathmandu. We went on to have formal business talks with them as a result of our initial discussions.
So we find social media a very effective way of marketing both to our customers and to other businesses.
At Magic Broomstick Tours we are dedicated to posting a photo of every tour participant it’s a lot of work but I just love looking back at all the happy faces. I have just started actively asking people to comment or even post their own photos and slowly it’s happening. We now have 350 + FB Fans and growing by the day. Over the slower winter months I will be researching some tips and honing my skills. We do also enjoy twitter and now have 70 followers. For a small business (one owner operator and one part timer) we’re doing real well and loving it.