Tourism Industry Blog

Steve Wilson provides an interesting discussion and analysis on the role social media has played in the recent Christchurch earthquake and political events.

A classic story of a young New Zealand businessman who has returned home and ‘done good’. Ryan Sanders, owner of Haka Tours, has recently been recognised for his innovation in tourism.

Social media offers all tourism businesses the perfect platform to share and promote the experiential based tourism product through the use of interactive mediums. Steve Wilson discusses what tools make sense.

Many businesses are bamboozled with social media. Articles are often cathartic in nature, listing the ever growing number of social media sites and tools to use, not addressing the questions that these businesses need answering.

It is no surprise that automated monitoring of traveller reviews is in its infancy while the phenomenon of consumer reliance on user generated content is well established.

Interpersonal influence and word of mouth (WOM) are ranked the most important information source when a consumer is making a purchase decision and the influence may be especially important in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, wikis, forums and your own customer communities – people are sharing more content than ever online. There’s no bigger source of honest, direct and outspoken opinion and community assistance than social media sites.