If like me, you’re a Twitter addict, you’ll probably not have missed the amazing moments that guests started to tweet live from the event when Air New Zealand gifted each and every one of them a return ticket to Wellington! For those of you that haven’t seen it, check the Air New Zealand video out here:

For more information about the campaign, check out the WellingtonNZ page.

Watching this video reminded my of other cool tourism case study videos I’ve seen recently. Here are a few that I think can provide some ideas & inspiration- enjoy!

If you know of any others be sure to post them here in the comments!

When the time is right perhaps Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism or Tourism New Zealand should think about following a similar strategy, what do you think?

With 3 initial different TV commercials it’s clear that the brand is being moved away from the generic to the specific which Tourism New Zealand is hoping will spark action with travellers to increase tourism numbers.

I think this is a good move to both ride off the power of the 100% Pure brand but also offer a range of activities that people love about New Zealand.

What do you think?

Our decision to head for Dunedin was made through the offer of support from long standing family friends who had emigrated here in the early 00’s. Although it must be admitted that Erin, my partner, also found it slightly comforting to read of Dunedin’s strong Scottish roots – this being her first move away from Scotland.

It wasn’t long after arriving that I took up my position at St Clair Beach Resort, a new property not only offering a great opportunity to me but also to the city of Dunedin. The city’s most noted premium property – Corstophine House had closed just a few weeks before the hotel’s opening. In so many ways St Clair Beach Resort was the right product at the right time for Dunedin. The resort has been popular amongst visitors to the city, also to local’s too, with over 5% of hotel residents coming on a ‘staycation’ from within the Dunedin city boundary! We are often told by these guests that the resort has helped them to see Dunedin as a place people want to go, not just need to go.

Hence my prompt for writing this blog post. I believe, for Dunedin, 2011 could be a great year – the year the city becomes a place that the rest of New Zealand will realise as a top destination, not only to international tourists – but to domestic travellers too.

The central protagonist in this tale of success will be the opening of New Zealand’s first roofed stadium. Where is that stadium? Not Auckland, with its population of 1.3 million; not Wellington, New Zealand’s capital and not even Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city. Dunedin.  The Forsyth Barr Stadium will host rugby and other sporting fixtures as well as cater for conferences, music acts and other major events. Finally a sizeable venue, putting Dunedin in the running for major national and international conferences. It has recently been announced that Sir Elton John will be the first major act to perform at the stadium in late 2011, a performer that will undoubtedly draw the crowds.

September and October will of course be a big months for all of New Zealand, particularly those cities directly involved in the Rugby World Cup. Of which Dunedin is one, hosting three games, six teams and a multitude of peripheral events. The third-biggest sporting event in the world, the Rugby World Cup certainly draws world-wide attention everywhere it goes. In its entirety the tournament has an estimated television audience of more than four billion people with an estimated 85,000 international visitors choosing to travel to New Zealand during this time. As well as the additional income widely spread throughout the local economy it is also a great opportunity to market the city across the globe both through publicity and in creating thousands of ambassadors from those who choose to come to Dunedin.

Coupled with the rapid growth of Dunedin’s cruise industry, renovations to the Dunedin Town Hall conference centre, restoration of the Chief Post Office into a quality hotel, various operator led product development projects, a shiny new ‘Dunedin’ brand as well as expansion to two of the city’s existing hotels I’m sure you will see my reasoning for the title of this blog post.

Here’s to a happy new year!

Any tourism organization that needs to get their product or services in front of a national or international audience at minimum cost without having to set up a real live trade show in one geographic location, should be looking at virtual events. With the huge increase in at-home-agents, online travel agents, travel aggregators etc. it is incredibly challenging for a national, regional or local tourism organization to get their tourism businesses in front of a geographically dispersed travel trade community.

I know you’ll be saying that ‘consumers buy direct,’ and yes that trend will continue to increase but working with the travel trade remains a significant part of the marketing mix for a substantial number of tourism suppliers. The question is how do you train the trade when it is impossible to get them all together in one place and you don’t have the budgets, or the resources, to make that happen?

Here is the answer. I think it was serendipity this morning when I opened my emails to find an invite to ‘Virtual Event User Experience’ sponsored by On24.com. ON24 is the global leader in webcasting and virtual events. This is a great opportunity for NTO’s, RTO’s and CVB’s to learn more about Virtual Trade Shows. The ‘Virtual Event’ will take place on Tuesday December 14, 8.00a – 2:00p (PST), 1600 – 2200 (GMT). Because this is a US run event the time frame may not suit everyone especially my readers in the South Pacific.

However, if this is something you have not considered or might even be remotely considering I recommend you drag your self out of bed and watch. If you are interested in what the costs are of running a Virtual Event, how to gain accessibility to a targeted global audience and, what the opportunities are to recoup or cover costs without charging every one a fortune to be involved, then you need to attend this event. All you need is a computer and a hot cup of coffee. There is no need to get out of those PJ’s.

About on24.com

More on ‘Virtual Event User Experience’

Registration Page

All did not start well, with some candidates seeming to struggle even coming to grips with delivering a pre-prepared two minute introduction; with a radio microphone seeming to throw some right of kilter! After a slow and somewhat cringe-worthy start, most seemed to be settling in and starting to sound what you’d expect from someone who would consider standing for mayor.

A couple of questions in, the gentleman sitting next to me questioned whether in seeking to reduce council expenditure it was their role to be dealing with services out with ‘core services.’ Fair question you may be thinking, but the gentleman’s one and only example of areas that lay out with core services was tourism. It was at this point that I had to strongly withhold the temptation to open my mouth. Instead I waited and firmly followed up with a question based around the benefits of tourism to the city, how far Dunedin has come under the current council and whether any of the candidates would endorse further investment. Taking you back to my opening lines, the response has since left me in a slight state of shock.

Firstly, the complete lack of knowledge from many of those standing on our industry (a large employer and one of the only growing industries in Dunedin) simply dumbstruck me. Surely if you were running for Mayor, you would do your homework? For many of the candidates the stance was clear – we shouldn’t be worried about the tourists because if the infrastructure is good in our city then people would come anyway. I wish an opportunity would have been made for a follow up question, I would have loved to have stood up and suggested that perhaps with our panel of candidates being such experts on tourism they should take up positions advising other regional councils or even central government. If we seem to be ‘wasting’ so much money on tourists – then think how money could be saved across New Zealand if this’ unneeded’ expenditure of tourism was cut?

I apologise for my sarcasm and please don’t get me wrong, I am not naive, I understand that these people are looking for votes and tourism is certainly not an area that is going to win over a lot here in Dunedin. You would, however, like to think that the people standing for a position that has so much responsibility would put in a bit of research and at least try and keep one of the city’s key sectors onside.

After an economically challenging winter, many say harder than any they have seen before, business has seemed to be starting to flower, with many experiencing their local residents venturing out after a long hibernation.

This has all now been shadowed by the uncertainty following the recent quakes throughout Canterbury and Christchurch. My hearts goes out to those affected by the quakes throughout the region, of whom a few I have met. Here in Dunedin many felt the very tail of the quake in the form of a sway, liking being at sea – I speak from second hand information however, I slept through.

It is great to see from news reports and through speaking to industry colleagues in the affected regions that most tourism related businesses are back operating, with a real push to try to reduce further economic impact on these businesses by promoting to the world that Christchurch is still open for business. From the couple of hoteliers I have spoken to it seems that so far there has been a drastic downturn in tourists to the city following the quake, which has partly been counterbalanced through the influx of construction and aid workers to the region.

Although not physically affected by the earthquake, many of the operators in the rest of the South Island are rightly concerned as to the lasting affects on tourism for the summer ahead, perhaps more so following the hard winter. Christchurch is internationally considered the gateway to the South Island, with most international arrivals to this region arriving through Christchurch International Airport. Unlike many worldwide tourist destinations, with the distance to New Zealand from the worlds largest areas of regularly travelling population (Europe, America and Asia) – New Zealand tends to see multi-regional trips when people visit.

The hope from many is that the message is firm:

The South Island of New Zealand is still ‘open’ and very much looking to welcome our international visitors this summer.

So should we in fact combine resources with Australian tourism from time to time for particular campaigns and in some markets?  Interested to see how you vote, feel free to comment too.

The Aussies at least think it might be a good idea to “invade” our country and our 100% Pure brand as you can see in the video below…

Some local councils own and manage i-SITEs, operate visitor websites, have tourism development employees and promote and manage events or festivals that attract visitors.

The rationale being that prosperous tourism and hospitality businesses pay rates and therefore provide ongoing revenue for councils with the potential for further development.  Win-win right?

However with ever increasing costs and debt levels borne by councils, there is currently debate over whether Local Government should stick to their “core services”, meaning infrastructure of services like water, sewerage, roading etc.

TIANZ beleives that ‘tourism is core activity for local govt“, so we’re interested to hear what you think – from both rate payers and those with vested interest in the tourism industry.

What activities related to tourism do you think local government should be involved with?

Should each council have the ability to determine their policy according to their regions needs rather than being guided by legislation? Let us know what you think.

Take Our Poll on this subject below, or you you have more detailed thoughts, add a comment at the bottom of the post.

What is it?

Using a mobile device with GPS, it’s a way to explore a city and find people, places and things to do.  The users “check-in” to their current locations and can earn rewards in doing so.   
It’s got much more of a “game” approach to it than other social media tools where users can “unlock badges and discover new things” for rewards, but the interesting bit is that these things are in the real world so businesses can use it to influence behaviour and actions, turning Foursquare users into paying customers.

Is It Useful for Tourism Businesses and Destination Marketing?

You bet ya it is, well eventually anyway – once more people start to understand it, and provided it’s content continues to grow throughout New Zealand then it could become quite a powerful tool for travellers to decide what do to and where to go while visiting, plus you can incentivise your regular customers.

Here is a link to find out how businesses can use Foursquare to reward their customers with special offers and incentives.  You can either “claim your venue” as the business owner if someone has already added your business on Foursquare, or you can add your venue yourself.  Once you have claimed it you can monitor the stats, add special offers and award prizes etc.

This article “VisitPA uses Foursquare to it’s Full Potential” on the Project Wander blog is perhaps the first example of a Destination Marketing Organisation getting onboard with Foursquare to market it.

The limiting factor right now in New Zealand is the quality and lack of mobile internet access nationwide so it’s use is mainly in the cities….that may take some time to fix, but if your coverage is good then give it a go for your tourism business or organisation.  Would be great to hear about any businesses using it already.

Our Regional Tourism Organisations (RTO’s) seem to be getting into gear with workshops, websites and planning for their regions.

With ticket packs now available to apply for, individual tourism operators should be starting their planning on how to benefit from the expected influx of visitors to New Zealand throughout Sep/Oct 2011 (if you are not already a supplier for an Official Travel Agent).

Key Areas to consider now:

• The starting point has to be understanding the legal aspects of what you can and can’t promote in regard to the RWC brand and events.  For full details go the this link to download a useful guide in relation the RWC2011 Major Events Management Act Guidelines.
• Get in touch with your RTO to find out about events and marketing opportunities relevant to your region that your business may benefit from or be involved with.  Some RTO’s have held workshops (Auckland for example) and Northland have developed a website just for the RWC so this is a good resource for businesses to understand the opportunities available.
• Consider your own pricing levels and packaging opportunities for the RWC period.  We’ve been seeing a lot in the media about over the top hotel pricing being applied, so be realistic about what you can charge based on your location to any of the key matches, team training areas and so on.  Generally it’s recommended you apply your high season pricing during this period and for accommodation minimum stay requirements may help to achieve high occupancy rates.  Operators located in close proximity to major games should achieve pricing that the market is prepared to pay for such a high profile event – which is likely to be well beyond high season prices.

Any other tips out there for tourism operators to maximise the opportunity?

RTO’s and local government will now be considering the impacts of visitors arriving in large numbers and planning towards ensuring a positive impression and everything runs smoothly – a number of events and festivals are being created to entertain and encourage visitors to stay longer and spend more, so bring it on!

Understanding your customer target segments provides a key way to direct your marketing  message to the right people in the right way and develop tourism products/packages that cater for the segments you wish to target.  So we thought it would be useful to provide a summary on the blog of the “8 domestic tourism market segments” they have defined in the research.  You can download the full PDF document here.

Being There – 22% of the market

• Market proposition: “Being with family and friends”
• More likely to be retired and mainly 65 years+
• 60% married/couple with children no longer at home
• Likely to travel by private car or campervan and stay in private homes or motels
• Ideal holiday characteristics: safe, scenery and heritage
• Interests & Priorities: gardening, health, time with family/friends, paying bills, reading
• Travel products that appeal: garden/nature, culture and heritage, assisted travel
• Market to this segment through: major newspapers, special interest media (e.g. gardening TV channels and publications), affinity groups, targeted online channels, email marketing

Searching – 13% of the market

• Market proposition: “Freedom and good times with friends”
• More likely to be young (15-24 years) and live with parents or friends – mainly 15-24 age group
• 70% single, no children
• Likely to travel by bus or air and stay in hotels
• Ideal holiday characteristics: exciting, different, nightlife, cities, beaches, shopping and entertaining
• Interests & Priorities: computer games, texting, having a good time, finding life direction, education, cinema
• Travel products that appeal: online gaming, urban product, Contiki style, sports product
• Market to this segment through: online/social media, youth media (magazines, blogs), educational interest groups/institutions, events/parties, mobile applications, cinema

Rewarding – 13% of market

• Market proposition: “You work hard, you deserve it”
• More likely to be males in management or professional positions, living in Auckland – mainly 50-64 age group and mix of 25-39yrs and 40-49yrs
• 28% married/couple, no children; 24% married/couple with children no longer at home; 20% married/couple with children at home
• Likely to travel by company car or plane and stay in hotels, motels or serviced apartments
• Ideal holiday characteristics: romantic, cuisine
• Interests & Priorities: television, relationship, reducing debt, surfing online, travel/holidays
• Travel products that appeal: golf products, short breaks, food and wine
• Market to this segment through: business media, special interest groups/media/online (e.g. golf clubs or magazines)

Immersing – 13% of market

• Market proposition: “Expand your mind, add to your experiences, enrich your life”
• More likely to be female, living in the city and tertiary educated – mainly 25-39 age group
• 38% single, no children; 32% married/couple, no children
• Likely to travel by private car and stay in private dwellings and backpackers
• Ideal holiday characteristics: relaxing, entertaining, different, scenic, affordable, nature-based, cuisine, heritage, peaceful
• Interests & Priorities: financial obligations, finding direction in life, pets, education, building career, travel/holidays
• Travel products that appeal: outdoors, culture and heritage
• Market to this segment through: special interest and lifestyle media (e.g. health media, yoga/wellness media), online channels (travel/lifestyle sites), professional media/interest groups, tertiary education institutes

Making Do – 12% of the market

• Market proposition: “You deserve a break”
• More likely to be female, earning a low income and have children at home – mainly a mix of 25-39 and 40-49 age groups
• 64% married/couple with children living at home
• Likely to travel by car/van and stay in rented accommodation
• Ideal holiday characteristics: affordable, family-friendly, peaceful, safe, easy
• Interests & Priorities: raising family, paying the bills, time with family/friends, health, reducing debt
• Travel products that appeal: childcare assistance, second hand shops, family friendly/theme park
• Market to this segment through: women’s magazines, lifestyle media, daytime TV/radio, advertising at fairs/markets

Embracing Life – 11% of market

• Market proposition: “A FULL life for you and your family”
• More likely to be family-focused and earning a high income – mainly mix of 25-39 and 40-49 age groups
• 83% married/couple with children living at home (including shared custody)
• Likely to travel by private car and (sometimes) bicycle, and stay in motels and rented accommodation
• Ideal holiday characteristics: relaxing, family-friendly, outdoors, nature-based, romantic
• Interests & Priorities: raising family, relationships, friends/family, entertaining at home, reducing debt/building assets, career/business, travel/holidays
• Travel products that appeal: outdoors, culture and heritage, food and wine, experiences for the whole family
• Market to this segment through: business media, special interest groups/media/online (e.g. golf/outdoor. boating, fishing), major newspapers, outdoor events and shows

Creating – 8% of market

• Market proposition: “Good times to share with your family”
• More likely to form a range of ethnic groups and to have a tertiary (often trade) qualification – mainly 25-39 and 40-49 age groups
• 65% married/couple with children living at home, 23% single with children living at home
• Likely to travel by private car or company vehicle, and be visiting friends and relatives
• Ideal holiday characteristics: relaxing, family-friendly, outdoor activities, nature-based experiences
• Interests & Priorities: raising family, health, financial obligations, building career and assets
• Travel products that appeal: outdoors, culture and heritage, beaches, events
• Market to this segment through: special interest groups/media (e.g. cultural groups and media), online channels, targeted lifestyle media, major newspapers, cultural and community events

Aiming High – 8% of market

• Market proposition: “More, bigger, best!”
  More likely to be students or young professionals from affluent backgrounds, often living with parents or friends – mainly 15-24 age group
  62% single, no children, 24% married/couple, no children
  Likely to travel with their parents and stay in commercial accommodation
  Ideal holiday characteristics: exciting, sporting, challenging, different, nightlife, big cities, beaches, shopping
  Interests & Priorities: having a good time, clubbing/parties, finding direction in life, sports/hobbies and fitness, education, travel/holiday
  Travel products that appeal: adventure, urban product, wellness experiences
  Market to this segment through: youth media (magazines, blogs), special interest media (e.g. skiing/snow boarding), online channels, interest groups (sports clubs, other affinity groups), cinema

There are free workshops about domestic tourism segmentation currently in progress, if you want to get a long to one coming up see this schedule.

Because this new logo is a tangible  example of how disconnected the new administration is from its future audience. The business of positioning a city like Auckland in the minds of tourists that have many competing choices is not straight forward. It requires integrated marketing involving the best research, writing, design, advertising and public relations skills available.

The Super City may yet evolve a brilliant and complete brand (more than just a logo) that is developed specifically to communicate to rate payers and tourists what is different and wonderful about Auckland. Which means the current Pohutakawa in a circle will be relegated to an occasional outing in public like administrative letterheads and the odd business card.

That would be good. Because the brightest and best in this great city deserves better than the hideous visual cliche that was unveiled and supported by our cultural and political leaders last Friday.

I wanted to chat with Al because of Myriad’s work in Destination Marketing for Convention and Visitors Bureaus, and Regional and National Tourism Organizations.

The purpose of the interview was to clearly define the role of a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) and in Part 2 to better understand how individual tourism operators, such as hotels and activities, could leverage their destinations’ marketing efforts.

Developing the right viral campaign is a bit of an art because you have to be careful not to make it too manufactured, it needs to be genuinely funny and the brand or message involved has to be visible but not dominating – potentially the more outrageous and cheeky it is the more success you will have.  People will either love it or hate it – but that’s OK, so long as it gets exposure.

How can tourism use it? Very creatively hopefully!   This is a superb way to create interest in a destination or particular tourism product in a different and memorable way.  A couple of current examples of viral marketing campaigns for New Zealand tourism organisations are:

Air New Zealand – Who Would You Spoon?

A funny video featuring comedian Di Henwood with the campaign centred on the Air New Zeland Facebook page.  They have even produced a Facebook application for the spooning campaign so fans can select some of their friends to spoon and enter a competition to win a weekend away…the marketing message for this campaign?  It’s all about their new Economy Skycouch which allows passengers to lie down during flight to sleep, and presumably spoon if travelling with a close friend…

Destination Northland – Northland For Dummies Aussies

A clever couple of videos have been produced and placed on YouTube with the star of the show being the likeable Bazza from Oz.  Targeted at Australians to visit Northland, these 2 videos (A language Guide and an Outdoor Guide) are being spread virally through You Tube, Facebook and Twitter.  Bazza has his own Facebook page and Twitter account so you can follow his travels through Northland.

“What’s the difference between Tourism NZ, Ministry of Tourism, Maori Tourism Council – RTO’s, MRTO’s – overkill?”

She raises a good point here, there seem to be a lot of layers of tourism organisations in New Zealand – what are all their different functions and is it indeed overkill, or is it just confusing?  So let’s analyse this a bit further with some brief definitions of each to try add some clarity for those unsure:

Ministry of Tourism

The head honcho of tourism decision making in New Zealand, this is directly from their website: “The Ministry works to maximise the benefits to New Zealand from the sustainable development of the tourism industry.”  Essentially their function is more about the infrastructure and development needs for tourism, they also monitor and provide ongoing research about the performance of tourism for our economy.

Tourism New Zealand

This is an easy one and I think few would dispute it’s necessity and importance for the industry, officially “Tourism New Zealand is the organisation responsible for marketing New Zealand to the world as a tourist destination.”  Responsible for the Pure New Zealand brand and any campaigns associated with promoting New Zealand to visitors.

TIANZ

An association with paid membership for tourism operators, “The Tourism Industry Association New Zealand is the largest representative body of tourism operators in New Zealand.” and their goal is to “To be the strong and inspirational voice of tourism, to deliver real bottom line value to our members, and continue to help build the tourism sector as a strong, vibrant and responsible bedrock industry for New Zealand.”  They provide some key events for tourism operators like TRENZ, The regional leadership series and symposiums, tourism industry awards and workshops.

Regional Tourism Organisations (RTO’s)

Responsible for promoting their regions to domestic and international visitors they are pretty much like a mini Tourism New Zealand for your region and are a great support for marketing advice and resources for their local tourism operators.  For an individual tourism operator I think this is one of the most useful organisations in terms of direct support.  Apart from the 29 main RTO’s there are also a whole other set of sub-regional tourism organisations set up to promote their own areas and events.

Maori Tourism Council

This organisation provides direction and support to their paid members (such as Maori Regional Tourism Organisations) and from their website defines their role as “The Society has been established to operate as the national voice for Maori tourism and to provide a mutually supportive network for the development of best practice by member Maori Regional Tourism Organizations (MRTOs), which will lead to business growth and prosperity for Maori in tourism.”

Maori Regional Tourism Organisations (MRTO’s)

The MRTO’s are members of the Maori Tourism Council and provide support and help to promote the member maori tourism operators in their region. Members essentially can be any tourism organisation that provides a maori cultural aspect to their products ans services.

Each of these organisations have their own separate functions and key areas of interest, there are of course multiple other tourism organisations and associations catering for different tourism sectors and areas of specialty.

Do they interact and particularly for the marketing organisations do they plan together to ensure an overall consistent approach to marketing our destinations?  And getting back to the original question asked on Twitter – is it overkill?  Perhaps this has helped to make it less confusing, but some comments from those involved may be able to help further?

It was estimated in 2008 that 177,700 international wine lovers visited N.Z. wineries and there were a total of just under half a million individual trips to a winery. In 2007-2008 international wine tourists stayed longer on average and spent on average $3,543 – this is higher than the average spend per trip for all international visitors ($2,710). Of all international wine tourists, 19% spent more than $5,000 on their trip in N.Z. (see research here).

The wine industry could represent an even far greater value to the N.Z. tourism industry, growing positive brand awareness of N.Z.’s quality wine exports (the milestone of N.Z. exporting over $1 Bil in wine was achieved in July 2009), means that the premium positioning of NZ wine and a quality bottle of; Central Otago Pinot Noir, Waipara Pinot Gris, Waiheke Bordeaux blend, Hawke’s Bay Syrah, or Gisborne Chardonnay on restaurant tables and in the homes of our key visitor markets can translate to higher positive awareness of destination N.Z. and N.Z.’s regional differences.

Possibility is also that overseas consumers of N.Z. wine are our future travellers and draw comparisons between N.Z.’s wine industry raising sustainability standards as representative of N.Z.’s environmental sustainability as a whole?

The two industries are inextricably linked, however regionally differentiated wine tourism as a value creator has not been fully developed in our destination marketing and product development portfolio mix to-date.

I would be interested to discuss the potential to further develop food and wine tourism industry relationships, and regionally differentiated product development within N.Z. regions as a value creator…and know what other individuals thoughts are?

These articles on my Marketing Tips blog may also be of interest:

“How to Avoid Bad Online Experiences for Travellers”

“Some Basics of Online Marketing Strategy”

New Zealand Regional Tourism Organisations are now starting to get into development of mobile applications and websites, a couple of early examples are:

• WellingtonNZ.com with the mobile version of their website, which a finalist in the the ONYAs in the ‘Best mobile website or web application’ category.
• Plus the Auckland iPhone Application.

How do New Zealand Regional Tourism Organisations measure up with new technology in their marketing?  Who are leading the way?

According to Hitwise Australia “Social Media was a prime marketing tool for this promotion and in each market was one of the largest contributors of traffic to IslandReefJob.com.”  See full details here and download their Research Notes about the campaign.

Check out the video clip above of their Cannes 2009 award winning case study entry.  Plus you can view more details here about their campaign strategy and results.

Social Media Marketing is taking off as a low cost and effective way to communicate and engage with travellers, media and industry partners.  See this article about how popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have boosted Australian tourism marketing with comments from Geoff Buckley, managing director of Tourism Australia.

Australia.com on Facebook.  Australia.com on Twitter.