As we discussed last week Google City Tours presents yet another challenge to the travel industry and should cause all of us to re-think our place in the travel planning funnel. That discussion was highlighted by the acknowledgment that for the majority of the industry, content is the still a point of differentiation. Open source content, breaking out of the walled-garden that is your website, etc, etc.
But where do you start? First, by not ignoring the wikis.
Whether it is Google City Tours or Offbeat Guides, a lot of these new sites and mashups are looking to open-source locations for content. RSS feeds, blogs and wikis can provide a wealth of content simply because of open distribution.
For most of us…airline, hotel or CVB…we simply do not have the connections in place to distribute our content far and wide. Additionally, individually, we are only one piece of the puzzle. It is not very efficient for a site developer to visit every CVB or DMO site in the country to obtain the same basic info via RSS feed.
Which is where two very important wiki sites come into play…Wikipedia and WikiTravel. Wikipedia you know and if you have read the Travel 2.0 blog for a bit, you should also be familiar with WikiTravel.
Both present an opportunity to capture and aggregate a large amount of content on a wide variety of locations from a central point.
For the most part, major or popular destinations will likely have complete or near-complete articles covering the basics of visiting that location. For example, Denver’s WikiTravel article. Part of the beauty of a wiki is that anyone can edit them, so content tends to evolve quickly.
However, as a travel provider you should be checking and verifying that the information presented on these sites is correct and accurate. Again, a lot of other sites are relying on this content to describe your city and you should know what is being said on these wikis.
Editing a wiki is pretty easy and if you have experience or knowledge in HTML, should come quite naturally. If not, you should probably recruit a member of your staff with HTML knowledge to guide you through the first couple of edits.
We should also mention that the moderators and editors of wikis take the editing process and content presented quite seriously. Be transparent, when setting up a profile state your affiliation with your company and do not self-promote your site, visitors guide or product.
You are simply there to help build a reputable database about your destination, not self-promote.
Once the article information about your destination has been reviewed by your organization, you can feel confident knowing that your destination is accurately represented in a variety of locations on and off the web.
Just one more way to control your online presence.
4 Comments
June 29, 2009 at 1:02 pm
You are spot on. Destinations (DMOs & CVBs) are in an enviable position of potentially being able to promote their destinations through whatever means necessary but not being constrained by the need to sell anything in particular. Destinations want visitors and it doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they come. It seems to me the biggest challenge for CVBs and DMOs is the notion that content is proprietary. Open source content has much more reach and a greater potential to influence because it is free.
June 29, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for the comment Stephen.
Totally agree, we have to get out of the mind set that our content is proprietary. It’s not, and the sooner we all figure that out, the better off the CVB / DMO side of the industry will be.
For those of you not reading Stephen’s blog, I would highly recommend it. More good thoughts on travel and tech.
http://tourismtechnology.rezgo.com/
- Troy
June 29, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Another issue for DMO/CVBs is the fact that they need to be able to measure the outcomes of their efforts.
DMOs track a bunch of stuff on their sites: pure conversions (if available), registrations, ‘email to a friend’, newsletter signups, rss subs, request a brochure, page views, MUs, bounce rate, etc etc.
If a DMO invests time and energy improving a WikiTravel entry for their destination, they lose complete visibility into any of these metrics.
How will they know their efforts were successful?
June 29, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Hi Jeff, thanks for the comment.
You raise a very good point. We do track a lot of stuff, but we also don’t track a lot of stuff.
PR, media, WOM, FAMs, etc, etc. Difficult to measure when compared to the web.
For now, I would simply say that CVBs and DMOs should place ‘wiki updates’ in the category of ‘important, but needs tracking.’
Ideally, I would love to know how many visitors looked at or were influenced by the Denver page on WikiTravel. But, until we figure out a good solution, I am happy just knowing that I am influencing that audience.
I would compare WikiTravel to a print ad. In both cases I know the approximate distribution, but I don’t really have a direct measurement on the success of either. Sure, you could use a unique URL or phone number for the print ad, but speaking from experience those do not provide a complete picture.
Yet, we know that print ads are important, even without detailed measurement.
In both cases, the solution might be an ad effectiveness survey. But, then again, wiki content could be display in a variety of locations beyond just WikiTravel, so tough to capture all of those impressions.
Again, great comment, very thought provoking.
And I would love to hear a little about the openplaces project when you have a chance.
- Troy