Some time ago I was approached by a french travel blogger named Claude Bernard who was interested in an interview. He runs the french blog Les Explorers which is a part of the network Creative Weblogging (8 million pageviews / month)
Some of the questions were quite good so I urge you to read the interview on Claude´s blog if you’re interested in some more extensive answers.
Here’s an excerpt:
Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. What do you think about this evolution in the tourism & hotel market place ? Social media and User Generated Content are the big trends for Travel 2.0 ?
The way we use internet is constantly changing and evolving. I think the current trends are a natural progression of this development.
What’s interesting is not so much about these trends or buzzwords but more why some actors in these businesses are so slow or unwilling to adapt themselves to what the users want.
We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast, blog, socialnetworking tools, Google mashup,Vidéo etc), what is your point of view in the travel area ?
All these technologies have some important things in common: they put the importance on the individual and it’s content and they make things easier for the user to consume their content of choice.
We’re already using many of these technologies and plan to use more. For example we use RSS feeds in our external and internal blogs, like the devblog(http://devblog.visitsweden.com) and the swedish CEO blog. We’re implementing Google maps in our map service which is almost ready for release. The online community will probably have some ajax where appropriate and surely some podcasts and video.
We’re also looking on how we can improve our PR-work on internet by using some of these technologies.
Any advises for DMO’s and Tourism Board who want to start a online community!
They might want to read our Development blog where I blog openly about our process. I’m sure there will be some lessons learned along the way 
Don’t underestimate the amount of work the community will need after the launch. I think we’ll need to be active in our own community to support and encourage the members.
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About News pr web 2.0Share This, thank you.
That’s a good and perfectly natural question to ask.
Why build a new online community in a time when they seem to be around every corner and under every stone?
Personally I could just answer; because it’s fun! It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
But of course like anything else worth doing there are good reasons behind it.
Here’s our marketing communications director, Maria Ziv, explaining how it all began:
The idea to create a community for people interested in Sweden as a destination was initially born more out of necessity than out of desire.
VisitSweden needed to solve the intricate problem of how to communicate with a large amount of people on a very limited budget. The situation did not become easier by the multifaceted and fluid product that a tourist destination like Sweden represents.
When marketing Sweden there are always vast amounts of beautiful things to share with your audience and a multitude of activities to present. In addition, the information is not static – it changes with every season.
When I sat down to formulate the strategy for the website as a whole I spent a lot of time looking at the information needs of our target audience as well as trends in the on-line community. Our target audience places a high emphasis on up to date and trust worthy information. It is also clear that information coming from their peers – people like themselves – is the information they trust.
Seeing that user generated content and social media is the most protruding trend in the on-line community at the moment, it seemed natural to fuse it with the needs of our target audience.
I couldn’t agree more. We’re hoping to create a place where potential visitors to Sweden can talk to swedes and others who have already visited Sweden. In this meeting of peers the decision process of going to Sweden will hopefully become easier and more fun!
But more of this and much more in future posts
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About Planning prShare This, thank you.
OK, so I’ve got the blog all set up just the way I like it. Well almost. There’s always another plugin or a new cool widget.
But why this blog?
Here’s a quote from the About Page:
In this blog I’ll be talking about all the exciting work that’s being done on our biggest web project of 2007 - the development, launch and ongoing activities of our online community.
It’s my goal to have a transparent development process. I’ll be posting design mock ups, brainstorming ideas, development updates and quick polls to get your input. I hope you find this as interesting and exciting as I do
It’s possible, even likely, that I’ll also talk about other exciting web related projects we’re doing here at VisitSweden but the online community project will be the main focus for sure.
Press-releases and newsletters etc are all fine and they have their use but it’s sometimes a frustrating one way channel for pushing out information. I look at this blog as a combination of these things and more where the sum becomes greater than it’s parts.
Of course, no blog is greater than it’s content and it’s readers participation. So I hope you’ll like what I’ll be writing about and that you’ll help to make this blog even better with your feedback in the comments.
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AboutShare This, thank you.
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