Travel 2.0

I confess I have never actually watched paint dry. But I imagine it’s a lot like watching the travel and tourism industry adopt “new media” marketing techniques. Of all the areas where blogs and podcasts and user-created content would shine, tourism has to be at the top of the list. But tourism agencies at almost every level have been really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y slow to adopt new interactive communications tools to tell stories to potential travelers.  For the life of me, I don’t understand why.  (I suspect it has something to do with the fear of public criticism for crappy tourist traps.)

Now, there’s word that someone in travel is finally starting to move.  Hospitalitynet.org reports that a few travel distributors and suppliers are starting to dabble in this stuff.

Travel distributors must come to grips quickly with this exploding channel, embracing and discovering ways to offer products and services that will virally infect these communities, telling consumers they are truly open to this transparency.

State tourism agencies have an opportunity to allow actual visitors to tell compelling stories about their experience.  I’m convinced we’re going to end up helping someone become a leader in innovative tourism Web marketing — it’s a matter of finding the person who’s forward-thinking enough to do it.