Danes Using Twitter & Facebook to Attract a New Breed of Tourists

Photos

Aarhus by Night

see larger image

uploaded by Lyssky

Twitter and Facebook have hit the mainstream travel industry. The Danes have launched an entirely online campaign entitled 48hoursindenmark.com, in which they are promising a free trip to Denmark, for whoever shows the best command of social media.

Basically applicants are to video themselves explaining why they are the best facebook’ers tweet’ers around, and the reward is a all expenses paid trip to Aarhus. The goal is to reach the so called first-movers, who already use social media when researching their travel and vacation plans. This way Denmark hopes to learn how to cater the the tourist of the future, since everyone might well be using blogs and review sites to find travel information in the future.

“People have discovered that the internet differs greatly from TV and print, because it’s not only dynamic, but also a two-way street. If a hotel guest thinks the room is rubbish and the price to high, they will let the world know online,” says Anders Mogensen, partner in Seismonaut, the consultancy behind the initiative. “This poses both huge advantages and challenges for the travel industry, and we are trying to uncover what people want early on”.

When the winners arrive in Denmark, Anders Mogensen and his colleagues will be asking them to tweet, blogs and review about the stay online. Interested parties can visit the project at http://www.48hoursindenmark.com.