Social networking and social media Web sites can give CVBs and tourism bureaus an opportunity to take advantage of marketing their destinations to the entire world. A simple keyword search of “travel” in Facebook search yields quite a few applications. Here is a brief description of the top five applications, organized by number of users.
1. Travel Brain. Boasting 82,431 Facebook users, this application allows people to place virtual pinpoints on each destination they’ve ever traveled to in the world. By doing this, users receive a personalized analysis of the kind of traveler they are. After receiving a travel personality analysis, Facebook users can then recommend restaurants, hotels and attractions to others.
2. Travel. This application is as straightforward as its name. Here, the 11,517 active users simply post travel tickets in discussion forums. Different travel deals are posted by users from all over the world. Here, CVB and tourism bureaus have the opportunity to market their destination by posting travel deals with links to their Web sites. Travel agencies can post their Web sites easily on this social networking site to generate more traffic.
3. Travel Calendar. This application allows Facebook users to post all of their travel dates and view everyone else’s who uses this application. That way, people can see where their friends are going and it may be easier to visit each other in different cities around the world. This app is also available on iPhone or smart phone.
4. Travel Blog. Have you ever wondered where the best bakery is in Paris? Well, this application allows you to read the blog of someone who has visited or is visiting there so you can read a daily account of where people visit, eat and sleep in different travel destinations across the world. Their parent site allows everyone to be a journalist and photojournalist, giving them the opportunity to post a day-by-day account of tourist destinations they visit.
5. Travel Journal. When Facebook users add this application to their profiles, they notice that Facebook automatically updates Travel Journal on their profiles the second they post travel blogs. This application only works with a SIM card (Facebook recommends Passport Lite, Passport, Passport Plus or SIMple Calling), and when users m