Modul University: Social Web - The Austrian Way

Mag. Martin Schobert, Head of Research & Development, Austrian National Tourist Office  MODUL University Vienna, Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management2009, January 20th

web 2.0 social web – the austrian way …

5 thesis of travel 2.0

1. customer orientation – and the role of communities

2. online identity – blogging, a dialogue with the customer

3. use the long tail – be part of the scene

4. create a „web of data“ – content- and data-aggregation

5. (re)combine than reinvent the wheel –

or: „new spokespersons of tourism“

ANTO online communication strategy focuses on 5 relevant developments at the social web.

absolutelycustomer oriented

change in destination travel marketing

• considering the abundance of products, it needs increasing selection

• users want orientation

• competent users, better range of choices

• better technologies, easier cost-benefit comparison

supply oriented demand oriented

Usability, findability, accessability and - in special - the content itself (utility) has to follow customers needs.

Advertising textes, marketing-phrases and „broad variety“ of a destination‘s travel offers are boring and distracting.

this means: absolute concentration on the customers needs

ReadBuy

Publish

Trade

1994 2003

Talk

2006

77M 1000M500MUsers

information comunication networks

1998 2000

400M

3 phases of the web

Relate?

2009+

• Phänomen Myspace

• Craigslist

• Etc.

4th4th

USAUSA

February 2008February 2008

austrian travel community• www.coolaustria.com •question: Is austria large enough for a social web travel community?

• answer: ?

• current members < 468

• 3 further „austrian“ travel communities… www.alpengluehen.com www.oeropia.at www.onebigpark.at

• 2. question: What is the benefit for the user?

cooperations with existing networks

• www.speising.net • culinary-network • content-cooperation

• 70.000 Uniques/month

• > 3.500 Mitglieder

• Goal: integration of travelling as a third focus additionally to drinking & eating content

new ideas in existing networks.

• „Fan“-group in Facebook:

• 200.000 new users/day!

• No. Member at 11.11.07:USA: 21.371.920Kanada: 7.857.540GB: 7.362.380Australien: 1.902.120Türkei: 1.247.360

• Austria-Fanpage (45 members)

• Tyrol-Fanpage• Swiss-Fanpage • …

destination brands need online identity

LoveableandLinkable

destination‘s identity: the people

• www.kaerntenblog.at

• 2 residents blog about hot-spots of carinthia

• since spring 2007

• NEW: blog.kaernten.at • NEW: blogtirol.at• NEW:intersport-oberoesterreich.blogspot.com/gesundheitsurlaub.blogspot.com/

blog-posts of people who live there

• www.wvblog.at

• goal: communicate the topics which are relevant for tourists and inhabitants

• since summer 2007

also „hot“:

blog.zellamsee-kaprun.comstantonamarlberg.blogs.com

authentic storytelling as destination

• www.lammertal.info/blog

• goal: authentic storytelling: to show the specialities people like, who are living there and to promote their recommandations

• since may 2008

B2B-identity via corporate blogs …

• blog.austriatourism.com • R&D-employees blogging

• goal knowledge-transfer

• goal to get into a dialogue with austrian corporates

• since january 2008

use the

„long tail“

• Quelle: http://changethis.com/10.LongTail

best of - concept

• too much travel offers on the web

• provide orientation for the user:point out specific „best of“-products

• pressure for specialisation increases

• all offers are available „long tail“ –but display only the best

• new b2c-project throughout austria: download of digital brochures/folders

best of

longtail

supply

ANTO – blog: we are the experts ...

blog.austria.info

corporate blog in german

ANTO employees blog about culinary travelling & hot-spots in austria

„experts“ as host-blogger

start in january 2007

currently average usage / month: 7.000 visitors

blogger as communicator

•http://basicjuice.blogs.com

• US Wineblog with high authority in technorati

• ANTO New York organized a best of - traveltour through different wine-regions in austria

blogger on a „press-trip“• http://www.austriandiary.blogspot.com/

• Leslie Woit, travel – journalist GB

• summer 2007: farmer in a mountain-cove at Maria Alm / Salzburg. She blogged about her adventure with a cowherd of 18 milking cows

• Stories about the „au pair of a cowherd-blog“ in „easier travel“ & „the guardian“

create a

„web of data“

http://www.slideshare.net/adunne/designing-for-a-web-of-data

http://www.slideshare.net/adunne/designing-for-a-web-of-data

Relaunch B2C-country-portal• www.austria.info• 40 pages, 26 languages

Launch of an „Open Tourism Information Portal“ (spring 2009):

• open portal acting as a mash-up of existing content, which is relevant for the customer and leads him directly to the problem-solving (mostly at the site of the third party)

• no user-generated-content platform – we aggregate them …

• but integrate web 2.0 – elements (widgets, yahoo answer, tag-cloud, google map like www.bikemap.net, recommendations, …)

• meta-search engine

… under construction …

(re)combine then reinvent the wheel

launch of tourism-groups in networks

• http://XING.com/• XING (former openBC)• Social Business Network

•2,490.000 User (1/2008)

• goals business networking and a dialogue between tourism organisations

• start in june 2008

new spokespersons of tourism• using groups in existing networks for conversations, f.e. Studi VZ - student network

• ”Bad Kleinkirchheim february 08 – we came, ate, drank – perfect!”

• “Bad Kleinkirchheim – St. Oswald - Do spült die Musi” (austrian dialect – there is the hot-spot)

• “hot springs - spa Römerbad Bad Kleinkirchheim – we need it!”

talk about us - offside our sites • Important: monitoring of relevant content in conversations about destinations at the web

new producers destination images

we trust the new spokespersons

No. of entries in wikipedia.de written about Bad Kleinkirchheim

Where to go … ?

• social web guideline for ANTO market offices and their online-activities

• developing social software for intranet-use to communicate best practices (intranet-blog, ANTO-wiki, ANTO-bookmarking …)

• we communicate and share our knowledge to the austrian travel industry (b2b-blog, xing-group, publish presentations on slideshare, ANTO del.icio.us-account …)