Social Media Strategies Travel 2008 SpecialEvery month more than 5.5 million unique users utilise VirtualTourist to figure out where they want to take their next vacation, and what they want to do once they get there.

Published: 24 Apr 2008

Social Media Strategies Travel 2008 Special

Every month more than 5.5 million unique users utilise VirtualTourist to figure out where they want to take their next vacation, and what they want to do once they get there.

Giampiero Ambrosi, General Manager, VirtualTourist.com, who was one of the speakers during Social Media Strategies Travel 2008 Conference in San Francisco last month, propagates that Great Community = Great Content = Great Audience.

On how to create a great UGC community, he recommended following:

1. Have a founding principle (give your members an important principle that they can trust, believe in, and that inspires them).

2. Allow users to take ownership (Members not only want to belong to something, they want to own it).

3. Give them something in return (What do members want in return for their efforts - an audience, friendship, recognition, a great place to be, a window onto the world).

4. Have a clear picture of the kind of content you want. And communicate it; Give users the tools to create it; Shape Your Content (Tips instead of blogs, Ratings on tips, deals, forum replies only and minimum content).

Apart from showing the real, passionate people behind the site, Ambrosi stated that companies should listen to their members about their likings and disliking and engage community in things to do – both on and offline.

Ambrosi also said, "(Sites should) always be prepared to learn from and grow with your community. Your community, if healthy, will grow, change, and might morph into something you didn't even imagine. With effort and nurturing, it can be not only a successful business, but a positive contribution in the lives of your members and visitors to your site."

In an interview with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta, Ambrosi spoke about loyalty in online travel business, how can UGC help you create a dialogue with your customers and much more.

Excerpts:

Ritesh Gupta: An online travel agency executive told me loyalty is such a buzzword these days in an era when it doesn't really exist in the online travel world. How do you see loyalty getting reflected on a UGC site either from consumer's perspective?

Giampiero Ambrosi: Actually, loyalty has everything to do with why UGC sites succeed, or at least why ours does. Part of the reason people keep coming back to a certain UGC site is that once they've learned they can trust the advice from a certain person, they will therefore seek that person's advice out over and over again. Especially on a site where every tip is attributed to a certain member, as ours is, the loyalty factor is huge.

As far as evangelism goes, there's no question that certain places (restaurants, hotels, etc.), are mentioned over and over again and that that has an enormous effect on the consumer. Sometimes users will even build on existing tips (e.g. "I know other people have already mentioned how great ABC Hotel is, but I just have to say how much I agree…") and when a user sees a whole page of positive tips on a certain place, it has an enormous impact. It's like standing outside a restaurant and hearing ten exiting customers in a row tell you the food is incredible.

An IHG executive told me successfully extending your brand presence into virtual communities depends entirely on how good your relationship skills are as a company. How do you think this translates success on UGC sites?

Giampiero Ambrosi: A lot of the comments we get aren't even about the actual place, but about how the guest, diner, shopper, etc. was treated. So-so food may not prompt someone to post a review as soon as they get home, but bad service probably will. If a business has a great product, but no one has thanked the customer, that's a problem, so now, more than ever, a good relationship between consumer and business is vital. When a customer is fawned over, or a just a little extra effort is made on the part of the proprietor (i.e. a B & B owner drives a guest to the train station instead of calling a cab, a chef comes out to shake hands), we'll probably hear about it—and therefore, so will almost a million other people.

VirtualTourist has 935,000 registered members from more than 220 countries and territories. From your experience, how do you think loyal members act as ambassadors and monitor reviews when it comes preferred brands/ services?

Giampiero Ambrosi: (VirtualTourist has over 1 million members) There's no question that certain members are considered to be experts on certain subjects or certain geographical areas, so when other members have questions about those places or services, they will seek those members out. For example, we have a member who is really up on train travel, so people know to go to his pages for the answer to their questions about taking the train. Or, when someone posts a question about how to get from one place to another by train, we can usually count on him to answer, and if he doesn't, we can usually count on someone to refer the person who is posting.

Suppliers are focusing on implementing tailored web strategies for their loyal members, offering a number of personalisation tools and features distinctive for each member based on their membership profile. As the race for influencing and retaining consumer evolves, what does "loyalty" stand for suppliers especially?

Giampiero Ambrosi: When developing tools that will improve the user-experience, we go straight to the source for ideas. That is, we listen to what members want and then do our best to comply. For example, members were frustrated by the fact that they were posting forum replies, but those replies just stayed in the forums—they did not get counted towards tip numbers or get factored into the member's ranking. We are currently in the process of developing a way for forum replies to be converted into tips with just a click.

It is felt that consumers recommendations generate highest levels of trust, vis a vis channels such as brand websites and email signed up for, where are independent UGC sites placed in the travel industry today?

Giampiero Ambrosi: The influence of UGC sites on the travel industry can't be overestimated. A bad review, or heaven forbid, a couple of bad reviews, can have an enormous effect on a business. UGC now play an enormous factor in the travel decision-making process, especially on a site like ours which allows you to book hotels, airlines, etc. as you read about them.

(New event on Social Media Strategies:

EyeforTravel is scheduled to conduct its inaugural Social Media Strategies in Travel Europe conference, as part of Sales & Marketing in Travel Europe 2008. The two-day conference will be held in Berlin on 14 and 15 October.

For more information, click here http://events.eyefortravel.com/smeurope/ or contact Gina Baillie at +44 (0) 207 375 7197 or gina@eyefortravel.com).