The tourism
industry is facing nowadays more and more difficulties to create effective marketing
campaigns due to a reduction in consumer trust, as well as a decrease in
television advertising. However, the development of new technologies and the
increasingly uses of platforms such as TripAdvisor and Facebook, make easier to
get more information on a specific tourism-related research. In addition to
this, the development of new technologies, such as Video cameras, and the
improvement of social media invite travelers to be more active offering
different ways of capturing, analyzing, interpreting and influencing other
users.
Videos have become an important
tool for promotion of a destination since they give access to different
features that couldn’t be possible using other devices. For example, videos can
capture multiple angles, they have the capacity to involve the spectator on the
video as if he/she was the protagonist, they also innovates the image of
certain destinations which then benefits from the buzz created by those applications.
In the search of personalizing the experience captured on videos, new devices
have been created thanks to new technology improvement. Within the most
important are:
Credit: blog.queensland.com
- GoPro camera that allows to capture the core of the experience due to the ease of transportation as well as numerous features such as HDR lens, water proof and 170° angle. This device is really popular among extreme sport lovers but also within tourism bloggers to document their trips.
- Quadrotor drones offers a different and unique perspective, they are in between the aerial view and the street view.
- Google Glass is the closest to the eyesight. Due to the position of the camera, it allows the spectator to be part of the experience.
- Google Earth and Google view is becoming more popular within marathons or cycling races, they shows the different stages combining the street view and the google earth view.
- Micro videos such as Vine and Instagram are very popular due to the limited duration; they invite users to develop creativity.
- Even TimeCam.TV or cities’ Web cameras worldwide are used nowadays to show the weather or a street view in real time. These also can impact the destination image.
-
Due to the increasing popularity
of videos, we can find them almost everywhere. This can be seen as a great
advantage for tourism industry; because videos have a strong presence on the social
media (through blogs, hashtags, GoPro YouTube channel, Facebook, etc.).
Destinations are paying more and more attention to those videos as a promotion
tool, inviting their customer to use them and spread the word.
Tourism experts are starting to
realize the importance of those devices as well, and how helpful (and cheaper)
they can be. In two months, the 8° Simpleview Summit will take place in Arizona
hosting more than 350 DMOs; for this year, the organizers decided to create a
contest among the participants in which each DMO will have to create an
original video promoting the destination they represent. The prizes for the 3
first places are:
- 1st Place: A professional destination video that they plan and Simple view pay for
- 2nd Place: A professional shot photo library on their dime
- 3rd Place and all winners will receive the latest model of GoPro cameras
Other destinations targeting
Sport tourism, start thinking about the advantages
those devices can offer to make the destination safer
for users. In December of last year, Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher
hit his head while skiing in the French Alps, by analyzing the GoPro camera
that the Formula 1 driver was wearing at the moment of the impact, the
authorities were able to react and prevent another accident. First used as
proof on an investigation, this video was used by the tourism destination in
order to confirm the area as proper to tourism.
However it can also be turned
into a bad thing, since the tourism industry has not every time the control on
what have been recorded on a destination. Indeed, the web is already encumbered
by amateur videos. A clear example of this would be the tsunami that hit Japan
on 2011, thanks to the development of those devices, the natural disaster was
immortalized and terrifying images has travel the world, creating a bad image
of Japan. Another example is the case of a young student who started filming the
city of Nancy, in the northeast of France, with
a quadrotor drone without any authorities permit; he has been judge this month for
“endangering the lives of others”.
Credit: static3.businessinsider.com
The question that reminds after
all is: Does destinations’ marketing can really rely on these videos? Managing all of them seems to be a very tough task to undertake.
Written by Marisol Bustos Otero & Samantha Pinet.
Sources:
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment