Viral marketing through interaction with customers and new technologies are becoming more and more popular while promoting a destination. One of the best examples is the case of Ireland as highlights this article: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/20935-tourism-ireland-launches/. Tourism Ireland has 117 342 fans on its facebook pages and 4 320 followers on the Irish Twitter account. The destination also has a Twitter account for the British followers, one for the Australians and one for New Zeland.
In November, the minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin, announced a funding of €1m towards technology projects promoting cultural tourism. The development of Smartphone apps, mobile websites, online interactive games represent today a great opportunity for the tourism industry. Mobile phone technology presents huge potential for the future of the tourism industry.
Regarding viral marketing, Tourism Ireland launches a Facebook game on St Patrick’s Day called Ireland town. The game based on the principles of Farmville lets players create their own “idyllic Irish town”. There are 32 destinations and nine tasks to complete at each point. Tourism Ireland is hoping to exploit the popularity of social networks by convincing more than 100,000 people to play the game and hopes that the game will bring the experience to life for potential visitors. The DMO claims to be the first to launch such a marketing campaign, which should give a competitive advantage to the destination.
Ireland is the top 5 tourism destination on Facebook in number of fans.
Tourism Ireland has almost 7,500 fans in Australia and launches the Facebook and Twitter campaign for St Patrick’s Day called “how green will you go?” The campaign includes an “green yourself” application to help fans turn their profile picture green. Australians were supposed to tweet a “green” slogan or about a “green” action they did. This is all about creating interaction according to Tourism Ireland: “This year... we have decided to take a more personal approach; so instead of lighting up Australian icons, we are asking Australians to show us just how green they are willing to go for St Patrick’s Day.”
To play the game: http://www.facebook.com/DiscoverIreland?sk=app_197174040303624
More about the St Patrick campaign: http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/28889-tourism-ireland-launches/
http://www.etravelblackboard.com/article/115886/how-green-can-aussies-go-tourism-ireland
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