… by Sheila Scarborough and Becky McCray
One of the things we love about blogging is the publishing flexibility. You can either go deep into a niche topic, cover a broader field or, heck, “kitchen sink” it with whatever has you fired up at the moment.
We generally advise picking one focus area so readers know what to expect when they seek out your work, but sometimes that means that people skip over really good blogs because they think the insights won’t apply to them.
Our niche area, for example, is tourism – the industry that attempts to attract tourists and visitors to a destination, usually funded by a town, city or region via some sort of tax on your hotel bill.
So what, right? Unless you’re really into that, or a big traveler, why should that interest you if you blog about parenting or history or food or business or technology?
Well, you might be in tourism if….
- Friends who come to visit your town ask you for “the good places where locals go.”
- Out-of-towners ever walk through the doors of your business.
- You are a food enthusiast, artist, crafter, microbrewer, winemaker or anyone who makes things that are bought by visitors to your town.
- You’re involved with economic development, historic preservation, downtown development/Main Street programs, a museum, a historical society, your local Chamber of Commerce or state/local government.
- Your town is located on a heritage highway or scenic byway.
- You write reviews and tips for your local restaurants, coffee shops, stores, art galleries, etc on Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla or TripAdvisor.
- You’re a gardener who supports a popular local botanical garden, nature preserve or park.
- You’re a meeting planner who needs to know where to find good conference or meeting venues.
- You’re a Civil War or Renaissance Faire re-enactor in your local area.
- You upload cool photos of your town to your local city government or Visitors Bureau Flickr Group Pool.
….and finally, you are involved in tourism if anyone has ever stopped you in your town and said something like, “We’re visiting and need directions to get to ____. Can you help?” or if they’ve ever handed you their camera and asked if you wouldn’t mind taking a photo of them in front of one of your local landmarks.
Does any of the above sound like you?
Or would you rather just attend no-BS BlogWorld sessions on creating better video content, integrating social media into your overall marketing plan, zero-budget social communications or social photography like Foodspotting and photo walks?
Either way, sounds like you’d enjoy this year’s Tourism and Travel Track, Room 150C Thursday through Saturday.
And hey; take a good photo with that visitor’s camera, okay?
Becky McCray and Sheila Scarborough are BlogWorld’s Tourism Track leaders; this year they’re double-billed with an outstanding Travel Track run by Mary Jo Manzanares.
Becky and Sheila co-founded Tourism Currents: online education that helps make sense of social media for destination marketing. Keep up with them on @TourismCurrents.
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