Peter Shankman
Andrew Zimmern
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Facebook: The hotels asked questions on Facebook such as “How do you like your coffee?” For any respondents who booked a stay, staffers were able to surprise the guests with a detailed knowledge of their preferences.
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Growing Together with Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica: To raise awareness for its environmental and philanthropic programs, the hotel invited social media influencers to the resort to participate in its tree-planting program and its “Growing Together” volunteer experiences helping local Costa Rican schoolchildren. The result: large increases in social media engagement and more than $140,000 in donations.
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Twitter Global Guest Days: Every Friday, the hotel handed over its Twitter account to a guest tweeter from an individual hotel or resort—general managers; chefs; sommeliers—to get a local perspective from its global properties.
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The Standard Hotels' Tumblr: On its Tumblr page, the company showcased never-before-seen works by up-and-coming photographers and artists—including Tim Barber, Cheryl Dunn, and Cara Stricker. Some of the artwork made an appearance on The Standard Culture, the hotel chain's blog.
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Like Riviera Maya, Mexico: The group created custom tabs across all of their hotels' Facebook pages to reinforce an important general message: that travel to Mexico was not only a positive experience, but also a safe one.
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Eat, Drink and Go Foodspotting in Philly: Philadelphia was one of the first tourism boards with a presence on Foodspotting, launching guides to the city’s culinary highlights.
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Explore Chicago Foursquare Partnership: Based on the classic Chicago film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, participants were encouraged to win their own "day off" in Chicago by sharing which scene from the movie they'd most like to recreate.
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Curators of Sweden: The Curators of Sweden program let ordinary citizens—a feminist blogger; a 24-year-old unemployed welder; a former Ms. Sweden—compete to control the official @sweden Twitter account for one week at a time.
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Explore Canada Like a Local: The CTC's microsite and app allowed users to curate and share lists of destinations around Canada they'd most like to visit, as well as upload their own photos.
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Adventures by Disney Facebook Page: Prospective customers posed questions on the company’s "Ask Our Mom" tab; the moms personally replied with advice based on experiences with Adventures by Disney.
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Big Five Takes Proactive Approach in Egypt Crisis: Concerned about their guests amid the crisis in Egypt, Big Five directors recorded a series of audio messages and videos and uploaded to their Facebook page. They also posted real-time reports to Twitter.
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DXBConnect Flash Dance: In October 2011 the airport orchestrated a flash mob featuring 55 dancers—all to promote a new branded credit card. A video of the event posted on YouTube attracted 1.8 million views in less than three months.
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JetBlue Go Places: The airline’s Facebook app, Go Places, gave frequent-flier points and discounts to customers who used Facebook Places to check in at a JetBlue airport location.
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Cruise Like a Norwegian: Facebook fans created custom, personalized shareable videos that included music and photos of their friends; after, they took a "How Norwegian Are You?" quiz that resulted in a special badge they could post on Facebook.
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Radio City Christmas Spectacular “Situation Interactive: The Perfect Gift”: Users connected their Facebook accounts to the show’s microsite and received a personalized video—which incorporated photos of their friends and family—to share at the holidays.
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Gas and Brake: A quiz divided the company’s Facebook fans into one of two personality types: Gas (exciting and adventurous) or Brake (reserved, more of a planner). Users could also label their friends as Gas or Brake, which added a viral element.
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Ultimate Austin Scavenger Hunt: The property organized photo scavenger hunt; fans and visitors submitted picturesf the hotel and Austin landmarks on Facebook or Flickr. The first 100 participants to complete at least half the tasksreceived an overnight stay or other prizes.
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Vloggers in Paradise: Travel vloggers were invited on a trip and had just 48 hours to create a short film highlighting both the resort and Puerto Rico. Each video was screened at a film festival, where one winner was selected.
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Dr. Von Paris: The hotel took a creative approach to react to a con man who booked a table at its restaurant under an alias and walked out without paying; they asked Facebook fans to submit their own clever fake names (Bill M. Laytah; Ms. Sum Ting Wong) for a chance to win a free dinner for two.
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Using Twitter as Luxury Marketing Tool: The hotel maximized the potential of #TNI, the weekly “Traveler’s Night In” Twitter chat. Held in June, 2011, this tweet-up leveraged top influencers around the theme of “Mini-Indulgences” to engage tweeting travelers. The 90-minute event generated close to 4,500 tweets and more than 1.4 million unique impressions.
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Singing for an Upgrade: Guests willing to sing upon check-in received an upgrade, and videos of the performances were posted on YouTube and Facebook. Fans voted for their favorite performer, who won a two-night stay.
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Global Social Treasure Hunt: Followers of @HiltonHHonors competed in scavenger hunts to win certificates for free nights. They had to sift through clues to figure out in which city the "Treasure Hunt" was being held, then complete various tasks for a chance to win.
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Unforgetaways: The destination ran a scavenger hunt across multiple social outlets, and, with the incentive to win a free dinner or a night at a local hotel, for example.
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3-Minute Adventures: The tourism board invited people to create authentic views of Pensacola via first-person point-of-view videos to help boost tourism.
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What’s Your City Self?: Facebook fans took a quiz to see if they were better suited to Paris or Amsterdam; based on the results, they received detailed itineraries.
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Get on the Bus: Facebook fans of the youth-oriented vacation company created virtual buses, filled them with friends, and designed a dream trip. They then campaigned for votes; members of the two highest-scoring buses got to take the trip.
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GoPro Heli-Ski Video Contest: Heli-ski guests were given camera equipment to film their own experiences, then encouraged to share the footage through various social outlets for a chance to a win a free heli-ski trip.
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Expedia Soars to Success: Users piloted a virtual plane and invited five friends to join. Those friends were then encouraged to create their own entries; the viral structure and daily prizes pushed Expedia’s fan base past 1 million.
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Hipmunk Me: Users uploaded photos of themselves and an artist from Reddit would sketch them out in the likeness of Hipmunk's famous chipmunk mascot.
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Pardon the Turkey: For this Thanksgiving promotion, the airport tweeted photos of a turkey named Pardon at spots throughout SFO. Users who tweeted or checked in (on Foursquare) to the correct location were entered into a sweepstakes.
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“Day in the Life” of a Checked Bag: To promote Delta’s bag-tracking mobile app, the airline produced a video called “A Day in the Life of a Checked Bag,” showing what happens to your luggage as it moves from check-in conveyor belt to carousel pickup.
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Fit to Fly Airline Safety Video featuring Richard Simmons: Fitness guru Richard Simmons brought his huge personality and bedazzled tank top to a funny in-flight safety video (with a little bit of exercise thrown in, of course).
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Quality Hunters 2: In conjunction with Helsinki airport, the carrier recruited “real people” via social channels to help evaluate the airline and offer suggestions on how to improve service. The effort reached more than 15 million people, one of the travel industry’s largest crowdsourcing campaigns.
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Meet Me in Tahiti: Before you commit to a real cruise, why not try it out virtually? Users could plan an imaginary trip, “inviting” Facebook friends, adding activities, and even sending e-postcards.
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EpicMix: The skiing giant turned the traditional model of selling expensive mountaintop photos on its head: the pictures were free to share on Facebook and Twitter (though you still had to buy the prints).
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“Thank You” Contest: Customers submitted anecdotes on Facebook about their favorite experience with the company; fans voted for the best submission. The grand prize was a year’s worth of car rentals and Hilton hotel stays.
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Social Media Rates: The hotel company created and promoted special rates for Facebook and Twitter. The depth of the discounts (as low as $89 a night) drove a high volume of bookings.
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FriendFlights: The low-cost airline created a Facebook app that located friends worldwide and displayed the least expensive rates to fly there.
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5-Star Flight on Facebook with Qatar Airways: On the heels of an engaging contest where fans could enter for a chance to win airline tickets, Qatar promoted a two-for-one ticket sale.
