How can Alberta Tourism and Hospitality Industry use foursquare?
With all of the social media networking apps emerging, it’s no shock to hear of yet another. What exactly sets them apart? Why should a person use one and not the other? And who specifically is using these apps? Well, the beautiful thing about social media is that you get to decide for yourself what apps you prefer to use. In this post, I’ll be focusing on how foursquare, the most recent social media app, can be utilized to promote tourism in Alberta.
First thing’s first. What is foursquare?
That’s an excellent question!
As stated on foursquare.com:
Think: 50% friend-finder, 30% social cityguide, 20% nightlife game. We wanted to build something that not only helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things and challenges you to explore cities in different ways.
foursquare.com home page
Think twitter, but instead of answering the question ‘What are you doing?’ and writing in 140 characters what you’re up to, foursquare lets people know where you are when you ‘check-in’ to any location you specify and vice versa. Now, you may be asking how secure is this app? It’s as secure as you want it to be. If you don’t want people to know where you are, you simply don’t check-in. For instance, you may not want people to know where your house is, so you don’t have to check-in when you are home. Some people choose to check-in at a location within their neighbourhood, rather than use their actual address. However, an important part of social media is being transparent. And it may be seen as misleading to check-in at a location when you aren’t actually there, regardless of how close you happen to be.
What makes a social media app valuable is how mobile it is. Foursquare is offered on the iPhone, of course. And can be accessed via a mobile web browser for devices without an app. According to foursquare.com, Blackberry and Palm Pre apps are in the works. Foursquare can also be accessed online where additional features can be used, but the whole point of the app is to be mobile.
So, how is foursquare a valuable app for tourism and hospitality in Alberta?
Well, obviously it only works if the tourists use foursquare and the mobile app. Given that those two things are in place, tourists can locate information about any city in Alberta that they are visiting. Provided that foursquare has the city listed in their system. Right now that’s not the case, but it’s getting there. Say someone from the US is visiting family living in Edmonton. They want to go out for dinner, but they don’t know any of the local restaurants. Using foursquare, they can use ‘Nearby Tips’ that lists comments from other users giving, well, tips about restaurants and businesses they’ve visited (As seen in the picture to the right). The great thing about this feature is that you don’t have to be ‘friends’ with anyone in the particular city. It’s just a list from all foursquare users in that location.
The other great thing about this app for tourism and hospitality is that once it gets more popular, there will be more entries from tourists themselves. So, it won’t just be content from the locals, but also tips and reviews from people who visit the city. Now, this means good and bad reviews. But this gives Alberta Tourism and the hospitality industry an indication of what tourists honestly think of some local tourists destinations, including restaurants, in real-time. This will give them essential info about what tourists want to see more of, what they don’t like so much, etc. Of course, some things will be out of the industries control. If the food is bad at a particular restaurant, there is little Alberta Tourism can do about that. But other concerns/issues may become obvious, and provide insight into changes that can be made. After all, it’s their job to ensure people want to visit Alberta, and have such an enjoyable time they wish to return, and recommend it to others! Every tool that is available to the consumer that provides information on the products and services to tourism/hospitality stakeholders is valuable. The technology is there. Foursquare enables some interesting real-time interaction between consumers, and the tourism and hospitality industries. It’s like a real-time comment card and a repository of comsumer behaviours. So we recommend that the stakeholders within the tourism and hospitality industry become very familiar with this application and it’s advantages.
