Future of Travel #Futrchat Tweetchat

This week’s ‘Futrchat’ event asks about the future of travel and tourism in a one-hour online Twitter Chat (aka tweetchat) Thursday May 23 NYC EST 4-5pm / London GMT 9-10pm / Friday May 24 Sydney AEDT 8-9am. Complete time table here!

Futrchat is a monthly Twitter-based conversation organised by the Association of Professional Futurists; a thriving community of professional futurists committed to excellence and leadership.

Each conversation is based on a particular topic and is open to all with the event now attracting a growing level of global participation.

Be forewarned. For newbies the hour-long chat is a bit chaotic with little time to absorb information. It’s a tweetchat, after all! That said, use the time to favorite and retweet tweets you like. Go with the flow and make contacts and network.

Marketing Responsible Travel in South Africa #MarketingSA

Today – Wednesday, May 15 - Planeta.com and This Tourism Week are teaming up to present practical social web tips to tourism pros in South Africa. The venue will be a conference on the South Coast hosted by Ugu South Cost Tourism. Martin Hatchuel of This Tourism Week will present in person at the event in Umtentweni, while Ron Mader of Planeta.com will join the conference via the net from his base in Mexico.

Google Hangouts are an incredible tool that bring together colleagues in different places for a real-time, online conversation that can be viewed by an unlimited number of people. Archives are automatically uploaded to YouTube for future viewing. More about this hangout here.

What does responsible travel look like in Durban? #Indaba2013

This week Durban, South Africa hosts the annual Indaba Tourism Conference, hashtag #indaba2013 on Twitter and Google+. I haven’t attended for two years, but I am fascinated by this city. Have you seen Doung’s Durban City Walk?

On Monday I’ll be hosting a live hangout (4pm South Africa time) with Martin Hatchuel from This Tourism Week from Indaba. It will be a candid conversation!

A question: Is ‘responsible travel‘ embedding itself in the locality. If so … what does responsible travel look like in Durban?

Nevada Hangout

There are many reasons to love Nevada, probably as many as there are Nevadans. This is a state of bold contrasts and extremes: rural landscapes and big cities, extravagant gaming and a low-key movement toward farmers’ markets and a growing green building code of ethos. It’s time to connect Las Vegas, one of the world’s most storied cities to rural Nevada. Plus, we’re keen on Nevada’s indigenous culture.

On Thursday (May 2) we conducted a livestreaming hangout with Nevada travel experts Bethany Drysdale and Eileen Carter to learn about the new Nevada tourism campaign and recent events. Nevada is as well-suited to hangouts as it is to visual imagery. The state has eye-candy galore and Nevadans love to tell good stories.

‘A world within, a state apart’ is the new tagline. What do you think?

PS) Corrections When I mentioned ‘Red Rock’ I meant ‘Valley of Fire.’ My bad.

Let a thousand conversations bloom #OpenAgData

Cheers to the organizers of this week’s livestreaming sensation: Open Data for Agriculture. It sets a new benchmark for events and government events in particular. Thank you for the live video, Storify features and Twitter hashtag: #OpenAgData. It was brilliant demonstration of connecting the natural and virtual worlds.

Here are a few suggestions on making the next event and webcast more compelling:

1) Ask questions from your online audience. You received questions from the room, but not so much online.

2) Create a real-time transcript of the presentations  Last year NetHui in New Zealand opened up a collaborative Google doc that was then composed and edited in real-time.

3) Let participants and audience know in advance where to go for archived videos. Do I have to watch this live or is there any way I can view the raw coverage later? Events with an archived legacy are a much beloved resource.

4) Host follow-up chats using a Google hangout. That way could bring together experts from various parts of the world without them needing to be in the same room. Plus, the archives are uploaded immediately to YouTube.

5) Create a wiki. Let conference participants edit a collaborative site. Wikis are a great way to connect information silos.

6) Mash the hashtag with other events. June 5 is World Environment Day. What can you tweet using hashtags #wed2013 and #OpenAgData? World Food Day is October 16.  Are there synergies?

FYI, I’m highlighting the event on the Planeta Wiki and talking it up among friends. What you’ve shown us certainly inspired me and raised heaps of questions. I’m no expert on agriculture, but I like food and I want to reduce food waste.

I like the way open data improves our understanding of food production and distribution.  If friends working in travel and biodiversity conservation could take a similar approach to #opendata and #livestreaming video, we could be making great progress. Thank you for showing us a great way forward.

Let a thousand conversations bloom.

05.2013

Free download! Here’s our calendar for May 2013. Let us know if any celebrations are taking place in your community.

May 1 May Day

May 3 Dia de la Santa Cruz / El Día del Albañil (Mexico)

May 5 Cinco de Mayo (Mexico)

May 6 National Permaculture Day (Australia)

May 10 Mother’s Day (Mexico)

May 12 Mother’s Day (USA)

May 15 Anniversary of the founding of the city of Las Vegas (May 15, 1905)

May 15 Responsible Tourism Conference: Marketing Local Travel (South Africa)

May 17 National Day of Norway (Norwegian Constitution Day)

May 18 International Museums Day (Call for photos in our Flickr group

May 21 World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

May 22 International Day of Biological Diversity
More about biodiversity!

May 24 European Day of Parks

May 25 Africa Day

May 26 National Sorry Day (Australia)

Marketing Local: Future of Travel Events

Today’s live Wednesday hangout focused on the future of travel events and trade conferences. The consensus of our panel was that more innovation is needed to make events more engaging locally and globally via the social web and simply being social in the locality.

Panelists included Martin Hatchuel of This Tourism Week, Ethan Gelber of The Travel Word, Alastair McKenzie of Travel Coffee Break Hangouts on Air and Andrea Nicholas of the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS).

The hangout format worked great in terms of engaging lively interaction and an unscripted conversation about recent events (New York Travel Festival) and upcoming events including Indaba and the responsible travel conference hosted by Ugu South Coast Tourism in South Africa. Andrea broke the news that Bristol, England would host a green travel conference in November and our chats are helping her organization figure out how to make most impact.

I think the hangout format has proven itself a useful tool in these chats about marketing local. There have been a few technical glitches, but what a terrific free resource! Being able to communicate with colleagues and sharing the screen by listening to one one another has to say is a giant leap forward from skype and certainly from email.

The future of my participation in hangouts will certainly focus on specific topics (Indigenous Tourism, Biodiversity, Parks and Protected Areas) and regions. I’d love to facilitate some regular panels on South Africa, Australia or Mexico if we can integrate the conversations with updates to the Planeta Wiki and Planeta.com.

I would also like to line up some chats about Nevada, which just launched a new tourism campaign. How do we explore the state online and on the ground in a way that shows off the under-the-radar attractions and services. More about these initiatives in the near future!

Finally, let me put forth two provocative ideas. Let no future tourism conference bring together speakers without gathering the panelists first via a live Google hangout or hangouts. Let no future tourism conference call itself ‘innovative’ if it does not include livestreaming video. We have the technology. Let’s use it.

Engaging events from ron mader