Tourism is the 3rd largest industry in Norway, and in 2008 Norway was visited by 4,4 million international tourists. But how can we get to know what visitors think of Norway as a tourist destination? What do tourists particularly like about the country? What leaves them cold or unsatisfied, while visiting it?
Internet provides tremendous opportunities to track opinions, views, and rumours that people share regarding visiting particular destinations. There are many travel-related blogs that have outpaced major tourism magazines in their visitor numbers. In addition, many dedicated bloggers, who normally write on different topics, tend to describe their experiences with travelling publicly.
Norway as a country caring about its external image and investing heavily into the development of its tourism industry is naturally concerned about its image in the social media. One bad rumour of an unsatisfied visitor can have a long-lasting negative impact on people deciding whether to visit Norway or not. Therefore, CyberWatcher signed an agreement that assists the Norwegian tourism industry to deal with this challenge – now it will be possible to listen in to tourists commenting on Norway throughout Europe. Besides finding key signals, there will also be developed a social media portal presenting feedback and search opportunities.
We hope that this will become a good-case-practice for representatives of a tourism industry anywhere in the world – how to capitalize on social media in order to improve the external image towards potential visitors.