Jaime Horwitz
February 29, 2008
A few days to go. On Tuesday I will catch a flight to Newark, New Jersey and from there direct to Berlin. I am one of the T-List bloggers attending the PhoCusWright summit and I’m excited about the occasion. I have been blogging for a few years now. It began with my Blog de Canada, Spanish language blog, to complement my Web 1.0 Canada en Espanol sites. The idea was to have an online vehicle to get closer to my visitors and to allow them to interact by posting comments. The blog is a more personal medium of communication than the sites and it allows me to express opinions about Canada as well as to post content on current affairs at any time.
After the Blog de Canada, came the Canadian Tourism Blog. The idea for this blog came about because of all the talk about Web 2.0 in various canadian tourism conferences. I figured that it would be a good idea and a service to the industry to launch a blog for and about the canadian tourism industry and canadian tourism. This blog is intended as an open forum for canadian tourism businesses and organizations wherein people can express opinions, rants and concerns about what is going on in Canadian tourism. In contrast to my Spanish language blog, the Canadian Tourism Blog is not intended for the consumer.
I also keep a blog in Turismo 2.0, the tourism professionals’ social network founded by the indefatigable Albert Barra (among others) from Barcelona. I am not as active on this blog due to time constraints, but the site is a great place to learn and share knowledge about tourism with fellow Spanish speakers.
Finally (another blog) last December, I launched Canadamigos, a social network to foster travel and friendship among Canadians, Canadian Hispanics and Hispanics around the world. I also blog on this site which is doing well so far. The idea for this site is to take advantage of the growth of niche Web 2.0 social media to complement my business. I want to put into practice a “model based on knowledge,” as Edu William pointed out in his Tips from the T-List article (The abundance in tourism). The hope is that the site will foster travel based on a human recommendation system (a la TripAdvisor, but more personal) and, from the business point of view, bring in some abundance from the supplier side as well. Time will tell if the site will be successful as a complement to the business. As far as users is concerned, I feel confident given the growth in memberships since it began last December.
This brings me to Berlin, where I hope to acquire more practical knowledge from fellow bloggers. I also look forward to gaining some insight as to what tourism marketers are looking for from bloggers and social media as well as whether the industry is willing to support niche players.
See you in Berlin. Danke,
Jaime
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