Travel blogging is a wonderful platform for destination branding, as long as the writing is responsible and is based on a good preliminary research. A recent blog post on Budget Travel listed the most problematic destinations in the world (or, as the title reads, “11 Places With a Bad Rap”). Surprisingly, destinations such as Perth in Western Australia and Christchurch in New Zealand were mentioned in the same list with countries like Egypt and Libya. The reasons are several shark attacks near Perth, and the strong earthquake that hit Christchurch last year.
Can you really compare safe tourism destinations as Australia or New Zealand to relatively-dangerous countries for tourists as Egypt and Libya, just because of the forces of nature? Shark attacks are more common in the United States than in Australia according to Wikipedia, so why is Hawaii or Florida out of the list? Earthquakes are horrible and can slow tourism growth, but can you really say that even a year later they should stop tourists from visiting the place? Christchurch’s mayor, Bob Parker, claimed that the blogger “ignored the way the city was fighting back from the quakes”. That’s unfair.
I’m not suggesting that the post is bad. On the contrary: it deals with a problematic topic and, as such, have a good potential in providing something meaningful to the readers. I liked a lot the writing style as well. However, because it touches on sensitive issues of destinations and destination brands, it required a thorough research prior to writing. As a reader, I didn’t feel that this was the case here unfortunately.
To avoid brand damages, destination marketing organizations should monitor social networks regularly and respond to similar posts accordingly. A few recommended tools are Kurrently, TweetDeck, HootSuite and of course Google’s Blog Search. With a proper response, users will have a better chance of seeing the full picture before making a travel decision.
Photo: egarc2, Flickr, CC
