We are on the plane flying home from Samoa where Liz Ward and I attended the TIDES conference. 4 days, 40 degrees, 4 bottles of wine (each, just kidding) and 4 great ideas.

153 delegates from the South Pacific islands, Australia, NZ and a delegation from Germany came together to discuss investment and customer engagement opportunities for the South Pacific Region. Of course web was part of every conversation so Liz and I had plenty to talk about.

Samoa as a tourism destination

Have you ever been to Samoa? Let's say that the Samoans are eager to welcome visitors to their country. At 2am we were welcomed at the airport by the local band and our more important colleagues were greeted by the CEO of the Samoan Tourism Authority when they arrived at 3am. Now that's a warm welcome.

The South Pacific is typical of a developing destination in that it offers unspoiled authentic experiences immersed in incredible natural beauty. The people are heavily reliant on growing tourism as a profitable and sustainable "industry" (correction - "network" according to Futurist guru Anna Pollock). They are faced with real challenges though as they need to grow their infrastructure, attract the right type of investment, develop collaborative marketing strategies and bridge the gap into the online market.

When we actually talked with the tourism operators attending the conference, we found that their questions and challenges around working with the web were very similar to their Australian product contemporaries.

Let's talk about TripAdvisor for instance. Liz and I were asked about the fake reviews that their competitors have left on their accommodation property's TripAdvisor listing. I get this question at every workshop in Australia and it has been topical in online press lately.

What to do if you believe your competitor has left you a bogus review about your product on TripAdvisor

• Report it to TripAdvisor using the tool in the Owners section - but don't just do that as they have strict guidelines and removing the review isn't always possible 
• What you have to do is immediately take action: respond and ask your past 30 customers via email to leave a genuine positive review if they had a positive experience 
• What this will do is show your potential customers that you care about people's feedback and also importantly, push the negative review to the bottom of the page

The other question is about the engagement with Twitter. It is common to hear:

• I don't have enough time
• I am not a computer person
• Twitter is full of superfluous banter and I don't care about what John in the UK had for breakfast this morning
• I don't think I have anything interesting to say on Twitter

You can argue that all of the above are attributes of being active on Twitter but what Liz and I put across is that they are actually requirements to grow a tourism business in 2010.

Twitter is no different than the traditional "networking function" that operators attend once a month at their regional tourism organisation's event. They meet a lot of people they would rather not meet but out of all these hours of conversation arise opportunities to grow their business and find new customers. On Twitter the trick is to be economical with your time and try to cut through the noise.

Tourism success with Twitter

You can have a twitter account for the purpose of blogging interesting things about your business and destination but you can also play a less talkative more listening role on Twitter with the objective of picking up leads for your business and destination.
Here is an example of a missed opportunity while we were in Samoa 

Meest is still waiting for a response to her tweet...

You don't have time NOT to engage in Twitter.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Search for your region/business on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com
• Follow the interesting people actively tweeting about your destination
• Watch, listen, watch, listen, watch, listen
• Share an interesting fact e.g. a video of your guest having a great time playing with the dolphins at your place

Tofa for now - Liz and Fabie