Making Video Part of Your Tourism Business
Prerequisites: You should have a digital video camera of your choice to use for business purposes.
Estimated Time for Completion: Reading time of 20 mins.
Details: Video technology has changed dramatically over the last few years. Why on recently for example, I pulled out my Sony DVD video camera to shock of my friends. The camera, which was state of the art only a few years ago is now practically obsolete, especially since cheap HD cameras are readily available at relatively low cost. The benefit to you as a tour operator is that adding video to your tourism business is now a relatively inexpensive endeavor. Video can add valuable content for your customers in making a booking decision. Afterall, if you can show some of the experience you intend to provide, then your customers will have more faith in you as a service provider.
Here are some great tips to help you decide how to integrate videos into your tourism business:
1. Where does video fit it into your business? All tours and activities are different, therefore, it is unlikely that every tour or activity is going to be recorded in the same way. A zip-lining activity for example is generally short and intense and lends itself well to a short video snippet. A multi-day cultural tour of Italy may need to be recorded differently. Before you jump in and add to your marketing strategy, decide on what kind of videos will work best for your customers, how you are going to record the videos, and how much work you need to put into editing the videos.
2. Focus on people – Make sure your terms and conditions include a video release that allows you to take videos of your customers on tour. This is important in order to protect your customers’ privacy and to ensure you don’t get yourself into hot water later. When you record video, be sure to focus on people rather than scenery. Remember that this is video for the web so it will most likely be viewed in a small Youtube style interface. Sprawling landscapes just don’t translate well.
3. Keep the videos short – Stay on topic and focus on capture “the moment”. A 1 min. interview with a guest after an experience can act as a video testimonial for your web site. If appropriate, try and create many short videos rather than one long video. Ten videos with your brand are better than one video with your brand.
4. Skip the fancy title screen – Just get right to the good stuff. The title screen with music is fluff and doesn’t add anything to the video, especially if the video is short and to the point. Introduce yourself and the context of the video at the beginning of the video. You can add more details in the description of the video once you upload it to your video hosting site (more on that later).
5. Upload Videos to Web A.S.A.P. – If you keep your videos simple and to the point with little editing, then you should have no problem uploading the videos to your favorite hosting site at the end of each day. Just like your tour photos, the video uploading should become part of your daily routine.
Consider if you offer two tours a day, three days a week, for twenty-six weeks a year. Now imagine making a two minute video for each tour. In one season, you would have 156 videos posted. Each video would have a description of your tour or activity, keywords associated to your tour and brand, and your brand name associated with it.
Outcome: If you are successful at completing this daily action, you will have a plan in place to add video to your tourism business.
This is a great idea…. however… to get great video, you need someone whose top priority is to observe, document and film. Otherwise you load content that looks like home videos.
We've brought the video/audio along on several of our small group tours, but usually, we choose not to include tour action. The video/audio becomes a character in the group and impacts the dynamics. Sometimes this leads to fun and silly. Sometimes it stifles creativity. In the end, we upload very little, giving our customers the luxury of knowing their experience will not be shared with the world. They appreciate this.
That's a great point Alanna. I think you have to take a look and see if it works for you organization. If it becomes part of your offering (a differentiator) then that's great. Certainly in your case, it may not be the best fit for the type of service you offer. It really is about knowing what your customers want and it would seem that your customers want to enjoy the intimacy of the experience for themselves.
Good solid advice. Here's some more tips on how to create pro looking video (without it costing an arm and a leg):
http://www.streamingvideohostinginfo.com/stream…
Absolutely right, Video can add valuable content for your customers in making a booking decision. Afterall, if you can show some of the experience you intend to provide, then your customers will have more faith in you as a service provider.
There's a white elephant in the room here: SHARING.
Many operators punch out hundreds of DVDs with varying degrees of professionalism. But who looks at them? You, a handful of mates and maybe, in time, your Mum. Hardcopy is a CLOSED, locked product which you can't share. In time, it just gets lost or forgotten.
But if you can provide your customers with a link like this:
http://www.perfectclarity.tv/view.php?client=nzone
That your client can add to Facebook, blogs, websites and emails THAT FRIENDS CAN BOOK OFF, then you're growing your business big time.
It's viral and highly contagious.