Portland Twisitor Center
When you travel to a new city or unfamiliar place it is always nice to get recommendations from people with the inside scoop – locals, other travelers who have been there or the destination’s tourist office.
The problem is connecting with those locals and travelers in the know at the precise times that you require their assistance. That leaves visitor centers as an option for restaurant, attraction and event recommendations. But, is the visitor center going to be where you are when you have a question? And wouldn’t it be nice to not just get one opinion, but input from many other peers and other likeminded travelers?
The concept
In February 2009 Travel Portland decided to offer a new means to provide unbiased input on where to go and what to do in Portland, Oregon. The Portland “Twisitor Center” allows visitors to ask travel related questions using micro-blogging tool Twitter: just ask your question and add the hashmark “inpdx” to your question. Not only Travel Portland staff, but many locals who are very passionate about the city and all it has to offer will answer the questions in real time. The Twisitor Center concept was developed by GoSeeTell Network, the social media accelerator that manages many of Travel Portland’s social media initiatives.
Organization goals
A core element of Travel Portland’s brand and marketing strategy is to be authentic and offer visitors tools to share their own unfiltered Portland experiences. Travel Portland was one of the first cities to roll out a social network for travelers to share stories, reviews and ratings. Utilizing Twitter to connect travelers with locals and other travelers was a logical next step.
The vast majority of Portland visitors are more than impressed by what the city has to offer, from free public transportation in downtown to the many parks, great tax-free shopping, award winning restaurants many of whom place a strong focus on local and organic ingredients or the vibrant nightlife scene. There are no better spokespeople for Portland than visitors who come to the city. Therefore, to better market the destination and interact with visitors, Travel Portland also focused on engaging in conversations with visitors while they were still in Portland. The Portland Twisitor Center supports this goal: many of the visitors who have asked questions and gotten answers via Twitter go on to share their Portland experiences and photos via Twitter and connect with locals and other travelers.
What it took
While rolling out the Twisitor Center did not require a huge investment (after all Twitter is a free service), a considerable amount of time and strategy was spent on selecting and testing the right hashtag (had to be unique and short but also relevant) and reaching out to local Twitter users who talk about what is happening in the city on a regular basis. This group of passionate locals where the seed to get other locals and visitors involved in answering questions and providing their unique perspective on Portland and all the things the city has to offer.
Success Metrics
By all accounts the Portland Twisitor Center has proven to be a huge success. Hundreds of visitors have used the service and gotten thousands of answers ranging from where to go for a vegan brunch to where to rent a horse.
Thousands of tweets and twitpics have been shared in real time by visitors with their followers outside of Portland on what they did, where they ate and what they saw while in Portland.
And the Twistor Center idea has created worldwide attention for Portland as media around the world wrote about this unique concept. Overall more than 200 articles from the NY Times to leading newspapers in Europe were written creating a media value of over 1 million USD for Travel Portland.
Press Clippings