By adding new features, Instagram dreams of becoming a digital travel guide. For tourism professionals, if the social network today allows you to inspire and guide the traveler through many points of interest, it does not replace the paper or physical guide. Laura Torella, Head of Marketing FR at VisitFlanders, shares her feedback with us.
How do you use the new Instagram features as a travel guide today?
Laura Torella, marketing manager FR chez VisitFlanders
Instagram is the tool that will allow us to translate our strategy focused on the tourism of tomorrow. Local tourism and focus on the destination. This will allow us to tell a story and have a tool to differentiate ourselves from another destination. Please note that at VisitFlanders we are a 100% digital representative office.
Through Instagram we want to offer a real experience to our audience and our travelers by guiding them through the history, culture and even gastronomy of Flanders. For this we will take advantage of different types of content, including the tool in which we can set points of interest or the interactive map function to provide more details to our audience and allow them to orient themselves.
Is Instagram a travel guide for you that could replace a physical or paper guide?
If we are trying to offer a real experience to our audience, we are not trying to replace the “classic” guide. I think Instagram is a great tool to guide or inspire the visitor, but nothing replaces a paper or physical guide. We will talk more about complementarity than competition. To get more details or information about a place or destination, it is best to have access to a guide throughout your stay. On the other hand, Instagram can reveal hidden spots, for example recommended by locals.
Is interaction still a resource for the social network compared to a classic guide?
It is true that the advantage of social networks is that travelers have the opportunity to interact with them. For a Tourist Office, these interactions will allow us to address the expectations of the public and interact with them, something that is not possible, for example, with a printed guide. At VisitFlanders, this helps us develop our social media strategy and drives what we want to highlight. On the other hand, these feedbacks are not yet used to enrich the tourist offer itself. Perhaps this will be possible in the future.
Instagram is therefore complementary to the travel guide but does not replace it. Could another social network have the same usefulness?
What really completes a travel guide offer with us is Instagram. To date, it is the social network that has the most features. We also use Facebook and soon we will be on TikTok but for the travel guide side, strictly speaking, it remains Instagram. It allows us to easily interact with different audiences and to respond to travelers’ requests or needs.
Opening photo: @VisitFlanders
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