November 24, 2018 – Move over Facebook tagging, video tagging has arrived, taking tourist info to the next level, as was demonstrated at last month’s Days of Croatian Tourism on Hvar.
So many great Croatian conferences in recent weeks, so little time.
Among the many thought-provoking presentations at last month’s Days of Croatian Tourism conference on Hvar last month was a presentation by Philip DeBevoise, the CEO of Citizine Networks, a Los Angeles-based media company. Citizine was the initiator of the inaugural Travel Video Awards, which was this year won by the Croatian National Tourist Board for their promotional video featuring the country’s World Cup stars. Released in November 20187, the video was perfect marketing material after Croatia’s unexpected success in Russia in July.
While DeBevoise was talking about the travel awards, he also had some rather interesting video-tagging software to present, which is currently being developed by Citizine. Video search is becoming increasingly important in tourist holiday planning, and while many promotional videos show images of outstanding beauty, it is often hard for viewers to recognise the locations, never mind find out more details, without pausing the video and doing some research.
Using the example of the award-winning Croatian video, DeBevoise showed just a fraction of the potential of the new technology. The video was tagged by location, so that the viewer has the option to learn more about the destination via an information sidebar offering immediate information, or the option to save the moment and return to it at the end of the video.
DeBevoise took the concept further, showing many more commercial opportunities, with another video featuring a cafe and a hotel. The tagging options in both offered the option of clicking through to the cafe and hotel websites, as well as the chance to make a reservation. As a marketing tool for tourism businesses, the potential clear, as is the ability to bring would-be tourists instantly closer to the destinations they are interested in. The technology is still in its infancy and being developed, but this should make a significant step in improving the access of tourism (and other) information.
I can’t embed the video with all the tags, but you can watch it here (or a tag-free version below). The potential of this software for tourism promotion in enticing indeed.
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