Lanai Visitors Bureau looking to lure travelers online

December 21, 2010 04:39 PM

LANAI—Despite being a rural island, with a population of 3,000, Lanai has two luxury Four Seasons resorts and world-class golf courses to cater to the thousands of visitors it sees each year. However, that number has seen a serious decline, worse than Hawaii’s other islands. On Lanai, visitor arrivals dropped 26 percent in 2009 to 55,500 arrivals, compared with the previous year. In its latest effort to keep traffic moving to the 18 miles wide by 13 miles long island, the Hawaii Tourism Authority is looking online.

The Lanai Visitors Bureau (LVB) has launched an innovative and interactive online marketing campaign called the “New Media Artist-in-Residence” Program. From December 2010 through May 2011, the program features a hand-selected team of seven high profile new media artists, also referred to as “bloggers.” These writers, photographers, and video creators are being honored as “New Media Artists-in-Residence” to reflect each person’s talent as a travel storyteller and to tap each person’s influence in their diverse online communities.

The artists were curated based on several criteria specifically their ability to reach diverse audiences and family travelers. The individuals are based throughout the U.S., representing the east and west coast as well as central locations.

Numerous types of content will be created including text blog entries, Twitter messages with links, Flickr photos, Facebook conversations, and YouTube videos. Each artist has also agreed to collaborate with the other team members, extending and cross-pollinating their extensive individual networks.

“This collaboration creates a much longer and stronger impact, measurable by links and tags, across the six-month time frame. It also allows us to reach deeply into several existing travel-centric online communities,” said Terryl Vencl, executive director of the Maui Visitors Bureau, the organization that oversees LVB. “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and the like, are beginning to vitally impact travel decisions, and this will only increase in the future. With this effort, Lanai has the opportunity to drive their own conversation as well as target the well-heeled travelers it desires.”

The program will create a six-month long, highly active, diverse, media-rich online conversation about Lanai while also developing savvy new media voices throughout the community.

LVB and the Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau via the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau is contracted by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) for marketing management services in North America.

For the residents of Lanai, this may be an opportunity to communicate real community issues to those looking to visit.

For more information, call 800-947-4774 or visit www.visitlanai.net.