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Is Facebook an effective medium for promoting luxury travel?

Is anyone out there listening?Facebook is seemingly always billed as a social networking site, but there’s clear evidence that – as with MySpace and others that have preceded it – it’s being used for business purposes.   I myself am guilty of having a mix of ‘real world’ friends, old school and university colleagues, and a number of ‘contacts’ (and friends!) from within the travel industry (by the way, if you are on Facebook, work in luxury travel and would like to make contact, you are welcome to add me and/or join the Luxury Travel group). Do you think those involved in the luxury travel sector can effectively use Facebook to promote their businesses, or  would they be  ‘barking up the wrong tree’ and using entirely the wrong medium?   What do you think?

Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Daily Telegraph.

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4 Comments

  1. Hello Paul,

    In my opinion, Facebook is an effective medium in promoting luxury travel. Even though there are a lot of college age people on Facebook, they all seem to go to luxury places on their spring breaks. Maybe you should promote some of your luxury travel destinations for the spring break crowd and see what happens.

    I could be totally off-base, but this is just my opinion. Others may disagree.

  2. Hi Paul,

    I have already added you on facebook and the Luxury Travel Group.

    I totally agree with Deborah about Facebook. Yes there are many young people on there and many are from very wealthy families, so can easily afford the luxury travel market. The young are the ones who want to travel to as many different places as they can. Maybe group holidays could be promoted more so that parents would be encouraged to let the kids go. I do think there is a very big market there.

    I have found Facebook to be a great marketing tool as you meet many people who are married etc who you would not otherwise meet except here on a business level. What I mean by that renark is that on most sites the only reason people join is to meet someone for a relationship whereas on Facebook you can openly state that you are looking for a job, business or are networking etc.

    You could also really promote the luxury Spa’s around the world for the ladies. A good percentage of the women I know here in Cairo are very health concious and there are not enough outlets for them to go to. The Four Seasons Hotels Group is one of only a very few upmarket health clubs for them to visit. I know there are many very wealthy women on Facebook or they have very wealthy husbands. This also holds for the college age people, since basically to go to College or Univercity here you have to have big money. Also many have both winter and summer homes.

    Hope this helps. Aisha

  3. I don’t have a FaceBook or a MySpace account. Perhaps I’m missing out? I only recently created a Twitter account because of your Aardvark business forum, but I’ve been getting a little bit bored with Twitter recently. Yet people say that Twitter is more important than FaceBook these days.

    I know that people say you get out what you put in, but I prefer to spend my energies elsewhere. I’m finding it all too time consuming and confusing.

  4. facebook is really crossing over the personal/professional lines and it can sometimes be difficult to separate them, however you do have the option to accept or decline friends. But companies must remember that in using it they need to tailor their marketing to the medium rather than using exactly what they use in other mediums – its not that easy!

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