Remote Control Tourist lets you “go before you go”.
If you’ve ever wanted to see a city before you actually got there, Tourism Victoria has come up with the perfect tool for you. The “Melbourne Remote Control Tourist” is a crowd-sourced project that allows potential visitors to virtually explore the city of Melbourne through social media and live streaming.
The project ran from October 9th to 13th for 8 hours a day. Users were able to log onto http://remotecontroltourist.com/ and “control” two volunteer explorers – a male and a female – as they pleased. Users made their requests using Twitter or Facebook, asking the volunteers to do anything at all –visit certain places, try different foods, check interesting things out, etc. The volunteer explorers were each wearing helmet-mounted streaming video cameras and made use of Instagram, Google Maps, and Foursquare to document their travels and experiences.
This interesting concept allows users to “go before you go” – this way you can decide whether or not you’d actually like to visit a place before you purchase your plane ticket. The Remote Control Tourist provided users with information and experiences that would be otherwise available only through guidebooks, anecdotes, and episodes of Lonely Planet.
Check out the highlight video below:
Remote Control Tourist is not only practical and useful for those looking to book a trip abroad, it’s one of the most innovative and social tourism campaigns we’ve ever seen. Many of the tourism campaigns that we’re accustomed to consist mainly of informational videos and brochures brimming with picturesque landscapes.
The Remote Control Tourist is an interactive and engaging way to promote tourism by using one of the most valuable tools currently available – social media. We are currently living in the age of the social network – it’s all we do, so why not capitalize on this and use it as a means of promotion? Seeing as the campaign was designed mainly to “encourage young, tech-savvy travelers to visit Melbourne, which is known for its hip restaurants and shops and its vibrant culture,” social media was definitely the way to go.
“Positive sentiment for the campaign in social media was also exceptionally high at around 96% with consumers tweeting comments about how much they liked the campaign and how much it made them want to visit Melbourne.” (Source)
Keywest wants to know what you think of Remote Control Tourist. Is this a useful tool when making travel plans, and would you like to see it in more cities?
