Come & Go Vietnam Blog

Steve Jackson, the man behind the excellent Our Man in Hanoi blog, left a very thought-provoking comment on my piece about Vietnam’s sexy new tourism ambassador. Steve says:  “Elsewhere tourism bosses were talking about utilising Facebook to promote tourism while FB remains blocked. How about not blocking Facebook – there would be a way of allowing people to post pics of their travels to friends while in Vietnam. More WIFI here than anywhere I’ve ever been so why not make something out of that and let people share those great images.”

It’s a really good point. As the world’s biggest social network, Facebook has become pretty much the default channel for travellers wishing to share updates, anecdotes, photos & videos with their friends & family while they travel. It’s quicker, easier & less intrusive than email, more versatile than Twitter, and a lot less hassle (and less likely to be abandoned after a few days) than a travel blog. And Vietnam has free WiFi everywhere – in the cities, and increasingly in the countryside, virtually every bar, cafe and restaurant is offering free WiFi.

BUT, Vietnam still insists on blocking Facebook (not, as many think, for political reasons, but economic ones – to save bandwidth for, and encourage take up of, domestic social networks), and in doing so, it is blocking a potentially highly effective, and free, channel for word-of-mouth advertising. Instead of logging into Facebook and telling their friends how great Vietnam is, and showing off their photos, tourists are complaining that they can’t access Facebook. This is not a good thing.

Here’s the slideshow from my social media presentation last week, brought to you by the magic of Google Docs…

I woke up this morning to find that Google Buzz had landed in my inbox. After spending half the morning playing around with it, it would seem to be a hybrid of the Facebook status update and Twitter, combining the best bits of both, and leaving out the worst (ie no character limit, and no Farmville updates). It’s certainly a more impressive first day than Google Wave.

But I’ve noticed it’s currently missing a few features that would make it even more useful:

1. Integration with Twitter & Facebook

Goes without saying this one – I don’t want to have to post a link or update my status in 2 different interfaces. And being able to display selected Facebook & Twitter updates in Google Buzz would be great from a business perspective – most of our customers don’t use Twitter, and I have a policy of not befriending customers on Facebook (my postings aren’t always good for business!), but nearly all of them have Gmail accounts, so Buzz is potentially a great way of talking to our customer base.

2. Integration with Third Party Apps

Twitter’s amazing growth in the last couple of years has largely been down to the huge number of developer apps (such as Tweetdeck, which I use), enabling people to tweet from multiple accounts, add photos and integrate Twitter with other social media sites such as Facebook & Friendfeed, all from one interface. Does anybody actually go to twitter.com any more?

Hopefully it won’t be long before I can update Buzz via Tweetdeck.

3. Auto-follow

I have several hundred contacts in my Gmail address book – it would be nice if I had an option of just following all of them and then unfollowing those I don’t want to see, rather than having to trawl through them all and add individuals. It would also be useful to auto-follow any new contacts that are added, and to import followees from Facebook, Twitter & Yahoo Mail. Maybe this is already possible, but if it is, Google haven’t made it very obvious!

4. Google Earth/Maps integration

Particularly useful from a tour operator point of view, being able to add a Google Earth/Maps reference/snapshot of whatever destination I happen to be talking about, without having to log into Maps/Earth in a separate screen & do a copy/paste job.

5. Integration with Google Translate

…for when Thomas Wanhoff posts status updates in German! But seriously, automatic status translation would be a real boon and would allow me to follow a lot more people, and would also allow my postings to be read by many others. We also sell to the French market, and I don’t have time to write each update out in two languages.

What features would you like to see in Buzz?

Here at Come & Go we’re big fans of Twitter – well, I am anyway, I’m not sure my local staff have the slightest idea what it’s all about! As a means of quickly sharing news, deals, tips of helpful/amusing links with lots of people it’s indispensible. It SHOULD, in theory, also be a great source of info for travellers – let’s say I’m heading off to Paris for the weekend, it’d be useful to me to see what Parisians and experts on Paris are tweeting about.

That’s where a brilliant new site called Twaller comes in. It uses keywords to sort tweets geographically, allowing users to browse by city to find the latest tweets about their chosen destination, categorised by Weather, Places to Eat, Things to See, Entertainment, and Shopping. Here’s a snapshot of what people are currently tweeting about my favourite city, Paris:

Pretty useful huh? There are a few glitches, usually when a city is known by different names or abbreviations – the Vietnam section only recognises Ho Chi Minh City, whereas most tweeters refer to it as Saigon or HCMC. But no doubt these will be ironed out in time. And if enough users begin to adopt Twaller, it’ll become a great marketing platform for restaurants, bars, tour operators, shops, gig venues, local media and much, much more.

Here’s Mashable’s take on Twaller (a bit more technical than mine!)

Welcome to the Come & Go Vietnam blog. The aim of this blog is to supplement the main Come & Go website with the latest travel news about Vietnam, opinion & comment, and anything we’ve been doing that might interest you.

The ethos behind Come & Go Vietnam is to fill what I’ve identified as a gap in the tourism market in Vietnam. Many operators offer great products & service, but have no clue how to market themselves, and consequently people don’t know they exist. Others are very active marketers & advertisers, but their products are poor and/or their customer service is pretty much non-existent – read the Vietnam forums on Tripadvisor & you’ll see what I mean!

Also, most operators still haven’t twigged that it’s 2009, and that most people prefer to work via email, the web and mobile devices. My dream is a completely paper-free office (apart from my reference books), so we will try to do as much of our business as possible electronically. I’ll also be blogging regularly and providing regular Twitter updates, as this is the quickest way to communicate the latest travel news and any hot deals we may be offering!

I also believe travel should be fun, not just when you’re on your trip itself, but right from the moment you make your first enquiry with the tour operator. Our team is friendly, helpful and, hopefully, fun to work with, from that first email, through your stay in Vietnam, and until you get home safely.

So please follow our blog by subscribing to our RSS feed. We hope to work with you soon!