Tourism in Australia is doing it tough at the moment. Not only has the GFC knocked the wind out of our sales, the skyhigh US dollar is making us an expensive destination. Because of these, and lots of other factors, tourism bodies are looking for answers in the trendy social media scape.

Destination marketeers have the most to gain from social media, and there are some I’ve been very impressed with. Have a peek at these groups, excelling online.

Facebook Destination Marketing

• Whitsunday Tourism
• Mission Beach Tourism

Twitter Destination Marketing

• Tourism South Australia
• Tourism Queensland

YouTube Destination Marketing

• Tourism Queensland
• Tourism Australia

Have you ever been enticed or influenced through your interactions with a destination marketing body on social media?

Lately I’ve been delivering lots of social media themed workshops with DEEDI aimed at helping small business find their footing in this new social landscape. One of the things that I *love* is the RSS feed on Twitter keyword searches, as it’s incredibly useful for keeping on top of what people are saying on certain subjects.

In one of the workshops I set up a feed for anyone mentioning the word Daintree, and it turned up this little gem this week: a tweet about the new Daintree Discovery Guide iPhone app. The app is an initiative of long-time Daintree local, Chris Dahlberg.

For a long time I’ve thought that there’s a massive gaping hole in apps for anything tourism related. The official apps, like the Tourism Queensland app, are fairly basic. I’m keen to give this new app a go on my next trip north to the Daintree.

If you’ve downloaded it and roadtested the app already, please comment below. I’d love to hear what you think.