Using Google Maps to Promote PNG Tourism

Google Inc. has been the driving force in the internet search engine and online advertising industries since its inception in the late 1990s. What has really made Google into a major player has been its ability to match specific corporate ventures with its core competencies – for example, G Mail, Google Books, the acquisition of You Tube, and of course, Google Maps.

There’s genius behind all these simple user-friendly free applications, and one that has a tremendous amount of potential for PNG, particularly for the tourism industry, is Google Maps. If you haven’t checked out PNG on Google Maps, do it – and by all means, contribute to the already existing portfolio of photos as shown above. You can also upload videos, courtesy of YouTube (another strategic Google tool).

PNG’s tourism industry has experienced six years of continuous growth heading into 2009, and I’m banking on this year to be just as successful. What will help the cautious globe-trotter into thinking about including PNG in their itinery would be what Google Maps provides – photos. It’s one thing to read about  a place in a magazine or newspaper; it’s another thing alltogether when you can see for yourself how the place looks like.

And if tourism operators in PNG were smart enough, they would have posted up photos and videos of their most profitable tourist routes (e.g. the Kokoda Trail) from day one of Google Maps, so when potential tourists selected their photos/videos, I wonder who they would choose to spend their money with?

Just an idea PNG tourism operators…

~ by Tavurvur on August 12, 2009.