Tourism Tweetup: Connecting Locals & Visitors

meet the maui bloggers Ask any traveler: would you rather stay in a tourist compound (aka tourist ghetto) or get out and meet the locals? Overwhelmingly, travelers want to meet the locals!

Social media can facilitate this in so many ways. Today I am promoting the idea of connecting guest travel bloggers with local bloggers, to enhance the coverage of the destination and to build a deeper, more personal community online among the many voices in travel. You are invited to a tweetup on Saturday, June 23rd, from 2-3 pm at Flatbread Pizza in Pāʻia. See below for details!

I have long believed that local people are among the very best ambassadors for a locale. After all, we know the secret spots, the shortcuts, the best food, etc. Granted, we don’t always want to give those details away, but speaking for Maui, I know there are many of us who are happy and eager to share our home and help make the visitor experience awesome!

This week the Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau is hosting a group of travel bloggers for a new media press trip. We first did this together back in April, 2010. We used primarily local bloggers due to the short planning window. It was a huge success, both in getting a powerful message out to the people beyond Hawaii, but also in introducing social media to many who live and own businesses here on Maui. It included the launch of a blog for the bureau, VisitMauiBlog.com.

To help our visitors, here is a list of some of Mauiʻs top bloggers. Not all of them will be able to join us tomorrow, but I wanted to create an easy way to see who we are and to invite our guests to tap us, and our blogs, to help tell the stories of visiting Maui! This is a draft list – by no means complete! (Though for this list I am looking for blogs with ample posts that talk about Maui-related topics. Plus, there are many key influencers in our community who are not big on blogging yet who belong in these conversations.)

For now you can follow the conversation we are all having online, via the hashtag, #SeeMaui.
Tweet #SeeMaui