The Canadamigos Social Network hits 1,000 members and counting. Canadá en Español goes 2.0.

Canadamigos.com is a new social network launched late December 2007 by the Canadá en Español Network. The site is intended to foster travel to and within Canada through friendship among Canadians, Hispanic-Canadians and Hispanics around the world. This past weekend, Canadamigos reached and surpassed 1,000 members from many countries including Canada, the USA, Mexico, Spain, Argentina and others. Members communicate in Spanish, English and French. Membership is free for individuals but all memberships need to be approved first.
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The idea for a social network like Canadamigos had been brewing in my head for several months before its launch. Throughout 2007 I had been reading about Web 2.0 and Social Media in tourism. Social Media and Social Networking became the new buzz words for the tourism industry. Marketing experts began to pay attention to consumers' conversations online - reviews, blog posts, discussions, forums (e.g. Tripadvisor, WAYN, VirtualTourist, Facebook). Many hoteliers and destinations began to realize the power of these conversations (positive and negative). Tourism businesses were encouraged to "Participate in the Conversation" as a means to protect or enhance their reputations and the phrase Social Media Marketing was (and still is) constantly referred to as the must do for online marketers.

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Knowing Hispanics around the world are very interested in Canada and witnessing the growth of inbound Hispanic tourism markets to Canada as well as continued traffic growth from the Canada en Español websites I did not worry that maybe I would not find a sufficient number of members, but rather whether the investment and effort involved in launching, managing, monitoring and contributing to the network would be worth it. After reading more about this issue in the blogosphere (e.g. Sponsorships on Social Networks -Niche Social Networks Will Continue To Be Hot In 2008 - Social Media is the Future of the Travel Industry) and feeling the pressure from my own marketing juices, I decided to go ahead.

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Two of my fellow Tips From the T-List bloggers, Vicky Brock and Stephen Budd define Web 2.0/Travel 2.0 as "Community, interactivity, reciprocity, two-way marketing conversation, the long tail, create, modify, self-publish, user generated content, rich media, collaboration," and "Technically: blogs, RSS, flash media (no flash = no YouTube). Economically: (almost) zero cost to entry. Socially: critical mass of chatterers." (Tracking Tourism: The Tourism Research Blog: Travel 2.0: what does it mean and do you need to care? )

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All the elements mentioned by Vicky and Stephen are present in one way or another in Canadamigos. People are interacting, asking questions, participating in groups (e.g. Travel Within Canada Group, Toronto Group, Adventure Tourism Group, Canadian Culture Group, etc). However, we're just in the early stages. The next stage is to achieve the support of the supply and DMO side of the Canadian Tourism Industry. The vision is to create a platform where consumer generated content interacts and complements professional content, where consumers can find great options for travel to Canada and within Canada and tourism businesses can "participate in the conversation" and attract new customers and repeat customers (long tail).

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In future posts I will describe how Canadamigos is doing and provide examples of the Web 2.0/Travel 2.0 elements mentioned above.

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Saludos,

Jaime Horwitz

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