This document analyzes data from 283 European tourism offices' usage of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. It finds that 92% have a Facebook account with nearly 8 million total likes, and the top 3 destinations are Amsterdam, Lisbon and London. On Twitter, 81% have accounts with 1.5 million total followers, led by London, Manchester and Amsterdam. The document provides tips for tourism offices to strengthen participation on social media, such as being online, connected, creative, honest and curious.

1. EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES
& SOCIAL NETWORKS
How to promote participation through Social Media?

2. OUR ACTIONS
 We connect tourism offices in Europe together and with travellers all
over the world.
 Develop online information related to the main tourism offices in
Europe.
 Share information about the various tourist offices via our major social
networks.
 Collect data related to the development of e-tourism in Europe and
provide this data to tourism offices to help them understand and
improve their presence on social networks.
 Organize, each year, the election of "Best European Destination",
an event which has been attracting hundreds of thousands of
visitors since 2009.
 Provide ad-hoc travel guides online.

3. A STUDY OF E-TOURISM
Performance benchmarking and content analysis of 283 destination marketing organizations on
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google +, Instagram, and Pinterest. Tourism offices included :

4. OUT OF 283 EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY, 92% HAVE A
FACEBOOK ACCOUNT FOR A TOTAL OF NEARLY 8 MILLION OF LIKES.

5. THE 3 MOST POPULAR DESTINATIONS ON FACEBOOK ARE AMSTERDAM,
LISBON AND LONDON.
These 3 tourism offices represent
1,655,333 likes or 21% of the total of likes.
The 10 most popular destinations on
Facebook represent 2,708,723 likes or 34%
of the total of likes of this study.
Top 10 : Amsterdam, Lisbon, London,
Strasbourg, Vienna, Paris, Val Thorens,
Florence, Madrid, Zurich.

6.  THE MOST « LIKED » AND « SHARED » POSTS ON THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF
AMSTERDAM (N°1 ON FACEBOOK) ARE PHOTOS ABOUT THE CITY ITSELF,
FUN AND FOOD.
 NONE OF THESE PHOTOS BELONG TO THE CITY OF AMSTERDAM, THESE
ARE PHOTOS FROM FOLLOWERS, TRAVELLERS, PARTNERS.

7. OUT OF 283 EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY, 228 OR 81 % HAVE
A TWITTER ACCOUNT FOR A TOTAL OF NEARLY 1,5 MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS.

8. THE 3 MOST POPULAR TOURISM OFFICES ON TWITTER ARE LONDON,
MANCHESTER AND AMSTERDAM.
These 3 tourism offices represent 345,178
followers or 25% of the total of followers on
Twitter for this study
The 10 most popular destinations on Twitter
represent 573,145 followers or 41% of the total
of followers. .
Top 10: London, Manchester, Amsterdam,
Sevilla, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Paris, Belfast,
Leeds, Bristol.

9. VISIT LONDON (N°1 ON TWITTER) SHARES ALL KINDS OF INFORMATION: THEATRE, ACCESSIBILITY
FOR DISABLED PEOPLE, PHOTO CONTESTS, PHOTOS OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL
OBSERVATORY, SPORTS NEWS (BBC…) AND NOT ONLY INFORMATION ON TOURISM.
A BIG PART OF ITS CONTENT COME FROM OTHER TWITTER ACCOUNTS, THIS IS PROBABLY THE
BEST THING TO DO IN ORDER TO CREATE A REAL NETWORK OF FOLLOWERS.
Good practices on Twitter :
- Adapted Header and logo : go on
- Post every day
- Follow all kinds of profiles and share their infos about your destination

10. YOUTUBE (CREATED IN 2005 AND OWNED BY GOOGLE SINCE 2006) IS THE
SECOND SOCIAL NETWORK MOST USED BY EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES
INCLUDED IN THIS STUDY (USED BY 82% OF THEM).
THE TOP 10 IS : SEVILLA, LONDON, MADRID, HELSINKI, LA PLAGNE,
COPENHAGEN, VAL THORENS, DUBLIN, SÖLDEN, AMSTERDAM.

11. THE EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY WITH A YOUTUBE ACCOUNT REACH A
TOTAL OF 24,116,936 VIEWS AND HAVE 66,271 SUBSCRIBERS.
THE MEAN VIDEOS PER ACCOUNT IS 46 AND THE MEAN VIEWS PER VIDEOS IS 3,845
VIEWS/VIDEOS.

12. GOOD PRACTICES ON YOUTUBE:
SHORT VIDEOS WITH YOUR STRONG SPOTS
HEADER ADAPTED TO THE FORMAT
THE LOGO OF YOUR TOURISM OFFICE (IN FULL, WELL-CUT)
A TAGLINE

13. WHY SHOULD YOU BE ON GOOGLE + ?
GOOGLE REALLY ENJOY WHEN PEOPLE USE THEIR TOOLS (GOOGLE+, GOOGLE MAPS,
GOOGLE 360° VIEWS,…) AND SO THEY WILL GIVE YOU A BETTER RANKING ON GOOGLE.COM
75% of European Tourism Offices of this
study have a Google + account for a mean
344 subscribers per account.
The 3 most popular accounts totalise
43,810 subscribers or more than 60 % of
the subscribers
Top 3 on Google + : London, Bilbao and
Bastia

14. INSTAGRAM
The 3 most popular destinations on Instagram are Copenhagen, Oslo and
Stockholm
From February 2014 to October 2014 their number of followers grew by
300% ( from 21,000 to 63,000 followers)
Instagram is a network with new users every day.

15. EXAMPLE OF GOOD PRACTICE ON INSTAGRAM : The tourism office of Auxerre, in
France, organized a whole day dedicated to Instagram. The tourist office invited their
Iinstagram followers but also local professional photographers , winemakers (they
offered wine !) and the media and they just walked through the streets of Auxerre all
day. (Photowalk).
- Total cost : 200 euros (for flyers),
- The photos are now in the “images bank” of the tourism office.
- This allows to move from virtual to real, to strengthen the network
and to make people real ambassadors of this destination.

16. PINTEREST
The 3 most popular destinations on Pinterest are Oslo, Gdansk and Berlin.
From February 2014 to October 2014 their number of followers grew by
131% (4489 to 5907 followers).
Ladies love “pinning”: 97% of the Pinterest users are women.

17. PINTEREST IS GENERATING MORE REFERRAL TRAFFIC THAN YOUTUBE,
GOOGLE + AND LINKEDIN…TOGETHER

18. ANALYZE YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKS AND EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF
YOUR CAMPAIGNS OF COMMUNICATION :
E-TOURISM BAROMETER

19. 10 TIPS TO STRENGTHEN PARTICIPATION
THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
10 Tips to strengthen participation through Social Media
 Be online
 Be connected
 Be global
 Be plugged in
 Be social
 Be clean
 Be creative
 Be honest
 Be collective
 Be curious

20. BE ONLINE
More than one out of three EDEN tourism offices members have a Facebook account
(37%) for a total of 75,739 likes.
The 3 most popular destinations are : Karlovac, Clonakilty and Wild Taiga, they represent
28,411 likes or 37,5 % of the total of likes for the EDEN members
16,5% of EDEN members have a Twitter account for a total of 4,565 followers.
The 3 most popular destinations are : Kuldiga, Waterrijk and Loophead, they represent
55% of the total of followers for the EDEN members.
11 % of EDEN members have a Youtube account for a total of 102 subscribers.
The 3 most popular destinations on Youtube are : Karlovac, Bohemian Switzerland and
Sinj, they represent 66% of the Subscribers for the EDEN members.
3% of EDEN members have a Google + account
3% of EDEN members have a Pinterest account
0% of EDEN members have an Instagram account

21. BE CONNECTED
Follow various kinds of pages & accounts (Museums, Artists, Hotels, Photographers).
Share the best information.
Create a real network.

23. Be global
USE ON YOUR WEBSITE

24. Be plugged in
ADD A FACEBOOK SOCIAL PLUGIN ON YOUR WEBSITE

25. Be social
CREATE LINKS INSIDE YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKS .

26. Be clean
TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEADER AND YOUR PROFILE PICTURE, GO ON OR
AND CROP THE PERFECT HEADER AND THE PERFECT PROFILE IMAGE.
USE THE LOGO EDEN IS GREAT USE A CLEAN CUT LOGO IS EVEN BETTER

27. Be clean

28. Be creative
DATABANK IMAGES IMAGE EDITOR

29. Be honest
In order to promote their destination the tourism office in Champagne (France) made a big
campaign (mostly in the airports) with this wonderful picture.
The problem is that these great vineyards are located in the Napa Valley in
California !!(Getty images).

30. Be collective
 Use the EDEN logo in your
communications on your
website, on your business
cards, your email signature, on
your flyers.
 38% of EDEN members display
the logo on their website.

31. BE CURIOUS :
FOLLOWTHE BEST DESTINATIONS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
(Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube)
(Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube)
(Facebook, Google + Twitter)
(Facebook, Youtube)
(Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube)
(Facebook, Twitter, Website, Pinterest)
(Pinterest, Instagram) (Facebook, Google +,)

32. Example of good practice :
Porto – European Best Destinations 2014
Contacted via Facebook
Share on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, Online
media, press & television
Number of online views in 5 days: 105,000 views
Number of online views in six months: 200,000
views
Total of views (Internet + television : +/-
8,500,000 views)
Production cost: 0 euro
Atmos Film Production: Projects for the next 2
years
Porto: +13% of travelers in the first half of 2014.

33.  Be connected
LAST TIPS
 Search for local talents (photographers, video artists)
 Remove the barriers between the real and the virtual
Mobilize all your networks (social networks, press, partners, hotels, dance schools, photographers,
artists, restaurants, national tourism office, …) in order to promote your destination.

34. m.lejeune@europeanbestdestinations.org