Time Out reports…

According to a study by Expedia, the average vacationer spends nine hours of a one-week-long trip browsing social media.

Time Out is a gig listing and entertainment magazine in bigger cities. I happened to notice the article while I was enjoying time in Chicago earlier this week. Their article goes on to introduce an app to help people stay offline while on vacation…

Stay Off Social, a new tool developed by Expedia that seeks to minimize the time people spend online while traveling by basically automizing the posting process. The tool first asks you to input your vacation data (destination, travel dates) and the amount of times you’d like to update your various profiles (options: every day or every two days). You’ll then choose from a series of generic photos and captions and program the tool to post on your behalf.

I have a different spin. Minnesota is home to great communities, resorts, restaurants, tourist sites. A fantastic way to promote your area to tourists is to get tourists to talk about you to their friends at home. So first – they need the broadband to do that. If you know your location is in a cell dead zone, it would be wise to offer WiFi.

Also make it easy to share info on your location. If you do have WiFi – be sure to include a login page with something fun to share on social media. A picture of notable attractions, a fun fact or video. (And make sure they can share it with the click of a button to multiple social media channels.) Invite people to follow you on multiple social media channels – and if they do mention you, especially if they tag you, be sure to interact. Like or comment on their post. Get the whole community involved by teaching them how to better use social media and encouraging folks to make it easy to interact and make it a point to interact. (You see someone posts a picture of the statue on Main Street – like it!)

I used to work with a lot of resorts. I know teens can be a tough market to reach – especially for family vacations. Social media can be an especially good way to reach them.

One clever thing I saw (not necessarily for teens) in Chicago – many statues around time have stories you can access by scanning a QR Code or visiting a specific website. (Check out what the lion at the Art Institute of Chicago.