The Land of Valencia tourism board brought in some high-profile bloggers to sample the wonders of Spain and the event organizers are using a mash-up of Gowalla check-ins and Google Maps to document the event with a real-time feed.
BlogTripF1, which will end with a visit to the Formula One European Grand Prix in Valencia, uses Brilliant Travel Media's Destination Travel Tool, described as a "social Web application allowing mapping, following and combining travel bloggers' Gowalla real-time activities and check-ins around hosted blog trips to featured destinations."
This is the first application of the tool, which New York-based DataArt developed for Brilliant Travel Media.
You can take a look at the tool in action for BlogTripF1 here. A static image of the page looks like the following:
Images and profiles of the featured bloggers appear on the left side of the page, their locations appear on the Google Map, and a running feed of their Gowalla check-ins, images and content is displayed at the right.
Brilliant Travel Media views the technology as a "destination storytelling tool" which can be used for any blogging-attended destination events.
Press trips may never be the same.