Interesting idea from a group of travel bloggers aimed at raising the profile of New Zealand following the massive earthquake in the city of Christchurch in February 2011.
The Blog4Nz project runs from today until Wednesday (23 March) and is a grassroots, social media campaign to encourage travellers to continue to visit the country despite the big headlines and dramatic footage and images from Christchurch after the 6.3-level quake.
The project is being organised by a quartet of well known travel bloggers (Jim McIntosh from Holes in My Soles, John Reese from the French Way Travel Blog, Craig Martin from the Indie Travel Podcast and Dan Roberts from Travel Generation) and has also attracted the attention of businesses and mainstream travel groups.
The idea is to encourage bloggers and travel websites around the world to publish an article about New Zealand over the course of the three days, highlighting some of the sights and attractions of the country and urging travellers to not be put off by the earthquake.
Martin is estimating around 300 contributions will be made over course of the event, the seeds of which were first sewn via a Facebook page and the tireless efforts of the organising team to get people involved.
"It's exciting to see people pull together like this, especially in the strange and wonderful world of travel blogging, where everyone has such a unique point of view and the platform to share it from.
"There's still a lot to be done for the people of Christchurch - things there are by no means back to normal - but there's little to no impact for visitors, apart for missing some sightseeing in the central city. New Zealand is very definitely open to visitors."
The project is also being touted as the first time a grassroots social media initiative has managed to secure massive support from a string of high profile organisation, including Virgin Blue, Air New Zealand, Tourism New Zealand - the latter which is pulling into tweets from the event to its Facebook page.
Since the Blog4NZ project was conceived, Japan has faced its own series of natural disasters (and the subsequent problems at a major nuclear power plant), causing widespread damage and the death of thousands of people.
When asked last week if the Blog4NZ would be altered following the earthquake and tsunami, Martin said the situation in Japan was very different and such a promotion therefore not appropriate, especially as a humanitarian effort was still required on the ground, rather than an influx of tourists.
NB: Follow the coverage at Blog4NZ on Facebook or #blog4NZ on Twitter.
NB2: Here is a clip of Martin explaining the project on New Zealand radio last week:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqyxBTXxAk