Where are the national tourism boards now and which ones are the most social-media engaged?
The answer is Australia (1), Spain (2) and New Zealand (3), according a just-released study by WAYN's (Where are you now?) research unit, WAYN Insights.
Here are the tallies, which accounted for the destination marketing organizations' Facebook "likes," Twitter followers and, of course, WAYN followers:
Australia, with more than 1.6 million likes and followers, bested second place Spain, with its nearly 420,000 likes and followers, with the data counted through June 14, 2011.
The fourth place finisher in the survey was South African Tourism, with 272,540 likes and followers, and WAYN revealed it just signed a three-year, multimillion dollar advertising agreement with the DMO. The precise dollar figure was not disclosed.
WAYN, a travel social media and lifestyle site, has had a marketing partnership with South African Tourism since 2009, and under the terms of the extended agreement, WAYN will promote South Africa Tourism on a WAYN dedicated microsite, the company says.
South African Tourism, of course, got a nice boost from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and the DMO says its WAYN marketing agreement is part of a broader mobile and social media campaign.
"The relationship is set to be the lifeblood of the larger campagn," says William Price, who heads e-marketing at South Africa Tourism. "It will not only give us access to a world of consumers, but it will also give us research data and metrics to help keep our campaign relevant, our destination compelling and our arrivals growing."
As part of the marketing partnership, WAYN, headquartered in London, is to provide South African Tourism with analytics pertaining to the microsite, WAYN says.
Rounding out the top 10 social-media engaged DMOs are Croatia (5), Ireland (6), Thailand (7), Singapore (8), Netherlands (9) and Iceland (10).