Tourism Victoria, the official tourism board for Melbourne, has taken destination marketing to a whole new level with its Remote Control Tourist initiative.
Google Street View is one of the best thing that has happened in travel industry to experience a place before even going. But, let's not forget that its an offline-view - meaning, it's instantly outdated content.
So, how about making Street View a LIVE environment? This is exactly what Tourism Victoria's Remote Control Tourist (RCT) is all about.
There are two real people ("tourists") by the name Tom and Lucy in the city, equipped with helmet-mounted cameras, microphones, GPS and some mobile live streaming technology, who then take instructions from users on where they have to go, and what they have to do in the city.
On the RCT website, users will login via Twitter or Facebook to send instructions, such as "Take a picture with the artists in the bar", "taste the green tea and give your feedback", "walk on a particular street" etc.
Both these travellers will be at different locations, it could be a restaurant, a bar, coffee joint, shopping mall etc.
Users can select the live-camera stream (from Tom/Lucy) which they want to watch. Instructions sent from users are displayed in a Facebook Newsfeed-style in the right hand side.
Below screen grab shows The Basics team performing a song (in a cafe) that is live streamed via Tom's camera.
It's not just video in the live stream, both travellers give a live commentary on what they are doing, with users able to hear their discussion with others in a location.
RCT also allows users to select point of interests in Melbourne and display them in a map. Users will be able to click on a pin in the map to read details about the place, read what other users have instructed the travellers to do at that place, and send their instruction too.
To make this initiative get more exposure, RCT has made every instruction that a user passes on to Tom/Lucy get posted into the user's Twitter/Facebook page, along with the hashtag #MelbourneRCT.
RCT is scheduled every day between October 9 and 13, from 12 pm to 8 pm Australian EDT. In today's RCT show, users asked Tom/Lucy to walk into places of their interest, take pictures with musicians (this was Tnooz's request, and it was executed LIVE), have a drink and talk to somebody at a cafe.
Users get a first hand experience on various point of interests at Melbourne even before arriving at the city.
Another closest example of RCT could be the #DeinBerliner” campaign by Lufthansa, where the carrier appointed an Instagrammer by the name of Lisa to go to all places in Berlin that the Instagram community suggested. Lisa took picture at each location and shared the content, obviously, via Instagram.