Tourism Jasper launched a social media campaign called #MyJasper to encourage visitors to share their experiences in Jasper, Alberta on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Through their use of Hootsuite's social media management tools, Tourism Jasper was able to gather over 12,000 user-generated photos tagged with #MyJasper within a year, driving large increases in traffic and engagement. They also used social media to directly refer customers to local businesses, helping to increase sales for their shareholders. The successful #MyJasper campaign established an engaged online community that promotes travel to Jasper.

1. CASE STUDY: TOURISM JASPER
CaseStudy:
TourismJasper
Promoting Tourism through Social
Tourism Jasper turns fleeting interactions with travelers over social media
into engaging stories that promote travel to Jasper, Alberta, drive referral
traffic to shareholders, and build a community of ambassadors.
inspirational customer-
generated stories
through the Instagram
hashtag #MyJasper
increase in social
referrals to their website
year over year
increase in shareholder
referral from social
media year over year
12,000 185% 211%
#
Tourism Jasper
Tourism Jasper is the destination marketing organization that promotes
travel to Jasper, Alberta, Canada. They provide information on travel,
accommodation, dining, and recreation opportunities throughout Jasper
and its national park.
What They Did
Tourists increasingly want to hear opinions and real stories from other
travelers. Recognizing this, Tourism Jasper has strategically organized
social and digital media to support online communities of travelers. They
share user-generated content across social media and their website,
which acts as an online hub to support conversations around Jasper
National Park and Jasper’s many offerings. The organization can then
connect, build trusting relationships with travelers, and increase referrals
to their shareholders that support business growth.

2. CASE STUDY: TOURISM JASPER
To encourage visitors to share their stories and experiences in these
channels, Tourism Jasper used Hootsuite to launch an ongoing
campaign that would build a community around the hashtag,
#MyJasper.
How They Did It
Within weeks of promoting the #MyJasper campaign on their owned
channels, Tourism Jasper received hundreds of Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook photos and anecdotes, each telling its own story of a
traveler’s experience.
With effective listening in Hootsuite, Tourism Jasper sources, categorizes,
and shares much of the user-generated content on their own channels.
Using Hootsuite’s geo-location and geo-targeting functions, they can
either source conversations in the area or share regional-specific
content to users nearby. They also set up keyword and hashtag
search streams to catch messages about their brand, campaigns, and
the industry in general. Going one step further, the IconoSquare for
Instagram integration in Hootsuite sources location-based photographs,
which allows Tourism Jasper to find images from travelers who didn’t tag
#MyJasper. They can then notify these contributors of the campaign and
seek their participation for future posts.
The organization can then jump into conversations to engage and
suggest extra places to see, stay, or activities to do, which helps them
meet their mandate of increasing shareholder referrals to improve
their sales. For example, if a customer is interested in learning more
about skiing options in Jasper, the organization can refer the customer
by @mentioning a shareholder directly.
“The Iconosquare app
allows us to source
relevant tags such as
#JasperNationalPark
or #Jasper and
encourage those
fans to re-tag
their photos with
#MyJasper so that
other travelers can
find and engage with
them. We noticed
an immediate spike
in traffic and have
grown from 0 to
well over 10,000
photos tagged with
#MyJasper in just
over 1 year!”
Kyle Harms, Digital Marketing Specialist,
Tourism Jasper

3. CASE STUDY: TOURISM JASPER
The Results
Because of great branding and community management with
Hootsuite, thousands of travelers–whether in the planning, traveling,
or post trip phase–know where to turn to source or share stories,
tips, and photos on Jasper. Today, #MyJasper has cultivated a highly
engaged community that drives awareness back to Jasper’s many
offerings and encourages travel and sharing.
With over two million visitors annually, it’s essential for Tourism Jasper
to have a savvy social media strategy.
In 2013 alone, they drove 573,000 Facebook traffic referrals, up 186%
year over year and 749,000 Twitter traffic referrals, up 183.7% year
over year. Tourism Jasper continues to grow, seeing a 272% increase in
engagement in continued quarterly growth.
Hootsuite helps them turn social media interactions into meaningful
relationships by sourcing customer stories and getting them in front of
the right audience, at the right time.
“A woman tweeted
#MyJasper, asking
if we could send her
a picture of a local
mountain. After we
responded with an
image, soon after
the woman tweeted
back a photo of her
son’s nursery where
she’d painted the
mountain, to remind
her of the place that
is near to her heart
and share it with
her son. Now an
advocate for life, she
plans to visit with her
son one day, to show
him the mountain in
real life.”
Kyle Harms, Digital Marketing Specialist,
Tourism Jasper