Former Mayoral Candidates Tom Knox, Bill Peduto and Nevin Mindlin should check out the urban scavenger hunt game Foursquare sometime. Because while their aspirations to lead Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, respectively, may have come up a little short, that doesnt mean they cant still be mayor someday. Foursquare allows users to check in at different restaurants or shops from their cell phone and earn badges for frequent attendance or adventurous exploring. Go to the same place enough and you will be named the “mayor.” And while Foursquare may not have the power that a traditional mayor has, a new partnership may see the game revitalizing Pennsylvania communities in the months to come.
This week, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office launched a partnership with Foursquare, creating 3 new badges that visitors can earn in their travels and making PA the first state to team with the social networking site. The partnership offers businesses the opportunity to create rewards and get in the game. Within hours of the announcement, Deputy Secretary of Tourism Mickey Rowleys inbox was flooded with requests from regions like the Susquehanna River Valley, which added 20 destinations on the first day.
Our hope is, by promoting it through social media, that we can get families from our surrounding drive markets who might have some familiarity with Foursquare to think this sounds like fun, says Rowley.
The Tourism Offices official website VisitPA.com has partnered with Foursquare to create 3 new badges: PA Shooflyer (for recommended eateries), PA Retail Polka (for recommended shopping) and PA 4Score&7 (for recommended historical landmarks). Using a model pioneered by Chicago, VisitPA has applied the online travelogue game to an entire state, broadening the spectrum of social medias impact on tourism.
“We have been pretty cutting edge on social media. I believe we were the first state to tweet, and we continue to rank in the top 3 in terms of followers on twitter. We had a state-wide campaign where we had bloggers traveling around the state and blogging about it,” says Rowley. “Big city sites like Chicago have done things like this but for states to do that kind of thing is a little bit more complex. But we have been out there among the first on a lot of these different things.”
Source: Mickey Rowley, Pennsylvania Tourism Office
Writer: John Steele