Say you're in an unfamiliar part of the commonwealth and you get a craving for a cheeseburger. Or you're just driving through a place you've never been and want to know the best place to stop for brunch. Pennsylvania's tourism office just made it easier for travelers to find the state's best eats.
On Feb. 1 the tourism office began its partnership with Foodspotting, a social-media site where diners rate individual dishes and post photos of them. Foodies can check Foodspotting to learn what is good at a particular restaurant, mark entrees they want to try and get recommendations based on their tastes. Time named it one of its 50 best websites in 2010, and visitors' bureaus in Philadelphia and Bucks County also have a presence on the site.
“We'd been seeing a lot of Foodspotting in the press,” says Mary Bethea, director of social media for the Pennsylvania Tourism Office. “We came to find out that two of the three co-founders were from Pennsylvania.”
Foodspotting users can now follow four guides the state tourism office created for eating across the state. They're focused on beer, wine, candy and farmers' markets. Bethea notes that Pennsylvania tourism is already successful on social media, given its more than 55,000 “likes” on Facebook and the popularity of its first-of-its-kind Groundhog Day badge on Foursquare. Plans call for new Foodspotting guides to be released every other month.
Source: Mary Bethea, Pennsylvania Tourism Office
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen