Online media is changing the way we travel

Based on our group meeting, I think we have all landed on producing our feature as an independent blog on the way online media is changing travel. 

Essentially, our feature will investigate how online media platforms are changing the way we travel, with a specific focus on TripAdvisor, Thorntree, Couch Surfer, CoLunching and Airbnb.

This has been narrowed down from our original plan, where we considered also looking at social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Now, instead of using social media in our analysis, we will focus on the online platforms I have listed above, looking at the way in which they have changed the way people travel, engage with travel and connect with other travellers.

Including social media in our analysis would have just been too much content for the purposes of our web feature. However, social media still offers some exciting opportunities to engage with other travelers and attract our target audience to our blog.

By focusing our research on online platforms, we can use case studies, comparisons and interviews to explore how they are changing travel.

We could manipulate an image like this for our web feature presentation?

We can also focus on engaging with travellers, experts and bloggers via interviews and case studies for the purposes of our research, as well as offering them advice through our independent, practical analysis of each online travel platform.

This isn't something that any other travel blog actually does - as they tend to focus on the destination, as opposed to using online travel sites to plan a trip, connect with travellers, and review a trip afterwards. This will be our key point of difference.

Moving on, we need to confirm our target audience, research existing publications and features, develop a plan to engage with our target audience via social media and work out our design plan for the blog.

Given we will be providing independent travel advice via the 'how to' guides, it is vital we also establish ourselves as legitimate travel advisers like they do at the Lonely Planet for example. Here is a link to their author page. We could copy this sort of format and give a background of our own travel experiences and amusing stories as well.

Cheers,
Sam