Best examples of travel companies using Pinterest

Last month, Pinterest released a new travel-focused feature called Place Pins, which lets Pinterest users create their own maps and mark places of interest when planning a trip.

Travel companies quickly created their own dedicated sections because Pinterest wanted a bunch of strong publishing partners to prove the potential of the feature. Pinterest even launched a special section aggregation page to show how to use this new feature.

Pinterest is currently looking into ways to make the service more useful:

Official statement: "Place Pins is Pinterest's first attempt in the travel industry. Our Pins in other fields cover products, articles, movies, recipes, etc. The Pins launched this time are the same as them. We want to make them more feasible in real life. We hope that Place Pins will be helpful to you, and we can't wait to see your new place section."

Here is a summary of some of the most successful location sections:

RoadTripper——“Continuing the American Road Legend”

Road trip planning startup Roadtrippers has one of the most successful Place Pins boards on Pinterest.

The section was integrated directly into the Roadtrippers blog, adding a well-designed map of the region and focusing on telling readers what they could get from each “Pin.” Not only did this section become a major source of traffic to their official blog, it also helped them establish their brand as design experts in the road trip field.

Each dot can be connected to form a complete road trip route. They involve the reader, encouraging them to explore every marked place on the map, which is what makes the United States a perfect country for a road trip.

AFAR - "Best Market"

AFAR Magazine uses their section to promote their unique approach to travel experiences: beautiful photos, vacation travel planning tips, and well-written content all come together to outline the most vibrant market locations around the world.

AFAR uses the social networking site Foursquare to introduce interesting markets everywhere, providing another way to organize information. Through other comments on Foursquare, AFAR can reach other user groups and expand its reputation in the tourism industry.

Conde Nast Traveler - "The World's Top 100 Hotels"

We like this section because it turns a well-known list into an easily explorable visual format. The Places section seems like a perfect fit for this kind of extension, and it also saves companies from having to invest in their own map interface.

Conde Nast Traveler also links each hotel back to their official website, allowing users to learn more about each hotel and bringing high-quality traffic to the company.

Airbnb - "Love in Tokyo"

Airbnb has taken a direct approach to integrating local knowledge from hosts into the map. This not only reinforces their own brand positioning and the value of staying with hosts, but also gives certain hosts more exposure to promote their products and their favorite places.

VisitBritain - United Nations World Cultural and Natural Heritage

VisitBritain cleverly promotes the country's UNESCO World Heritage Sites in this section. Through dedicated themed map sections, this national destination section highlights themes that fit the country's attractions.

They do this with a lot of things: the best fish and chips in the UK, the best concerts, the UK's historic areas... the list goes on. All destination organisations and destination activity businesses should take advantage of this opportunity.

via: traveldaily