Princess Cruises’ Facebook Travel Contest May Sink the Ship
In the last month or so, I've received a half dozen Facebook Travel Contests offering all kinds of wonderful trips to the winner.
One came from Queensland, Australia, a solid contest that was rendered irrelevant by the horrific floods there.
Then there was the Carnival Cruise Lines Facebook promo we reported on at Technorati Travel, and now, Princess Cruises has just launched a Facebook Contest for the “Best Travel Bucket Story.”
Princess is using Facebook the way all clever travel marketers use the social media giant: They’re asking travelers to submit their stories either as text, images or video.
The public gets to vote the most inspiring experience, and the person with the highest number of votes gets to choose his/her “dream cruise vacation.”
No question, these are great prizes.
The winner gets a 10-18 day cruise to their chosen destination — Europe, Asia, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Alaska..you get the idea.
And most importantly, not just the cruise is free, the airfare is too. For two.
The “travel bucket list” idea is really “marketspeak” for a travel wish list, the kind of thing that Jan Swartz, executive VP of Princess Cruises says represents the “kind of experience everyone should do at least once in their lifetime.”
The idea stems from Princess’ Cruises popular, 50 Essential Experiences where the company’s well-traveled employees share their favorite or most impressive travel events.
So what’s my problem?
However compelling the destinations are, Princess is asking me to give up a lot.
A hopeful contestant goes to Princess’ Facebook page and has his or her video or text ready to submit.
Then the contestant pulls down the “Contest Tab”, then the “Submit Tab”, and here’s what Princess is asking them to allow:
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