VirtualTourist est l'un des "Online travel guides" les plus populaires du web. L'un des pionniers du travel 2.0, le contenu du site généré par les internautes est particulièrement impressionnant en quantité et qualité.

Giampiero Ambrosi nous en dit plus sur VirtualTourist et le Travel 2.0

>Giampiero, can you tell some information about you?

My name is Giampiero Ambrosi. I'm the General Manager of VirtualTourist. We are not big on titles or hierarchy here at VT, but I have been here, pretty much since the beginning and have lots of day to day experience with the site and the community. It's a job and a position I love very much. I am a dual citizen of the US and Italy having spent time in both places growing up (Kansas, Sardinia, Trentino). My background is as a writer, and documentary field producer. I attended Brown University where I studied Comparative Literature and especially poetics. I live in California which I truly love for the wide open spaces, Mediterranean climate, great wine, and wonderful scenery.

>You manage a great travel site, VirtualTourist, Can you tell us the story and some fact about it?

Sure. VirtualTourist was started in 1998 when American, J.R. Johnson, met Tilman Reissfelder in Karlsruhe Germany. JR was a travel-loving attorney, and Tilman was a top student at the technical university of Karlsruhe Germany. Tilman had recently scraped his pennies together to purchase the URL virtualtourist.com which was the first web page he had ever seen. In those days it was a project at the University of Buffalo, NY and had a clickable map (the first clickable map ever on the web it's said) showing the location of internet servers around the world. Tilman and JR decided that it would be interesting to turn that URL into a site that gathered the experience, stories, advice and friendship of travelers worldwide. I joined them in early 2000 after meeting them while I was working on a similar site here in Los Angeles. We firmly anchored the site on the principles of community, friendship, openness with an especially strong focus on quality of content. Some sites grew faster, or sold out, but I don't believe they ever will or can produce the real travelers, real info that is the slogan of VT.

Right now VirtualTourist is the largest independent user generated travel site in the world. Its real strength is in the strong bond and commitment that the community has formed. There are VirtualTourist member meetings gathering in a dozen cities just this week. Places like Cairo, Manila, Paris, Melbourne, Singapore, Dubai, Munich.

By the numbers I can tell you the following :

• 835,000 registered members from more than 220 countries and territories
• 1.4 million travel tips on more than 25,000 locations worldwide
• 2.7 million photos
• 2 million mapped destinations
• 85% of forum questions are answered
• Dozens of VirtualTourist meetings happen every week around the globe
• 25 VirtualTourist marriages (that we know of!)
• 5 million unique users per month*
• 30 million page views per month*

We think VirtualTourist is special not just because of the content that it provides, but mostly because of the worldwide network of friends and fellow travelers the site puts at your fingerips.




>Can you give us some outline about your goals with VirtualTourist!

Our goals is to continue to provide the best place to research travel, share travel, and make friends. In 2007, there will be fundamental and through going improvement of the site. Essentially moving it from a much-loved and used legacy site, into not just a Web 2.0 site, but farther beyond that as well.

>Who use VirtualTourist ? Any special profile and country for VirtualTourist community?

VirtualTourist is used by pretty much anyone who travels, wants to travel, or just wants to travel vicariously. Most of our users are researching travels. Our members are from 220 countries and territories around the globe. There is a pretty much even split between men and women. About 50% of visitors are from the North America, and the rest are from around the world, chiefly in Europe, Asia and Oceania, with South America, Africa and the middle east pretty well represented. VirtualTourist encompasses many different kinds of travelers ; from Luxury travelers, to backpackers, though we certainly skew towards very high demographics. Our age range is very wide with a majority of people in their 20s to 50s. I think the common element among all the people at VT is that they are people who want to get real, unbiased information and not just the usual blah blah blah that you find in magazines and brochures.

>Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. What do you think about this evolution in the tourism & hotel market place ? Word-of-mouth marketing and User Generated Content are the big trends for Travel 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 is a kind of a buzz word that means a lot and nothing, depending on who you talk to. Many people use the term without any idea whatsoever about what it might mean. I certainly don't know what the agreed upon term refers to. But I think, Web 2.0 can be seen in two different ways in my opinion. On the one hand, there are wonderful technologies, and developments that make using websites a much more rewarding experience - like some of the things you ask about below. On the other hand, I think Web 2.0 is just the concrete realization of many things that we have been doing a long time. Things like creating and using networks of people. Allowing people to collaborate on shared contribution. Layering of off the shelf technologies to create personalized features.

VT has been in the forefront of these developments from the beginning of Web 1.0, let alone 2.0. We were among the first to develop the idea of user generated content and to predict some of the issues that would be faced now. Things like the integrity of content. Freely provided content versus paid content. The insistence on putting a personal face, and profile behind each piece of content. Some places like TripAdvisor are struggling now with some of these issues. Hotel owners or competitors writing reviews. Having to pay people for much of their content etc.

>We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast, blog, socialnetworking tools, Google mashup,Vidéo etc), what is your point of view ? Do you plan to put vidéo on VirtualTourist ?

All of these technologies are extremely useful will be put in place with VirtualTourist upcoming developments. It's obvious, but I think they key is to offer something of real value and a real service and not just another 'cool' application.

>What about your developpment and project. No more language for VirtualTourist ?

2007 will be a very exciting year for us. We have purposely resisted partitioning VT into various language groups. We feel that the strength of a place like VirtualTourist can lie in the shared attention of the wider community ; encouraging people to share as much commonality as possible. So instead of breaking the site up into a bunch of language, or special interest compartments, we encourage everyone to come together. If that means using a lingua franca which today happens to be English...that's fine. We love to have the community enriched by as many people and cultures as possible, but it can only help to build bridges if we try to get everyone speaking to everyone else. I myself am a big enthusiast of dialects and local languages - but we have to have some shared way in which to speak to each other.




>Any advise for partners who want to work with VirtualTourist ?

I would say the key is to keep things compelling and simple, and not just focused on money. Ultimately, the most successful partnerships from a finanancial standpoint are the ones that are much motivated by what we can bring to our members and researchers. We have a VERY close relationship with our community and are in constant contact with them. We like delighting them, making them stop and say wow, or thank you. That kind of attachment is more valuable than any quick buck and ultimately more successful.

>Can DMO's and Tourism Board become VirtualTourist Partners ?

Yes, definitely. We have worked with many tourist boards, and convention bureaus. We do draw a very firm line between promotions and our content, but we do understand that many locations want to bring themselves to the attention of travelers.

>Any advises for people who start to use VirtualTourist !

Enjoy the site. Get to know people, make friends. A fantastic world will open up to those who are looking for it. I can't tell you the number of people who tell me all the time about VirtualTourist literally changed their lives. It may be because, with the help and encouragement they received from VT members, they finally got the nerve to go on that big trip by themselves. It could be because they made contact with a friend in a remote location. The more you approach it with a travelers spirit, the more will become possible.

>What are your taste for:

>Travel:

I am a big fan of the open road - unplanned adventures. Seeing the real life of a place I visit. Trying to understand the mental climate of a place.

>Travel destination:

At the moment I am yearning for South East Asia. Sentimentally, I remember the genuine, rural Italy of my childhood in the 1970s. It's an irony that at the moment our travels are somewhat limited by our work on new developments.

>Hotel :

There is a secret spot in the central coast of California where I have recently purchased a small plot of land. It's a small town with one inn, a great restaurant, a coffee shop, and one pub. It's the one spot I keep to myself.

>Business:

I prefer informal straight talk with creative, intelligent people rather than big talk about lots of $$$.

>You have the micro

Thanks for allowing me to talk about VT. I wish you success with your interesting blog.

Merci Giampiero.