Skift Take
The travel alerts and warnings which used to be simply posted online, are a lot more instant with Twitter. Savvy foreign offices like the ones in U.S. and UK are taking over a lot of minor functions that embassies did in the past.
Travelers increasingly turn to Twitter as a lifeline on the road. They know about flight delays before gate attendants, can find out hotel Wi-Fi rates before arrival, and crowdsource tips for the best local restaurants.
Travelers can also turn to Twitter to quickly contact their home governments for help when violence breaks out or a natural disaster is headed straight for their resort.
Over the past four years, the governments of the U.S., UK, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Israel have set up Twitter accounts to share travel alerts, answer citizens' questions when abroad, and clear up passport or visa confusion.
Using Skift's social intelligence platform SkiftSocial, we looked at each of the departments' travel-focused Twitter accounts to get an idea of who's doing it best. We only look at English-language accounts, but other countries including France have travel-focused Twitter accounts as well.
COUNTRY
TWITTER FOLLOWERS
NUMBER OF TWEETS
DAILY TWEET RATE (PAST 2 WEEKS)
REPLIES & RETWEETS (%)
ACTIVE SINCE
U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs @TravelGov
352,576
2,741
1.9
63
July 2008
Israel Foreign Ministry's Digital Diplomacy Team @Israel
108
