Camino Real Cyber tours

E- Tours and Using the Internet to Promote and Market Historical Tourism.

I want to test some theories I have on the marketing and the interpretation of historical tourism using the internet and computer technology combined with more traditional mediums. I have already created a successful web site that interprets and educates about Texas Indians, WWW.TexasIndians.com . I would like to take the communication lessons and ideas and marketing and PR skills I have learned working there for 9 years and try them out with historical tourism. Just for the record, along with anthropology and history, one of my fields of study is Nature and Heritage Tourism.

I would like to team up with local and regional groups to set up internet cyber tours of regional sections of the Camino Real. I will help with or create interpretation, design, graphics, mapping and, of course, the computer coding.

I can do the following for you:

Design and build a web page for your historical Camino Real resources
Create an e- tour on the web page
Create educational and informational materials for the web page.
Create a CD-ROM using the web page materials.
Set up a marketing plan to bring people into the web page.
Create maps both digital and printed.
Create graphics, both digital and printed.
Create brochures.
Show you how to tie your other marketing into the web page, CD.
If you do not have a historical and cultural business and marketing plan I can help with that too.

Think of a E- Tour as a long brochure tour guide with hypertext and hot links. Unlike a printed brochure, we can put as many color pictures and maps in the E- Tour as needed to tell the story and show the way. Pictures of historical markers, buildings, cemeteries, landmarks and businesses along the way can easily be included. Along with the E- Tour, a CD-ROM of the web site can easily be produced to send to interested parties. Tourists could then print out text, pictures and maps from the web site or simply take the CD with them when they travel. It is amazing how many people now have laptop computers they can bring along. I can host these sites here where they will be easy to find. Or, we can set up a domain for the site where it can stand on its own.

My own research has found that most tourism stake holders already have web pages. An e-tour like a Camino Real regional e-tour can link into all these web pages and give the tourist a central place to find them all in relationship to an existing interest. Businesses, CofCs, Main street projects, Downtown Associations and such can all be included in the links from the web site and can help the web site by placing links in their sites to the Camino web site. This will build traffic and hits on everyone's web sites.

Along with the E- Tours we could/should set up companion interpretive-educational sites. The first key to opening up historical tourism is tourists who know something about the history of whatever the local attraction is. People go to see the Alamo because they already know the history of the Alamo. Tourists who have never heard of the Camino Real or your local history will probably go elsewhere. The best way to put that first key of knowledge in the tourist's hand is to get the history taught in the schools. A web site that students and teachers can use will do a great deal of that work. Next the web site should provide interesting history for adults too. Lastly, link that history to your local tourism, market it with good public relations and advertising and "they will come".

You get the local players and materials together and lets see what can be done.

Send mail to bigchief@texasindians.com