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A New Niche for All Taken
from Autumn 2003 issue of the ZEITGEIST Client Newsletter It’s called “Geo-Caching.” Think of it as a scavenger hunt on steroids where the playing field is the entire planet! Not quite 4 years old, this rapidly exploding hobby/adventure game has taken techies by storm and is threatening to infect the rest of us that don’t own GPS units to buy them. The sport revolves around the Global Positioning System, which the Clinton Administration opened up to high-end civilian use on May 1, 2000. Two days later, the first geocache was planted near Portland (OR)...and the games began. The point: find a “cache” filled with trinkets and goodies by downloading coordinates from the geocaching.com website and then using a handheld GPS unit to find it. Upon locating the cache, the finder takes an item (if they choose), leaves an item and enters their visit in the log book. Experienced players also log into the website to chronicle their finds and experiences for other geo-cachers to read. As with many of today’s “new games,” mutations and variations are popping up all the time. Team competitions, puzzle caches and a fun add-on called “travel bugs” increase the personalization opportunities to keep this growing hobby/sport fresh. And, here’s the opportunity for Destination Marketing Organizations: play along! With over 71,000 caches in 188 countries, finding (and promoting) pre-existing geocaches nearby is a breeze through the Geocaching.com website. And DMO websites are the perfect way to market that your destination is hip to geocaching by offering side pages for enthusiasts. But why
stop there? Smart CVBs wanting to “cache” in on this growing
phenomenon will create their own geocaches that serve not only to lure
players to your locale but propel them to other sites in and around
the destination (it’s called “multi-caching”). When
the government invests $12 billion in a GPS satellite system...it’d
be a shame not to take advantage of it.
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