By Jackie Roseboom
Norwegian Cruise Line and YouTube have just launched the first-ever YouTube Vacationer. It’s a travel-specific channel within YouTube designed to provide inspiring ideas and advice from well-traveled, nationally known experts.
You can interact within the “Vacation You” section: a selection of short clips created by vacation professionals are available that run a few minutes each. You can share a personalized “Vacation You” video with your friends and family through Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.
“By working with YouTube on their first-ever travel-specific channel, we are giving visitors the opportunity to experience our brand and all the options that Freestyle Cruising offers,” said Maria Miller, Norwegian Cruise Line’s senior vice president of marketing. “From a marketing perspective, this opportunity is compelling because it provides a truly organic user experience and represents another great way for brands to work with YouTube.”
The expert’s videos are categorized into sections. You’ll find videos from from Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Travel Channel, eHow, concierge.com, Howcast, DanTraveling and the Next New Network. Each section — Caribbean/Bahamas, Europe, Exotics, U.S. and Canada — have video clips on many different topics. You can click on guided clips through interesting places like Cuba by Andrew Zimmern or Dublin by Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel. Tips on how to pack for certain locations, how to get a passport, and “How to Not Look Like a Tourist” are clips from various travel pros. There are clips of the Northern Lights and interesting sea creatures, both of which you can visit during some cruise shore excursions.
Some clips my be considered a little silly but they have great information and are still worth watching. The Norwegian Cruise Line section features clips of the different fun activities you can enjoy while onboard the ships and some behind the scenes clips.
You don’t have to have a YouTube account to view the videos, but if you are a member, you can subscribe to the channel and get updates when new videos are added. Both signing up for a YouTube account and subscribing to a channel are free.
“We are pleased to be working with Norwegian Cruise Line, the innovators in cruise travel, on our first branded travel channel,” said Mark Day, sales development at YouTube. “The YouTube Vacationer channel brings the best of our partners’ travel videos into a single destination to help users explore, plan and dream about their next vacations, and it gives users a way to see themselves in a customized vacation video with Norwegian’s ‘Vacation You’ application.”
Other cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean and Disney also have official videos on YouTube.
Visit the YouTube Vacationer at youtube.com/vacationer.
Contributor Jackie Roseboom also writes for “Orlando Attractions Magazine” and the Cruise Guide newspaper column.
