Some of the top minds in the tourism industry toil day and night to make their destinations, blogs, agencies, etc. the very best on Twitter. While they often let their organization be the star, I think it’s time to start recognizing how these tourism professionals are the real stars. After seeing this list on Twitter’s most influential small business leaders, I became intrigued with what would happen if we came up with a similar list of those that are influencing tourism. Here is what I found:
| Rank | Twitter Screenname | % of Tourism Pros Follow | Klout Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  @WhosYourAnnie |
90.8% | 62 |
| 2. |  @SheilaS |
81.6% | 68 |
| 3. |  @GammetGuy |
89.5% | 58 |
| 4. |  @andrewghayes |
73.7% | 71 |
| 5. |  @TomMartin |
71.1% | 69 |
| 6. -TIE |  @mobethann |
73.7% | 64 |
| 6. -TIE |  @theresaoverby |
73.7% | 64 |
| 8. |  @katiecook |
77.7% | 57 |
| 9. |  @travel2dot0 |
68.4% | 63 |
| 10. |  @decillis |
67.1% | 60 |
| 11. -TIE |  @Beaumartian |
60.5% | 63 |
| 11. -TIE |  @mandiengram |
60.5% | 63 |
| 13. |  @pagetx |
76.3% | 46 |
| 14. |  @Banff_Squirrel |
50.7% | 69 |
| 15. |  @VisitFingerLake |
61% | 58 |
| 16. |  @wilhelmus |
54% | 62 |
| 17. |  @scullyano |
65.8% | 49 |
| 18. |  @claudiabia |
44.7% | 70 |
| 19. |  @oregonkat |
76.3% | 38 |
| 20. |  @BeckyMcCray |
50% | 62 |
| 21. |  @jeremyawilliams |
57.9% | 51 |
| 22. |  @TravelBlggr |
35.1% | 73 |
| 23. |  @Amy_Brock |
56.9% | 51 |
| 24. |  @earthXplorer |
29.9% | 77 |
| 25. |  @mike_vstpcola |
72.4% | 34 |
| 26. |  @KellyDeanOttawa |
47.4% | 59 |
| 27. |  @AshleyTravels |
50% | 55 |
| 28. |  @traveldudes |
26% | 79 |
| 29. |  @ChatterBachs |
52.6% | 51 |
| 30. |  @JoeSorge |
36.4% | 65 |
| 31. |  @theplanetd |
24.7% | 76 |
| 32. |  @mosherifdeen |
64.5% | 36 |
| 33. |  @SeattleMaven |
38.2% | 61 |
| 34. |  @PeterSGreenberg |
27.3% | 71 |
| 35. |  @karasw |
36.8% | 61 |
| 36. |  @CygnetUpdates |
47.4% | 49 |
| 37. |  @chris2x |
31.2% | 65 |
| 38. |  @elliottdotorg |
29.9% | 66 |
| 39. |  @EverywhereTrip |
24.7% | 71 |
| 40. |  @nomadicmatt |
27.3% | 68 |
| 41. |  @billgeist |
71.1% | 24 |
| 42. |  @CajunMama |
36.8% | 58 |
| 43. |  @hmaust |
42.1% | 52 |
| 44. |  @nerdseyeview |
29.9% | 64 |
| 45. |  @jccjhiggins |
40.8% | 53 |
| 46. |  @bobf_vstpgh |
48.7% | 45 |
| 47. |  @jeremy_harvey |
56.6% | 37 |
| 48. |  @nathankam |
27.3% | 66 |
| 49. |  @laynadugan |
35.5% | 57 |
| 50. |  @Marilyn_Res |
23.4% | 69 |
| 51. -TIE |  @McMedia |
22.1% | 70 |
| 51. -TIE |  @thetripchicks |
22.1% | 70 |
| 53. |  @sschandler |
35.5% | 56 |
| 54. |  @CAroundTheWorld |
28.6% | 62 |
| 55. |  @ElenaNW |
43.4% | 46 |
| 56. |  @barbdelollis |
23.4% | 66 |
| 57. |  @DCtravelgirl |
39.5% | 49 |
| 58. |  @theslynch |
51.3% | 36 |
| 59. |  @DeepDishCreates |
34.2% | 53 |
| 60. |  @thefrontrowe |
39.5% | 47 |
| 61. |  @JEBworks |
32.5% | 54 |
| 62. |  @Andrea_VisitGR |
50% | 36 |
| 63. |  @patstrader |
26% | 60 |
| 64. |  @coldinpdx |
54% | 32 |
| 65. |  @spencerspellman |
20.8% | 65 |
| 66. |  @BethBlair |
23.4% | 62 |
| 67. |  @KimMance |
22.1% | 63 |
| 68. |  @BVMatson |
57.9% | 27 |
| 69. |  @GregRuby |
24.7% | 60 |
| 70. |  @Joe_ExpCols |
35.5% | 49 |
| 71. -TIE |  @laurably |
24.7% | 59 |
| 71. -TIE |  @Travelogged |
24.7% | 59 |
| 73. |  @Susantravels |
30.3% | 53 |
| 74. |  @toddlucier |
48.7% | 34 |
| 75. |  @ilovememphis |
24.7% | 58 |
| 76. |  @JoeDuck |
22.1% | 59 |
| 77. |  @TroutLine |
23.4% | 57 |
| 78. |  @nastephen |
47.4% | 33 |
| 79. |  @kristaparry |
29% | 51 |
| 80. |  @wendyperrin |
23.4% | 56 |
| 81. |  @GathanDBorden |
30.3% | 49 |
| 82. |  @flyawaycafe |
20.8% | 56 |
| 83. |  @lbach22 |
46.1% | 30 |
| 84. -TIE |  @thePRguy |
20.8% | 55 |
| 84. -TIE |  @WritingTravel |
20.8% | 55 |
| 86. |  @stephenjoyce |
23.4% | 52 |
| 87. |  @deliciousbaby |
22.1% | 53 |
| 88. |  @girlsgetaway |
20.8% | 54 |
| 89. |  @Ted_Sullivan |
47.4% | 27 |
| 90. |  @TravelSocial |
22.1% | 52 |
| 91. |  @tonylyle |
28.6% | 45 |
| 92. |  @teresaide |
39.5% | 33 |
| 93. |  @LeslieMcLellan |
22.1% | 50 |
| 94. |  @shannasmith |
28.6% | 43 |
| 95. -TIE |  @MommyMusings |
20.8% | 50 |
| 95. -TIE |  @travelrants |
20.8% | 50 |
| 97. |  @Shalyn_Marsh |
33.8% | 37 |
| 98. |  @WeJustGotBack |
23.4% | 47 |
| 99. |  @TravelAndrew |
20.8% | 49 |
| 100. |  @starmediaguy |
23.4% | 46 |
Now, I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty happy with who came out on top. It’s right on as far as I’m concerned and validated my methodology, despite the fact that I made the list…
Methodology: I identified seven individuals that I considered to be influential on me. I pulled the lists of who these seven people followed. Everyone on those lists that were followed by five or more of those influentials and could be considered a tourism professional then had their follow lists pulled. There were seventy-seven. From the list of who they follow, I determined who received the greatest percentage of followers from that list of seventy-seven and I looked up their Klout score. Adding those two numbers together gave me their rank.
The most subjective part of this process was determining whether a Twitter account was an individual. If you go through this list and find that I made a mistake on that, please let me know. Being one person, I’m prone to mistakes.
As far as whether I should have used Klout, I needed to use something to figure out how influential these accounts were. Yes, this is a faulty system and yes, it rewards those that create a profile. However, I think it makes good sense to take care of your online profile by making an account since this number is being used with greater frequency, and therefore, I am okay with those that have not getting penalized on this list for not having taken that step.
I will admit fully to having taken one person off of this list. I believe this person to be a predator and I did not want to put anyone at risk by putting this person on this list. If you have any questions on why I did this, I will be happy to answer them in a different forum.
I created a Twitter list with everyone from this list, so that you can easily follow as many as you would like.
So what do you think? Is this list accurate? Anybody you would add? Anybody that you would take off?
Betsy,
Great job pulling all of this together. I was following about half the list already, but it was great to find more tourism pros to follow in Twitter.
@JeremyAWilliams
Thanks Jeremy! And congrats on your spot on the list!
Such a great list!
I know this took a lot of work, Betsy! I agree with Jeremy, now I have some new peeps to follow.
And getting some great peeps for you to follow is definitely the goal!
Great List Betsy! I just went and followed everyone on the list.
Thanks Brian! Glad you got something out of it!
Betsy,
Flattered to be on this list… and methodology aside, have to say, I’d tend to agree with the general listing… I might think one account/person is more or less important than where you have them listed… the overall groupings seem to be about where I’d guess they would finish.
Interesting that a number of the higher ranking folks tend to be folks I see in #TourisChat — might that activity have influenced the rankings any? Or do you think maybe that is just a “testimonial” for #TourismChat — that the leading Tourism thinkers tend to congregate there?
@TomMartin
I’m with you on this, Tom. I generally agree with the groupings, but there are some people I would rank higher. That’s why I’m planning on a follow up post to this.
I think the reason that there are so many #tourismchat people on the list is not only because there are some really smart people that participate, but because they are also very good at networking. That’s one of the reasons why they participate in chats in the first place. In the end, it’s not always about who has the most smarts… It’s also about who is the best at reaching out and getting to know people. That just makes you more influential.
Betsy — agree on the networking part… about the only way to explain my ranking…. looking forward to buying you a drink in Sandusky this fall to properly toast this list!
Great list, Betsy! Spending my morning following a few new tourism tweeps. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
Thanks Theresa! Glad to be of service!
Thanks for including me Betsy. I breathe travel and tourism!
I gotta admit that you are one of the people that I was not familiar with prior to this list, which is why this was a great personal project for me. I’m glad to meet a fellow person that breathes travel and tourism!
Betsy — Shannon Lane = Super Duper Smart… a must Follow on any list…
@TomMartin
Thanks so for pulling this together, Betsy – I love the variety, including a certain furry Canadian mammal.
As to Tom Martin’s comment, I’d say that yes, showing up to #tourismchat means that you’re plugging into some of the most forward-leaning minds in tourism. What a wonder you and Anne have created!
Thanks Sheila! For EVERYTHING!
hi, great list – if I could add anyone it would be me
@iVisitorGuide
Maybe next time.
Thank you for the list Betsy & involving me as well!
Number #83, I have work to do.
Going through these for some new influences to follow & to get motivated.
I love hearing that this is motivating you! And I know you’ll move up quick!
Great list Betsy!
Found a few new folks to follow and it reaffirmed that #tourismchat is THE place to hang out
You and Anne gave us an amazing gift when you established such a dynamic forum – if it were an individual, it would absolutely be at the top of the list (sorry, Anne)!
Thanks Vicky! I will be doing a follow up post and other accounts that you guys follow and yes, #tourismchat did pretty well.
Congratulations, Vicky! I just stumbled upon this list, fancy seeing you here. Great work!
Thanks for doing this! Now I have a few more tourism folks to follow!
Yay!
Great list you pulled together AND thanks for explaining your methodology in creating it. You’ve provided me with new folks to follow and I am also glad to see our own Mike Bersabal form Visit Pensacola and friends from Beaumont included on the list!
I tried my best. And Mike is fantastic resource!
Wow, thank you for including me Betsy! What an honor. This is such a great list and a wonderful starting point for tourism and hospitality professionals who may be just starting out on Twitter but want to connect with others in the industry.
That is exactly why I did it. I wanted to make it easy for others to find their perfect social media team. I gotta tell ya, I really heart mine today.
Thanks for putting together this list! I did find it to be a rather small, tight knit circle of folks however, namely the #TourismChat folks as Tom pointed out. Perusing some of your “Top Folks” gave rather disappointing results – low follow numbers and uninteresting posts.
That being said, it is always good to find new suggestions of industry people to follow, and there are a few gems in here! The inherant social aspect of social media does make it tough to do, but I hope you expand your influencers and discover other tourism folks outside of your network in the future.
I think if you go directly by follow counts and the general posts of individuals, you’re going to miss out big time. I help a lot of people out behind the scenes and I might not generally post the greatest articles. But if we’ve developed a relationship and you ask for help, I’m always there. I think that’s true of a lot of the people at the top of the list.
And I definitely did my best to expand beyond #tourismchat. But, even as biased as I am, I think it’s such a terrific resource and we really do have the top minds taking advantage of it.
Thanks for the mention – wow! Am flattered. And must have taken ages to work out a good ranking system – well done.
Let’s just say I’ve been super busy over the last two weeks.
Thanks for being awesome! You really deserve to be as high as you are.
Great list Betsy, kudos. I know you toiled day and night putting this together.
- Troy
Thanks Troy… The word toil might be a bit soft. Slaved might be a bit more accurate.
Thanks so much for including me! I’ve gone over to your twitter to list to follow a few new people as a result of this list. Thanks for the time you it took – it’s a gem!
Thanks for the compliments. I didn’t include anyone though. Y’all included yourselves by being awesome.
Wow this is a who’s who list, for sure – thrilled I made the cut
Creative methodology, even the Klout aspect. Hard to unravel their algorithm or what it really means, if anything. No surprise the presence of #tourismchatters here – if you’re there, you care. Nice project, Betsy!
Thanks Lara! Klout’s not perfect, but I just don’t have the time to hand count how many clicks, mentions and retweets you people get. Y’all are just too popular for me.
You clearly worked very hard putting this great list together. I like your methodology in identifying the top people who influence YOU and then going from there.
Thrilled to be included and excited to have some new people to follow from your list. Now go take the rest of the day off!
Thanks Amy! If only my boss agreed with that whole I get the rest of the day off thinking.
Wow – great list. I often use #travel, #familytravel, as well as #tourism in my tweet and search. While I follow a bunch of these folks, thanks to you I have found a bunch of new ones to follow now too.
Love seeing @DeepDishCreates (#59) a fellow Vermonter, on the list!
Glad to be of service! And yes @DeepDishCreates is pretty awesome.
Some new (to me) persons on the list to follow. Great work.
Thanks!
Hey Betsy: I wanted to say “thanks!” for including me on this list. There are so many great people on here! I’m sure it took some time to do it so thanks for that too. I, for one, am grateful someone out there is thinking up ways to help others. Keep up the great work. I’ll be following!
Thanks Jeremy! It wouldn’t be a good list without you!
Thanks a lot for mentioning Betsy and for all your hard work creating this list. Great job. As it has been said numerous times above, I really appreciate the explanation of how you created the list.
Thanks! You are another one that I didn’t know about until I did this, so definitely well worth the effort!
thanks Betsy for all of your hard work in creating this list. I’m honored to be included in this group of wonderful travel professionals!
Thanks for doing the great work to be in this list!
Besty! You are such a doll to put this list together. I’m honored to be on it and looking forward to connecting more with everyone on it!
Layna
Thanks Layna! Are we going to be lucky enough to see you at #SoMeT??
Thanks, Betsy, for publishing this great “meeting of the minds” Tourism listing. I first saw it on Mary Jo Manzanares tweet. She participated and left many great suggestions in the recent Travel Blog Project, which also was a great place to learn practical integrated application of Social Media-Blogging and Websites all-in-one. Best wishes for your continuing success!
Thanks for the information and the wishes, David!
Betsy — Honored to be part of such an influential group. Plus, thank you for providing a Twitter list — it’s such a nice tool to identify good travel tweeps to follow! — Roseanne @TravelSocial
It really is, Roseanne! And I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you guys to find and follow each other. We have a great community!
G’day Betsy!
Have received this list via a tweet and are now following the gang of travel influence! New to the tweeting circuit but very interested in what is happening on your side of the world in tourism/travel and good times.
Check us out anytime or if down in our neck of the woods, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, call in!
Thanks again!
Oooo… now you’ve given me a reason to go to Australia! Welcome to the gang!
Valiant and I’m sure time consuming effort to put this list together. Congratulations, Betsy.
The criteria seem fair to me. The only suggestion I would like to make is to separate the list into travel folks who are directing their effort at the traveling public and those who are working in the b2b arena. This distinction might be useful for outsiders to understand that there is a difference. Just my personal opinion.
Thanks for the suggestion, Joe! I’m a b2b person, so I definitely see your point. At the same time, I think there is so much that we can all learn from each other that it’s hard for me to separate.
Thanks for including me (and my colleague Beth Blair) – and for your time and hard work in compiling the list!
Well you two obviously deserved it! Thanks for posting awesome stuff!
Great list – I was so pleased to see myself on it (made my day actually!)
I was curiously when I had a bump in my followers yesterday – mystery solved!
It wouldn’t be a complete list without you! You definitely are an integral part of our community.
I’m honored to be included on this list with such great folks. Thanks, Betsy! The Twitter list is a great resource and I see that there are a few whom I am not yet following. A number of the folks on this list were some of the first people I connected with on Twitter 3 years ago. Good times!
Definitely glad to help!
Thanks so much for including our hard-working, travel-breathing, two-woman enterprise in your list. Honored to be mentioned! Cheers and keep on traveling our planet, everybody! Ann Lombardi
Definitely glad to have you on the list!
Thanks for the great list. I was following about half the people but somehow overlooked the other half. Very useful!
So happy that you found a use for my little, ole list.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together!
Thanks for being awesome!
I appreciate the work involved and that you’ve got a very nice general list here, but the “methodology” leaves a lot to be desired.
“I identified seven individuals that I considered to be influential on me. I pulled the lists of who these seven people followed……”
Basically, you self-selected people that you know and follow and go out about 2 steps on their follow list and are…. shocked that from your self-selected list that you are at the top of your own list? This “methodology” makes some of the other internet listing services look downright scientific in comparison.
I slightly misspoke there and never went back to change it. I picked seven people that worked in different segments of the tourism industry and that I found to be extremely influential based on my experiences and those of others. Prior to starting the work, I did ask around for people that others thought were influential. Without question, these seven people were continually mentioned.
As far as me being on the list, I had planned on taking myself off all together. However, I work really hard in this industry. This may sound conceited, but I think I belong on this list. Do I belong that high up? I honestly don’t think I do, but I do a heck of a lot of networking online. I think that has more to do with where I am on the list than anything else.
I also need to add that the purpose of this list is more to create another networking opportunity for tourism professionals on Twitter. On all accounts, it seems to have worked and I’m very proud of that.
Great list! Nice to see some familiar faces and find new people to follow. Our social media travel circles are geared mainly toward Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, because of our location in title=Playa del Carmen Mexico. My twitter lists tend to be made up of travel writers and bloggers who specialize in those areas more heavily.
Now I have a great list of new travel tweeps to follow!
Well done!!
@BuyPlaya
So happy that you were able to find some new peeps!
It is great to be on this list with so many people I admire.. Thanks for the effort into putting this together!
Thanks for doing the work to get on this list!
I had a baby a couple weeks ago and have been “offline” as I figure out life with two kids. Let’s just say I am honored (and shocked) to be a part of such an amazing list. Thanks Betsy for putting this list together. I always love connecting with new people and I love when people put lists together to make it easy!
See you on the slopes!
You mean you weren’t paying attention to everything that was going on online and were paying attention to a… BABY? Shame on you!
Thanks for the compliments and congratulations on your new bundle of joy!
Thank you so much for putting this list together! I’ve been on vacation and just learned about it today ~ so looking forward to connecting with more people in tourism!!!!!! This is terrific ~
Glad to provide you some new connections!
Thanks so much for pulling together this impressive list. I can’t wait to follow!