Finding the right holiday destination is just a click away thanks to Facebook and MySpace. "Now in a Broadband world people don't just have one connection," says Kerry Munro, General Manager Yahoo! Canada. Most people are connected to more than one social site. Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and even Yahoo! groups are fast becoming a place to find not only friends, but business opportunities. "There's so many interactive things that people do online. What better place to communicate directly with your target audiences," says Alicia Whalen, CEO of A Couple of Chicks

Alicia Whalen was one of 700 people that came out to Banff this week, to listen to Kerry Munro's presentation on how the Tourism Industry can benefit from social networking online. The idea is not only for the industry to market to consumers on the web, but to have users engage in an interactive way of sharing their travelling experience. "They can actually also publish their own experiences, and so now for the average person who is looking for traveling destinations they get the best of the tourist operators, the best of the general information, what to see, the sites, the attractions," says Munro. He also believes online communities can help the tourism industry. "They also get the ratings and recommendations coming from people just like them, who have had a fantastic experience or maybe not have a fantastic experience and making some suggestions," says Munro.

The Tourism Industry wants to be part of that interactive world on the web and Yahoo! Canada hopes they can make that connection a whole lot easier.