Update: Romania to promote itself as tourist destination on Facebook

The Romanian Regional Development and Tourism Ministry will collaborate with Facebook in promoting Romania as a tourist destination on the social media website, the ministry has announced. Tourism minister Elena Udrea and Black Chandlee, VP and Commercial director with Facebook for the EMEA region, held a joint press conference to detail the collaboration on Tuesday, November 2, from 10,00 hours. The ministry will work with Facebook representatives to establish an integrated social media and new media strategy, organize training sessions for ministry employees and for representatives of the tourism industry in Romania. The strategy should be finalized in December and the actual promotion activity on Facebook should start in February - March next year. The Tourism Ministry is yet to put forward a value for the promotion budget. Facebook has over 500 million active users across the world and half them log into the website every day. About 70 percent of users are outside the website's home market US. There are over 1.6 million Facebook users in Romania, according to latest data from the site. UK has 26 million Facebook users, France, 18.9 million, Italy, 16.6 million, Spain, 10.6 million, Germany, 9.9 million, among others. Facebook currently allows users to place ads in the network, with options for location and demographic targeting. Romanian users can place Facebook ads and pay per click but in a foreign currency. Romania launched its new tourism campaign this summer under the slogan The Carpathian Garden. The launch was surrounded by debate on the uniqueness of the country brand design. Read more about it here. Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The website attracted venture capital investors in three rounds: Round one: USD 500,000 from Peter Thiel in 2004; Round two: USD12.7 million from Accel Partners, in 2005; Round three: USD 27.5 million from Greylock Partners leading the round, Meritech Capital Partners participating, and Accel Partners and Peter Thiel increasing their investment in the company. editor@romania-insider.com