My days as ‘Local Eye’ of Madrid
The moment I took up the challenge of being city embajador of Madrid for our KLM Twitter account KLM Localeyes, I felt a slight sense of fear. Just imagine, I have never written a travel guide before, or anything like one, and now my personal tips were to be published online, on social media… And then I thought: Why not?
Besides drawing on my own personal favourites, I asked my colleagues to share their best suggestions for places to go. I tweeted my own followers, knowing that some of them are real city slickers, accustomed to moving around the suburbs and trendy areas of town.
They gave me fantastic advice and the coordinates of sites I didn’t even know existed. Madrid is changing so fast, like all European capitals I suppose. Last, but not least, I checked out the latest local-trends blogs and cool websites about Madrid. Madrid Cool Blog was a real discovery and is now one of my favourites.
In fact, through being The Local Eye for KLM this week, I have rediscovered my own city. With my colleagues, we planned a day to try out all the tips we had collected and immediately came up with new ideas. How nice it would be to ride a motorbike through the Madrid streets and record everything you see. Or, even better, we could ask our fans what they would like to see in Madrid?
So I grabbed my bike and started riding towards the centre of Madrid. At first I tried to shoot some video footage while I was riding my bike, but soon realised I was risking my life in doing so. I limited myself to photos and short Vine videos.
Seeing Madrid through the eyes of a tourist made me realise how beautiful my city is. But now it was time to interact. I asked the followers to choose my lunch.
Option A was a lovely selection of tapas in a famous, historical brewery near Puerta del Sol.
Option B was to head to the famous chocolatier “San Gines” to taste the “chocolate con churros”.
And it worked! I received numerous tweets. Half an hour later the waiter brought me some delicious cod. Although it was quite a close call, the tapas won. As a dessert, I decided to order the churros con chocolate and to share them with our followers on Vine.
Overall Experience
Looking back on my week as local eye, I realise Local Eyes is about setting new standards: Local Eyes is 100% human, 100% local, 100% social, and 100% inspiring! The experience of being a kind of “human decoy” felt incredibly satisfying. And yes, I would like – no love – to do it again!
Moises
KLM Spain, e-commerce
Check out all the travel tips on numerous cities generated through Twitter on KLM LocalEyes and be inspired for your next trip.
