If it’s after Thanksgiving, then it’s time for the annual travel bloggers’ fundraiser Passports with Purpose, which kicked off today for its fourth year.

The goal for 2011 is to raise $80,000 during the next few weeks for construction and initial support of two libraries in Zambia through Room to Read, a nonprofit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education. As Pam Mandel, one of the co-founders of Passports with Purpose, said, “We love reading. We love writing. We love libraries. We can totally get behind Room to Read.”

More than 100 travel bloggers from around the world are participating with donated prizes such as hotel stays, tours, travel gear, services, electronics and gift cards, each valued between $100 and $5,000.

For each $10 tax-deductible donation on the Passports with Purpose site, a person can enter to win a prize of their choice. Donations for multiple prizes and multiple $10 increments are acceptable, as are direct donations without entering for a prize. Bidding ends on Dec. 16, 2011, with a winner for each prize randomly selected on Dec. 23. All proceeds go directly to Room to Read.

Examples of some of the prizes include:

• Two-night stay at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa, from No Vacation Required
• Three-night Marquis Los Cabos stay with one dinner for two, a bottle of Marquis wine and private shopping tour of Luxury Avenue with $1,000 peso gift card, from What a Trip (a blog by Uptake’s Lodging Blog editor Nancy D. Brown)
• 110,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points good for five nights at any Hyatt worldwide, from Loyalty Travel “Celebrity Chef Gourmet Cooking Experience” for two at the Freestyle Escape Outdoor Kitchen in Queensland, Australia, from Roaming Tales
• Kindle Fire, from Vacation Gals
• 15-day 1st class adult Eurail Global Flexi Pass, from BootsnAll

The travel bloggers will use their websites and social media outlets to promote the charity auction. The groundwork for establishing the two libraries already has begun. The libraries will be located next to the Masulwe Basic School and Chilileka Basic School. Hundreds of children will soon have access to a dedicated library staffed by a trained librarian and filled with colorful, age-appropriate books in their own language. Through Room to Read’s Challenge Grant model, the communities are co-investing by contributing to the libraries through volunteer labor and donated materials, resulting in the library’s long-term sustainability.

Passports with Purpose was started in 2008 by Mandel along with Debbie Dubrow, Michelle Duffy and Beth Whitman, the bloggers behind Nerd’s Eye View, Delicious Baby, WanderMom, and Wanderlust and Lipstick, respectively, in order to leverage the online travel-writing community to raise money and do long-lasting good for people and places around the world.

Each year the group chooses a partner organization, and so far, each year the initial goal set for the fundraiser has been surpassed. In prior years, Passports with Purpose donations have benefited Heifer International and helped build the Passports School with American Assistance for Cambodia and a village in Tamil Nadu, India, for 25 Dalit families with Land for Tillers’ Freedom.

Additional partners for Passports with Purpose 2011 include platinum sponsor Round the World with Us, a family of travelers committed to raising awareness of global issues and helping people better understand other cultures; silver sponsor Travellerspoint, a large travel community that claims to have members representing every country in the world; and bronze sponsor HomeAway, the large online marketplace for vacation rentals.

For more information or to donate, visit www.passportswithpurpose.org.

Photo: Passports with Purpose

Related post:
Passports with Purpose Win Trip to Canada, Mexico and Beyond

Two Las Vegas hotels and an airline teamed up with social media consultant Peter Shankman to host a holiday party in New York City for the “movers and shakers” of the social media world, marking another big step by the travel industry into the world of social media marketing.

Jet Blue, The Venetian and The Palazzo were some of the sponsors for the invitation-only party hashtagged #shankman2010 on December 15th.  Guests were chosen by their Klout scores and, in many cases, flown to New York City for the event at the Hudson Terrace.  According to Shankman, invites were sent to people who have high ranking Klout scores within specific industries.

Presumably, Jet Blue and the two Vegas properties were targeting big names in the travel and tourism industry, yet none of the names in travel I’m familiar with were tweeting about #shankman2010 last night.  Of course, it’s possible they were invited and couldn’t attend – after all, travel bloggers tend to be on the road a lot.

While social media enthusiasts and PR bloggers are still debating the wisdom of inviting guests to a party based on Klout score, it’s clear that travel companies are continuing to reach out to people who appear to have influence on Twitter and Facebook.  What’s not clear is how, exactly, travel companies are targeting “people within their industries”.

A Klout profile is supposed to measure not just how influential a user is, but within which arenas that influence is in.  It’s this ability to measure within a niche that ideally makes Klout so useful to companies like Jet Blue.  However, a quick look at the profiles of users I’m familiar with (including my own) shows that there is still ample room for improvement.  According to Klout, I’m an expert on iPhones and Google (I’m not) and talk a lot about a one-day social media conference I attended over two years ago (I don’t).

As a travel blogger, I’m excited to see more travel companies embrace social media and online marketing in general.  But as they look for ways to target potential partners, I’m concerned about the effectiveness of the tools that many seem to be relying on so heavily.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Jet Blue, The Venetian and The Palazzo weren’t looking to celebrate the holidays with people in the travel and tourism industry at all.  Which begs the question… who are travel companies partnering with in social media?

Photo Credit

UpTake is looking for good writers who love their home town, its popular drive trips and want to write about it. We need you to create the equivalent of four short posts in a new interface we are testing, called Travel Playlists. We only need destinations within the U.S.A. Those of you who adore a certain village in Southeast Asia or ride horses in the Australian outback, please don’t apply. We can’t help you just yet.

To see an example of a Travel Playlist check out the image below or visit Sleeping in Seattle (for Families).

Travel Playlists

Interested? Please contact pat at uptake.com and include a writing sample or two. We include a bio of you and a link to your blog. Pretty cool, you get paid and a link. Look forward to hearing from you.