Over 40% of the Facebook Fan Pages created by the Asian travel industry show signs of abandonment, according to the 2010 Asian Travel Engagement Report from water&stone.

The report, based on an industry survey and an examination of well over 100 travel company Facebook pages, found 41% of Facebook Fan Pages shows signs of abandonment. 9% of the Pages had not been updated by their owners in the last 30 days. 5% had not been updated in 60 days and 27% had not been updated by their owners in the last 90 days.

Lead analyst Ric Shreves states “we were surprised by the high number of partially or completely abandoned Pages and Profiles. While perhaps some of these are simply temporarily inactive, that distinction rather begs the point, as part of the appeal of social media is the immediacy and responsiveness.”

Shreves added “while Twitter abandonment ran at 20% — not an insubstantial figure —  the number pales in comparison with the very high rate of abandonment of Facebook Fan Pages. While we can only speculate as to the causes of the abandonment, it is hard to put a positive spin on the creation and subsequent abandonment of branded properties associated with your company.”

The report also notes that inactive or improperly maintained Fan Pages can also be a risk factor. Unwatched pages are ripe for exploitation by spammers, who use the pages to broadcast their messages to the Fans that follow the page.

Shreves states “if you have decided that you no longer wish to maintain a Fan Page, and do not wish to delete it completely, then at the very least take steps to advise your existing (and potential) Fans and also put limits on what can be posted to the Page.”

The 2010 Asian Travel Engagement Report is from digital agency water&stone. The report’s findings are based both on direct data collection from the major social media channels and on a survey of the industry as a whole.

A complimentary copy of the report can be downloaded fromhttp://www.waterandstone.com/online-marketing-resources