Friday, August 21, 2009

Being proactive about vacancies

I read this article, link below, and it struck me as being very proactive about vacancy rates.


High-end hotels are going wireless -- latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

Of course I was attracted to the title as I searched for something to blog about, but the content of the article was what I really found intriguing.

According to the article, high end hotels are taking advantage of low occupancy rates to renovate their rooms. In this particular case it's with new technologies.

Of course, I understand that we're not all high volume hotels with access to big budgets and the latest gadgets but the principles are the same. We could repaint. Put up new pictures. Recarpet.

And we could, make that SHOULD, revamp our website and start using AdWords so that when the economy does turn around, we are READY. Because it will turn around, and the Internet will be more popular then ever when it does. If one thing is certain in this world, it is that technology is here to stay.

Now is the time to prep for the upswing with fabulous images, online reservation ability, short videos, creative and engaging content.
  • You NEED to be top five in Google, and Bing searches.
  • You NEED excellent online reviews and testimonials.
  • You NEED to show them via the web that your spot is the best place in the world.

Touristicallly yours,
Beth

Friday, August 14, 2009

What to blog...

August is a weird time of the year for tourism. The summer numbers are not in, the spring numbers don't reveal much. You're wondering whether to change up your approach, while maintaining the guests you have. A lot depends on the weather...If July was rainy, many more feel the urge to "get somewhere" in August before the summer is over. So there's a lot of potential for walk ins and last minute reservations.

And this is all assuming that your operation is mainly a summer seasonal business. For those who are year round operations, this is just one of the weird times of the year.

Can you tell that I'm grasping at straws for material?

Good.

Point made.

Here's where we sit down at our computer and face that question

Which is more detrimental - Blogging about nothing or not blogging at all?


Frankly it's been a weird week for me at work, there are several things going on, none of which are blog worthy. I've been reading newsletters and tourism websites looking for something and not able to find items.

I've been distracted by other tasks, and really just not inspired.

What are steps I could have taken to prevent having to post such lame content?

1. Write a few posts all at once and save them for later
2. Have a guest blogger, assign it to another staff member
3. Assign a specific time of the week to blogging and stick to it, no distractions
4. Relax, I guess one missed week isn't so bad
5. Others ...



And so in conclusion, there are no strict conclusions in the Internet. Honesty and truthfulness will come through as authentic. Collect and use feedback. Try it and see if it flies.

Sincerely lacking inspiration today,
Beth

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Labels - the ultimate online organizer

I've starting something new on my blog today. Can you spot the change?

It's relatively subtle...

But it should lead to increased traffic on previous posts.


Ta-Da ~ I've labelled all my posts !

In total I have 43 posts, I took a quick look at the headlines for all of them and came up with a few common threads.

Then I added the labels gadget. Which I didn't have before. See how I'm learning as I go and incorporating more tech as I get more comfortable. See. See how I'm doing that.

Then I started from the first post and went through to the last one, opening each one, adding a label and resaving.

Took about 30 minutes in total and now if you're interested in reading just all my "how to" posts you can find them all in one easy click!



My labels are:
About TT.com - those are the posts where I boast about the great one on one website mentoring session that I provide to Tourism Operators for the low price of $125

How To - those are the posts where I give more explicit instruction, like this post

Informational - those are the posts where I publish stories that may interest tourism operators or items like what conferences I'll be attending

Successes - those are the posts that highlight great tourism successes online, and frankly there aren't nearly enough of those kinds of posts !

The great thing is I can add more labels if the need arises.


Til next time,
Beth