Internet Marketing for Tourism

hi Todd,
Just wanted to drop you a quick line, with our sincere thanks and appreciation, for the two day workshop that you conducted.
both Tina and I came away with not only new knowledge but greater enthusiasm and appreciation for internet marketing, be assured that you have set us off
on a whole new direction.
We will definitely recommend the course to others in the hospitality industry.
Looking forward to our next seminar with you and taking on new challenges.

sincerely,
Gary and Tina Schultz
Algonquin Lakeside Inn

_________

thanks Gary and Tina.... it's been a fantastic two months, full of learning and engaging with Tourism Businesses like yours to enhance the marketing of tourism on the Internet.
I'm sure you'll enjoy the new tutorials I've been putting together.  They are almost ready for wider release, but perhaps you'd enjoy a sneak peak.

Get started by clicking on Online Learning.

Let me know how you like it.

todd.

When companies meet the full range of social needs, they gain trust and deep insights into their consumers and community members. In a report "Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs...", Communispace researchers, have identified the specific social needs that are met through participating in social networks.

The study addresses "Six Social Needs" and suggests that business can take advantage of these observations in creating more affinity with customer:

• ability to define and redefine themselves with profiles.

• autonomy to create an online reputation

• to seek and provide help

• to find, create and connect with others "just like me"

• a sense of belonging and mutual commitment to participating

• reassurance of the worth and value of the things they say and do

The most important word that comes to mind when reviewing this research is Trust.  If you business wants to participate and benefit from the Social Network Marketing opportunities that are available on sites like Facebook, businesses need to demonstrate committed participation as a community member.

According to Deloitte's second "State of the Media Democracy" survey shows 1/3 of the population create online video, music, photo streams.  Not only that, the survey found that more than 2/3 of Internet users aged 13-75 consider such user generated content, a staple of their Internet usage.  From being highly entertaining, to featuring family and friends, look for User Generated Content to continue to grow in 2008.

Is there anything you can do to encourage your guests to create and share their content online?

I've often tried unsuccessfully to write an email and send it at a specified date and time in the future. I can't understand why it isn't easier to send scheduled email. Now, it might be.... this is my first delayed email using a free scheduled email service: LetterMeLater.com
I've scheduled this email to be sent to my blog at 3:00 am on Saturday, December 22, 2007. Don't I look like a dedicated blogger - typing away while you sleep! Check the time and date stamp to see if this email was posted at the time I scheduled it to be.

How could your tourism business use scheduled email to better meet the needs of your guests??

• send pre-arrival information a few days prior to your guest visit.... but do the work writing the actual email (using a template) at the time they register.
• send follow-up email, thanking your guest for their visit.
• create groups, perhaps guests visiting at the same time and send confirmation emails all at once.
• send reminders to staff about upcoming meetings or events.

This simple service allows you to send attachments and format text, and send it from your email account at a scheduled date and time in the future! I sure hope this works.

Learn how to limit the information you share by viewing these short videos.

Labels: privacy

Laurie Hutcheson from Muskoka Community Network sent along this email newsletter content on Engagement.
Remember, it's not just hits that are the measure of good Web content.

Are Your Web Customers Engaged? Consider measuring:

• The percentage of increase or decrease in unique visits
• The 10 most popular pages, and changes from the previous week
• The number and percentage of sessions that represent more than five page views
• The percentage of sessions that last more than five minutes
• The percentage of visitors who return for more than five sessions
• The percentage of sessions arriving from a Google search, a direct link at your Web site or another site related to your brand
• The percentage of visitors who become subscribers, download content or provide an email address

. . . Ask the right questions about your Web site's traffic, and you'll learn more than the number of people who visit — you'll gain insight into how effectively you engage your customers.

Source: KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog. You can read the entire blog post and comments.

Labels: engagement

One of the ways to get your tourism business found on the Internet is to use keywords associated with your location.  These include placenames and travel icons.  In Ontario, the image of the Wawa Goose has been embedded into the Northern Ontario landscape for quite a while.  David Wells of Naturally Superior Adventures was busy a few weeks back installing Web cams on Lake Superior and at the site of the Wawa Goose to put this travel icon on the Web 24/7. 

Now, the Wawa Goose is online and people all over the world can look in and see what's going on at the Goose as images are updated online every hour.
Have a gander . . . . oops, pardon the pun.

http://www.wawawebcam.ca/

Labels: icons, wawa

I'm always encouraging businesses to put their phone number and email address on every page of their Web site. After watching a short Video with one of Google's search quality engineers I'm thinking that is likely looking for your address information on your Web site in order to display your Web site as a valid search result on Google Maps.

Advice from this geek, put your street address in text on your Web site to help Search Engines geolocate your tourism business.

Labels: address, google maps

I love the Free Press Releases and now, RSS Feeds that are provided by PRlog.org

To get the feed for just your press releases - Once you have one or more press releases, go to your pressroom home page. The feed link will be visible under the heading "Latest Press Releases".

I'm really delighted with the new pressroom feature which makes it easier than ever to send Free Press Releases that find their way into any Internet connected news service - to generate online or print media coverage for our tourism business. I'll be publishing my press release feed on my Web site with my next press release.

Hey T, Can I upload a podcast via blogger or do I have to link to it and host it elsewhere?

Hi Rodd,
You can process a podcast feed via blogger, but you need to host the file on a server you have access to.
Two steps...
1. Upload your media file to a ftp site you have access to.

2. Turn on the enclosure tag in Blogger options and point the enclosure field to the uploaded media file.  It doesn't do a complete job, but you might be able to get more done if you burn your blogger podcast feed with   Feedburner has a setting for feeds that are podcasts where podcasters can add a few more fields of information.  It's all in the Google family.

I find it easiest to use
For $5/mo, they host the podcast on its own blog, help me get it into iTunes and post the feed.

Let me know how your Podcast project works out with blogger!

~ welcome to my blog.
t.

In Tourism Keys hands-on workshops we ask participants to create a , which I use to write and distribute this blog content.

It doesn't take long to get the hang of GMail. Once you do, it's really difficult to go back to Outlook or some other "Professional" desktop way of handing email.

A few years back when we started using Gmail, the thing that scared me was every existing email that I had locked up in Outlook. Thankfully, moving email from Outlook to Gmail has gotten a whole lot easier, making it less uncomfortable for new users to migrate from Outlook to Gmail.
Consider this page describing step by step how to move your email from Outlook to Gmail.

And how do I like Gmail today? Couldn't imagine going back to Outlook. There are so many advantages to Gmail over Outlook that I'd have to take a few days to write about them. If you haven't yet tried it, I encourage you to give Gmail a chance.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: gmail, outlook

An Image Alt Tag is used to tell the search engines information about the images you upload to your blog or Web site. Since search engines interpret text to determine the content of Web pages, using the alt tag properly, can ensure that your Web page gets ranked for the image content as well as the text on your page.

In Blogger, when images are uploaded, the alt tag is left blank. To see and edit the alt tag, switch over to Edit Html mode and look for something that looks like: alt="". Edit your image alt tag by adding a label that accurately describes the content of your image and helps the search engines properly index your Web page.

After all, with over a hundred new Web pages being added to the Web every second, your Image Alt Tags can ensure your Web page finds it's way to the top of the search results.

View Google's Matt Cutt's Video explaining how to use alt tags with your Images.



Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: alt tags, images

I've often used this blog to identify valuable Internet Marketing resources.  In short, there have been so many, that I've had to hold back on recommendations so that the blog didn't suffer from bloat.  However, recently I've been tagging and saving valuable internet marketing resources to my .  Already there are now more than 100 Internet Marketing Web sites bookmarked here.

What kind of things?  Tools mostly.  And the bookmarks are easy to search through.  Just enter the keywords into the box at the top of the page and you'll be delivered a bunch of Internet Marketing resources!  For instance, type SEO after the and you'll see all the Search Engine Optimization Web sites that are bookmarked. 

Photo editing resources, Video links and more are all here.... and better than that.... and every time I add a new bookmark, you'll know about it instantly!

For the even more savvy, you can subscribe to a feed of any subset of Internet Marketing bookmarks by clicking on the RSS tag of any search page within these bookmarks.

Subscribe with confidence, knowing that if I find out about an Internet Marketing Resource that matters for tourism businesses, you'll be the first to know about it.

I'll continue to blog about important Internet Marketing topics for tourism businesses in this space, but as as subscriber to this blog you probably already know that.

eMarketer reports that 37% of the US adult Internet population used online social networking at least once a month in 2007.  That figure will rise to 49% in 2011.
So, is it in your interest to have a presence on or other Social Networking sites.... you bet.  Get started social marketing with something simple.  You might not invest a lot of time on your business page on social networks right away, but hang your shingle and get started.  You might be pleasantly surprised as it starts to grow.

Learn more about social networking at a hands-on Tourism Keys Internet Marketing Workshop.

Yes, alright, I'm a sucker for free stuff. How about his nifty little widget that you can install on your Web site highlighting your recent blog posts. Widgets like this can be customized to post the contents of most feeds in a quickly accessible way. I like the free tools offered by http://grazr.com and http://widgetbox.com

They let you put headlines and/or summaries of almost any kind of feed right into a Web page, Facebook or MySpace profile. If you've got a blog, you've got a feed.
And if you can cut and paste html embed code, you can have a widget!

By the way, help yourself and embed this widget, wherever you might find the information provided in this blog to be useful.

Cheers,
t.

Labels: rss, widgets

Coremetrics data found that consumers (in a retail setting) who viewed on-site video tours were 35% more likely to actually make a purchase. Data from a retail perspective may translate well to travel.

If the key ingredient is engagement, video tours increase the amount of time invested in your tourism experience, growing the relationship and moving your guest up the CRM ladder towards making a purchase. Time on site can grow dramatically with the introduction of relevant video.

As with ratings, and reviews, video tours have straight SEO benefits when they are appropriately tagged with keywords. Videos are also an important Social Marketing phenomenon lending themselves to being sent to others by email, mobile phone, or blog. Be sure your videos are (SMO) Social Media Optimized, and posted on travel and general video web sites allowing your ideal guest to evangelize your product with their friends.

Consider adding a call to action to your next video like: Post this video on Facebook.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: online video

Where in the World are your Ideal Guests?
Did you know that in different parts of the world people use different search engines?  Did you know that many of these search engines provide opportunities for Search Engine Marketing - much like Google's Adwords?

For links to can be a good start in finding effective places to market your travel experience.

Baidu.com (China) and Naver.com (South Korea) are two strong examples of growing regional search engines.   According to comScore, these engines are in the top five in global search engine use.   Running ads and viewing your ads in other countries will require local language skills.

If you are serious about attracting International clientele for your tourism business consider hiring a translation firm and setting up a Web page in the language of your ideal guest.  Be sure to place photos on this page that are attractive to people viewing your site around the world, remember, your Ideal Guest wants to see themselves on your Web site.

Your tourism business is able to reach out and conduct business internationally - regardless of the size of your company, but your success depends on the time you take and efforts you make to secure international search engine traffic to your web site.

Hot off the wire from the Email Summit in Utah comes this startling information for those who haven't gotten on the Email Newsletter bandwagon.
The following results from Fidelity Insurance email campaign will ring true for anyone already using email newsletters as a primary way to enhance sales and make the phone ring:

• email conversion rates are 100% greater than the rates for print/mailed fulfillment responses.

• Year-to-date, print responses have generated conversion/buy rates of 12% for prospects and 11% for customers, and higher conversion rates  of 21% and 16%, respectively, for email-fulfilled responses.

• Moreover, using email first, followed by postal mail, is generating even higher conversions (25% for prospects and 17% for customers) - remember, the number of quality touches you make with your ideal guests in your CRM process helps boost them up the ladder toward making a purchase.

Got an effective strategy for giving your ideal guest a boost up the ladder?  Comment on this post.

I've been researching a few more email enewsletter services.
You might want to give one of these email newsletter tools a spin to manage your online email campaign.
In assessing the email newsletter services that are right for you, consider these included elements:

• the ability to easily craft your newsletter using a template provided for you.
• upload your existing email lists.
• statistics on opens and click throughs

In addition to Campaigner and Constant Contact consider trying out one of these enewsletter services:
http://www.newsberry.com
http://nouri.sh - creates a newsletter from your blog feed.
http://letterpop.com
http://www.cataplt.com

If you have an email newsletter service you prefer, drop a note to the comments section of the blog.

When I print my Web page, it doesn't look right.  How can I fix this?

I've been thinking about how the Internet provides destinations for Internet users to go.  Like sitting in the same seat in the classroom each day, Web surfers tend to frequent their favourite sites and aren't always looking for travel in search engines or visiting our Web site.  Perhaps it is best to think of all the Web 2.0 social sites as alternative home pages.  If we consider the presence of our tourism business across the Web, we'll more frequently be in the places our ideal guests frequent online.

Tourism Businesses and communities can benefit from creating home page like presences using:



Blogger.com

Remember, it's not necessarily important to use these RSS feed friendly services to channel visitors to our own domain or home page.  Since our ideal guests live in these worlds, it might be best to think of our presence on these sites as home pages on their own..... to that end, "How can you generate calls to Action with your Web 2.0 presence?

--
all the best,
todd


Todd Lucier, co-founder, Northern Edge Algonquin Inc.
http://www.northernedgealgonquin.com
http://www.tourismclicks.com
Toll Free: 800 953-EDGE

5 Star TripAdvisor.com ratings can make consumers open their wallet at least 20% wider according to a TravelMole report based on a survey of over 2000 U.S. Internet Users in October 2007.
According to Steve Marshall, research director for The Kelsey Group, 5 star TripAdvisor Ratings result in the significantly higher spend over 4 Star ratings.

The study by comScore covered reputation management scores at hotels, restaurants, travel and other areas.

Interestingly, review readers are inclined to make a booking, confirming that those who seek travel reviews are much higher on the CRM ladder, with 40% of TripAdvisor hotel reviewers subsequently staying at a hotel.

More than three-quarters of TripAdvisor Ratings users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%).

97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said that the peer-reviewed travel services matched the service offered.

As frequently noted at TourismKeys Training events users of reviews also noted that consumer reviews had a greater influence on purchasing decisions than those generated by professionals.

Recalling an oft-quoted maxim of these Internet Marketing workshops, "If your Tourism Business is not interested in providing Excellent Service, consumer reviews at sites like TripAdvisor.com (the number 2 most frequently visited travel site on the Internet )will put you out of business.

Attend an upcoming Tourism Keys workshop to learn three simple steps toward enhancing your reputation management. These changes in reputation management strategies have helped other hotel, restaurants boost their revenue by 20%.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: reputation management, tripadvisor.com

What is a sitemap?

Visit http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ to generate an xml file for your site.
Put the following code into the <head> section of your home page to tell the search engines where your sitemap resides:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Sitemap" href="sitemap.xml" />

Then upload the sitemap.xml file you created to your web server.

Consider opening a to tell Google directly about your new sitemap and track how Google is viewing your site.

It is believed by some, that a sitemap enhances your chances at getting a larger listing on google including a mini-feed of Site Links to appear below your Web site listing on .

Labels: google webmaster tools, sitemap, xml

Being labelled by Email Servers as a source of Spam (unsolicited email) can get your personal email service virtually shut down.  Want to avoid being labelled as spam?  Pay attention to this advice!

A number of tourism organizations (ie. DMO's) provide inquiry lists generated by phone and email to their membership.  These lists of email inquiries are usually distributed by the association to membership based visitors to the DMO web site responding to an inquiry like: I'd like to receive more information by email from "insert DMO name here".

The unlucky individual is then bombarded with perhaps 100 responses from individual tourism business members within a few hours!

This is SPAM - unsolicited email!  Members who wish to not be labelled as sources of spam should not reply to these invitations from their DMO.  The individual who signed on for information did not request information from you, they requested it from the DMO.

I know, members are thinking, hey, leads this is what I pay my membership for.  Well it's time to change that.
For those who have not been paying attention, the world of internet marketing has changed drastically over the past five years.  Not only is the current practice not a good one, it is illegal!

There is no sugar coating it.  Have a look at the CANSPAM act in the U.S. or PIPEDA legislation in Canada or the E.U. statutes.  DMO's engaging in distribution of email lists are breaking the law.  Members who use the information are sources of spam.

DMO's need to change this practice or risk harming their membership who unknowingly will be labelled as sources of spam by email servers.

It is time to change these practices.  The good news is that not only is there a better way, the better way of handling email, not only avoids membership being labelled as sources of spam, but provides income opportunities for the DMO.

Best practice is for the DMO to respond directly to the email inquiry with links to appropriate members web sites.

Stay tuned to a future post for more. . . 

Get more information on best practices for email and avoid being labeled spam at these ISP Web sites:

-- AOL: -->

-- MSN/Hotmail -->

-- Yahoo: -->

-- Gmail: -->

-- Juno/Netzero/UnitedOnline: -->

-- RoadRunner: -->

We're in Dryden, Ontario today practicing easy Web page creation by learning how to upload photos to Picasa.
We're also sending email to our blog to easily create new Web pages.

More coming soon.
Learn more about creating Instant Web pages by downloading the Tourism Keys Binder at /binder.html