ADEPT Marketing

There are times, despite best intentions, where any tourism business has to handle a dispute with a customer. It may be something to do with things like the products or services provided, the pricing, or employee behaviour. Due to the world economy travellers seem to be particularly pedantic over price and value for money.

Regardless of the cause of dissatisfaction there are a few things you can learn from these situations to help avoid them again in the future:

• Make sure communication to your customers is clear at all points of contact – don’t hide any details or extra charges
• Ensure employee training is thorough and effective so they are delivering the expected information, standard of service delivery desired and are competent to do so. You can’t expect employees to know information you haven’t shared with them or trained them to understand all processes and procedures. Have you got an effective operations or procedures manual to refer to?
• During delivery of the product or service continue to question the customer to ensure they are happy with how things are proceeding – don’t just assume all is well if they say nothing.
• Once the dispute is raised, listen, then handle it effectively and positively – regardless of who is at fault try to resolve it equitably and don’t play the blame game, take responsibility for your business at all levels. It always works well to tell the customer involved you understand their concerns and how you plan to resolve it rather than asking them what they want which could be unrealistic.
• Identify the point where things went wrong and put in place remedies to ensure it won’t happen again or at least lesson it’s likelihood
• Some people are just difficult to deal with so don’t take it personally, be the bigger person – learn from it and move on!

No matter how experienced or developed your business is things can come unstuck from time to time, so don’t worry it happens to the best of us and chalk it up to a fact of life of being in business.

Have you got some good examples of customer disputes or complaints and how you dealt with it? Share it here with us

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Promoting a new blank Facebook Page doesn’t really get people interested to “Like” your page – so before you start marketing it to your customers and friends add a nice variety of content to get it off to a good start.

10 Ideas for content:

• Add Photo Albums – try not to put a lot of photos in just 1 album, create different topics to divide them up so it’s easier for people to view what they are interested in
• Link to some of your latest online traveller reviews or media articles and comment about them
• List some recent accomplishments or news e.g. awards, star rating, sustainability efforts, product development etc
• Set up automated feeds with your other social media such as your Twitter account and Blog articles to create regular content
• Offer a special package and provide a link to book it on your website
• Create a Competition that will attract followers and encourage people to share your Facebook page with others
• Add links to websites for some upcoming events or activities in your area – ideally you would write a blog article about it on your website so the traffic goes to your own site
• Add a link to any relevant YouTube or online videos about your business or location – a link to a video on Facebook will embed the video on your wall so it can be easily viewed
• Ask Your recent customers to post their own photos and comments on your wall about their experience with your business
• Get your whole team involved in adding regular content to your Page – you can add as many “admin” people as you like for the page so make it easy and share the load

How to Get Followers for a New Facebook Page:

• Start connecting with others on Facebook and then use the Facebook “Suggest to Friends” function for your page – ask them to suggest it to their friends too
• Promote it prominently on your website and use the Facebook “social media plugins” to show current activity on your Facebook page and encourage Facebook users to follow you.
• Email your customer database telling them about your new page with a link so they can follow it
• Promote it from Twitter and any other social media sites you belong to
• Once you have 25 followers for a page go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to set a user friendly URL for your page e.g. http://www.facebook.com/yourbusinessname – this makes it easier and more memorable to promote verbally and in print.
• Make it accessible to your customers while they are with you so they can follow it and add content during their experience.

Have you got any other suggestions that has worked for your Business page on Facebook?

I originally wrote this article in August 2009 on my business website, but thought it would be a good topic to bring up again as online advertising is a regular concern for clients.

Time and time again businesses get emailed with some sort of offer to list on a website to promote their themselves with promises of better search engine rankings and increased website traffic.

My mantra when it comes to this decision is to only pay upfront for a listing which meets the following criteria:

• It is a well known and quality website relevant to your industry or target market.
• It provides a link back to your website.
• It can provide you with it’s monthly web statistics (unique browser visits and page visits) to measure it’s effectiveness.
• It ranks highly in search engine results for your business categories.
• It provides good value for money i.e. the upfront cost is not over the top and realistic for the profile it has and the content it allows you to add.

Know Your Stats!

For any listings you already pay for make sure you can track the traffic sources for your website through tools like Google Analytics, that way when it comes to decide whether to renew any listing you can find out how much traffic you’ve received and work out stats like the cost per click.

There’s a lot of value in checking and knowing your web statistics and traffic sources regularly. Free listings are the way to go for the bulk of your online listings, but there will be a selection of sites that are worth the money if they can give you quality website traffic.

Being the detailed and fairly pedantic person that I am, I constantly track, monitor and ensure I understand what’s happening with my website and for my client sites. I find this analysis an integral part of understanding what visitors are interested in and improve content accordingly. It’s also reassuring to know where the traffic is coming from, and when. What actions have I taken to encourage well targeted traffic? When’s the best time to send out marketing emails, post a new blog or announce something on Twitter?

Without analysis of these details I would be blind to the affects of all my online activity – and there’s no fun in that – it’s quite a satisfying thing to post a new blog, tweet about it and then watch the traffic activity and blog comments start coming in. You then know that what you do is not just of interest to you – it is adding value to your customers and target market.

So here are a list of some key things any website owner should know about their website:

• unique visits to the site for any given period
• your top traffic sources and search key words used
• when peaks in traffic have occurred and why (correlated with marketing activity)
• what pages (or blog posts) are the most popular
• average time spent on the site and on each page
• trends for all of the above

These are the main things I always look at using Google Analytics but there are many more metrics available through this tool. It’s also good to know the “bounce rate” (what % of people leave the site after just viewing 1 page), and for the sake of understanding how people use your website check out the “site overlay” function to see the percentage of clicks on any link for each page.

Another key area is “Conversions”. You can set goals on the behaviour you want people to take and track the conversion % achieved.  For example if you have a booking system within your site you could have a goal to have 5% of the traffic convert to bookings. Some booking systems will let you add your google analytics user code so you can effectively track the usage of the booking process (The Siteminder Booking button is one example of this).

It’s amazing how many businesses barely look at their website statistics, which is a shame because online marketing is one of the few marketing activities where you can accurately track activity from marketing campaigns – you can and should use this knowledge to monitor and improve you marketing strategy.

Interested to hear about what other metrics people typically monitor for their websites too, share your thoughts!

One of the biggest concerns for accommodation providers when wanting to sell their rooms online is how to avoid double bookings when selling live “realtime” inventory across multiple booking channel websites.

The solution for most is use of “Channel Management” internet based software that will automatically update pricing and inventory across these key channels by linking the systems together (usually via an API link).

Not only does channel management eliminate the risk of double bookings, it also allows operators to achieve broad exposure for their business internationally and increase their total bookings…a no brainer really.

Increasingly mainstream Property Management System’s (PMS) will link to update the channel manager for you, so keep this in mind when selecting a PMS.

Some channel managers won’t require a link to an automated property management system so these ones can be just as applicable for B&B’s as they are for hotels, motels, and Backpacker accommodation.

Some key Channel Managers relevant for New Zealand accommodation are:

Siteminder

• Australian based with one of the most comprehensive lists of channels that it updates relevant for both NZ and Australian accommodation operators.
• Prices start from $49 per month
• They also offer a booking system for your website called the “Booking Button” from $29 per month
• Can use their channel manager without a PMS
• They have recently implemented a NZ freephone number to improve direct support for NZ operators

Seekom

• A 100% NZ based option with a growing list of key NZ and international booking channels that it updates
• Seekom is primarily an online booking solution but has been expanding it’s software capability and now offer a full PMS, along with channel management and content managed website solutions.
• You can use Seekom Channel Management option on it’s own from $39 per month and is even more cost effective to use it in combination with their online booking system and other solutions.
• Recently been chosen as the preferred channel manager for the HAPNZ group

Staah

• Another NZ owned organisation offering an internet based online booking system for your website and channel management. They also provide website design and SEO services.
• They can link to some the common PMS’s used in NZ
• Set monthly fees, (pricing not published on their website)

RoamFree

• Australian based with links to global channels, they offer channel management and an online booking tool for your own website that can also link to some PMS’s (although at this stage they are not key NZ based ones). Their channels tend to be Australian and Globally focused so exclude some key NZ channels.
• Set monthly fees (not published on their website)
  

Have you got any more information about these channel management options or other options you think are relevant? Leave a comment to let us know.

The advent of mobile travel applications for smart phones and iPhone apps is obviously an exciting new direction for travellers and the tourism industry.  But how far off is it before it becomes a key way to book and pay for travel?

At present, like the early days of the internet, most of the applications are content focused brochures rather than booking tools.  Many will link you to mobile versions of booking websites that allow you to book but overall the interface for many of these is still cumbersome to use.

Tripadvisor has recently launched their new iPhone to include links to book accommodation online through their OTA (online travel agent) booking partners websites rather than trying to come up with a complete solution.

This article on tnoonz (Talking Travel Tech) “Isango starts work on mobile destination app” highlights the issues over product payments for mobile apps.  The key concern being that with last minute bookings, which are most likely on a mobile device, there is a need to ensure real time availability is accurate in the last minute period (particularly if made with 48 hours of arrival) rather than a simple email confirmation process with accommodation properties.

No doubt many different solutions are being developed and the gap in the travel market to deliver an effective mobile booking and payment solution for mobile devices is being worked on.  According to this article on m-Travel.com “Start-up works on new enterprise mobile platform for hotel reservations“.

The start up named is “TripCraft” and they promote themselves as “the industry’s first enterprise-level mobile application… No more cumbersome mobile browser-based experiences. TripCraft combines the speed and efficiency of a native app with the ability to pull in dynamic content in real-time.”  Their application allows connection to reservations systems to book in real time with the ability to modify and cancel bookings.

At this stage TripCraft is a solution for hoteliers rather than online travel agents, but initiatives such as the Open travel Alliance will be key to standardising ways for the industry to achieve true real time availability distribution no matter what the platform.

No doubt, for accommodation providers, providing your own application for mobile bookings will be a key way to ensure repeat business with your regular and business travellers making it easy for them to book with you no matter where and when.

The new TV ad for the “There’s nothing like Australia” campaign has been released with plans for global launch next month.  It is already copping plenty of criticism from the Australia public.  I prefer the “Where the bloody hell are ya” ad, what do you think?

Foursquare, the latest new and free location-based social media tool based on mobile device use that is taking off.

What is it?

Using a mobile device with GPS, it’s a way to explore a city and find people, places and things to do.  The users “check-in” to their current locations and can earn rewards in doing so.   
It’s got much more of a “game” approach to it than other social media tools where users can “unlock badges and discover new things” for rewards, but the interesting bit is that these things are in the real world so businesses can use it to influence behaviour and actions, turning Foursquare users into paying customers.

Is It Useful for Tourism Businesses and Destination Marketing?

You bet ya it is, well eventually anyway – once more people start to understand it, and provided it’s content continues to grow throughout New Zealand then it could become quite a powerful tool for travellers to decide what do to and where to go while visiting, plus you can incentivise your regular customers.

Here is a link to find out how businesses can use Foursquare to reward their customers with special offers and incentives.  You can either “claim your venue” as the business owner if someone has already added your business on Foursquare, or you can add your venue yourself.  Once you have claimed it you can monitor the stats, add special offers and award prizes etc.

This article “VisitPA uses Foursquare to it’s Full Potential” on the Project Wander blog is perhaps the first example of a Destination Marketing Organisation getting onboard with Foursquare to market it.

The limiting factor right now in New Zealand is the quality and lack of mobile internet access nationwide so it’s use is mainly in the cities….that may take some time to fix, but if your coverage is good then give it a go for your tourism business or organisation.  Would be great to hear about any businesses using it already.

There are plenty of choices out there in the market for accommodation operators in selecting an online booking system that suits them.  You can view a list of New Zealand booking systems available on this article “Online Booking Strategy for Tourism Operators“.  One notable change since that article was published is the merge of Bookit with Vianet – now both owned by Trade Me Travel with plans to phase out the Vianet system for bookings later this year.

The decision on which online booking system you choose will come down to a few key areas that are relevant to your business:

Cost model

Is it commission based per booking or a set monthly fee?  The certainty of a set monthly fee will suit some and not others.  Those will lower volume bookings are likely to be better off using a supplier with a straight commission model.

Flexibility with Inventory Management

Can you opt to offer real time or on request bookings?  Can you mix it up between the 2 options?  There are definite key benefits to having control over your availability type for different time periods – particularly for smaller suppliers who don’t have the luxury of large room inventories to always offer instant bookings.

Distribution opportunities

Does the system offer a retail distribution channel or network to increase your booking opportunities?  Many of the key systems either have set up their own retail website, work with key retail websites or have been purchased by a large retailer.

Functionality

Does it come with all the bells and whistles of a full reservations system or simply accept online bookings?  Can you choose what you use in the system to suit your business?  Pick a system that will work with your needs.

Channel Management

Does it offer an automated link to updating key retail travel websites or at least link to a channel manager that does?  This ability opens up the opportunity for you to gain broad exposure and easily manage your pricing and availability with key online travel agents.

Easy to use

For both yourself and your customers.  It’s an important consideration as to how your customers experience the booking process on your own website.  It should be simple, quick and easy to understand (likewise for you!).

How Do New Zealand Online Booking Systems Score?

To me, a great system would offer you options in all of these areas and give you the choices to make it work for your business without dictating how you use it.  Does any of the New Zealand systems offer all of this right now?  Not really, there is no perfect system yet that will suit every type of tourism business.

Don’t get me wrong – many of the systems work fine and offer comprehensive solutions, but I think all of them fail in one respect or another so it’s a matter of picking the one that is the best fit for your business based on some of the criteria discussed above.

Once you’ve been in business for a while and created a successful tourism venture, you may be wondering what’s next?  It’s very easy to sit back and keep doing the same old thing, however new and exciting tourism products can help to not only boost your business profile but also ensure long term success.  You will also likely find it much easier to develop something new building off your current successes and knowledge than when you started off the first time.

Joint Ventures

A great way to invent something new is to think about possible partners you could develop a joint venture product with.  Your expertise may be in one area but through your business you have likely networked with other tourism businesses that have different and complimentary skills.  Building an alliance with another tourism operator/s can be an effective approach to develop something new and innovative for continual business development where you can share the benefits and the risks.  Plus with joint marketing funds and knowledge it’s likely you can achieve a lot more and bring it to market faster.

I think this sort of approach can work particularly well in the activities and attractions area of tourism.  For example, some activities may benefit from having a historical or Maori cultural component added to it, a food and beverage component, a marine or water sport, or expertise on nature and eco tourism.  The type of “mix and match” options available is really up to your imagination, your local contacts, and knowledge of what your market likes.

A good example of a new tourism joint venture launched recently in the Bay of Islands is “Dining under the Stars” (see the media release here).  This product has been led by Adventure Puketi (a forest walks tourism operator), who have joined with a local restaurant “Food at Wharepuke” to offer a unique guided kauri forest walk and dining activity  in the Puketi Forest.  The experience includes a night walk in the forest (something they already offered) culminating in an exotic dinner service in a forest clearing under the stars with Maori cultural performers and a guide talking about the stars in the New Zealand night sky.  The target market is aimed at conference groups, tour groups, and the cruise market.

This type of creativity and willingness to work with partners is what small to medium New Zealand tourism businesses can use to revive or expand their tourism products plus create memorable and unique experiences for our visitors.