Cultural Tourism Adventure Travel Destinations

To me adventure is about discovery, exploration and learning. Discovering an old culture, a belief and away of life or discovering nature and the world is my adventure. As a teenager I roamed the Caribbean with 100 US $ and made it to the island, traveling on trading schooners, the mail boat and occasionally on a luxury sailing yacht, needing an extra hand on deck.Today I rather like my comforts and a little luxury now and again is very welcome.

Luxury is  indeed a growing travel market  and one that is becoming more accessible as airfares have declined and even 5 star hotels offer deep discounts and best rates for booking direct and online with their own booking engines, websites, smartphone applications and social media pages.  Very accessible indeed in the new age of communications and an emphases on openness and fair pricing.

So one can take of for a Safari or a Jungle holiday and explore new tucked away cultures and people of all walks of life and all beliefs.  Grass roots culture is the core of the new desire to reach out and connect. Many cultural tourist travel with a responsible attitude and a deep emotion to understand, connect and to help. These grass root cultural holidays are often not done by the major tour companies and on line travel agents. The best holidays are often made by personal contact and recommendations. Dealing directly with hotels and tourism operators who are recommended can save quite a few dollars and also make the trip much more personal and real.


We created http://adventure-travel-destinations.com to help hotels, tourism operators and destinations make these personal contacts and market adventure packages of all types, from nature explorations to cultural exchange. Hotel from all over the world can easily and quickly add package (click on the affiliates link in Adventure travel Destinations) and have it displayed on the site along with many others. There are pages to add special deals and best rate guarantees for travelers who book direct. Travelers using these direct links get a fair rate and the direct contacts with the destination host who can make the difference. Adventure travel destinations also offers leading adventure holiday packages from independent agents with knowledge of the culture and the destination.

In promoting our adventure holiday travel site we stumbled upon several adventure travel writers, including Andrew Prinze, who describes himself as a cultural Navigator. His story is in our first article of a series we are planning. You can see this on our slideshare site linked in the title of this blog. Scott Cummingham is another independent adventure writer that we will feature. Scott is a geologist who explores natural phenomena of the earths crust to tucked away cultures in remove coves off of the coast of Nova Scotia. 

Over the next several months we will share insights and discoveries with from around the globe with authors such as these. The articles will lead you to new cultures and adventure destinations with packages and deals that make world adventures to far away places affordable.

Check back here and on adventure-travel-destinations.com for the next update on our adventure travel & cultural tourism series.

6 Tips in Choosing your Facebook Hotel and Travel Marketing Platform

Source: facebook hotel reservations application

Facebook is a force in travel marketing. It has moved from being a social setting and a chat room into something much more. Destyination Marketing Organisation and hotels are making it part of their marketing strategy.

Australia now have a fan base of I million, New Zealand has 280,000 fans, Spain clicks in just under that.


As a Tourism Platform Facebook  has to provide an expert  knowledge system to organize data, make it meaningful, relevant and actionable.This is happening, not so much by Facebooks own initiatives but by applications made for facebook by trade marketing companies and hotel chains. Many of the leaders are Online Travel Agents co's like Expedia. This is unfortunate as Facebook is a Brand friendly channel that can and should be used by hotels, tourism operators and destinations to build their own brand integrity, fan loyalty and direct bookings.

We have built our own facebook travel marketing application for  hotel bookings and tourism marketing and management. In putting it together we had 6 main goals which we think are a good yard stick for all other application to emulate. These are

1. It is direct – ie no commission, no transaction fees and an affordable subscription.
2. It is a Travel Content Management system that will easily load and manage all units, rates, seasons, images, description and hotel/Tourism brand.
3. It supports special rates and packages for Facebook fans and special interest groups with in the fan base
4. It can publish content to mobile marketing channels and provide a full mobi. Travel website with booking engine.
5. It integrates with tourism website offer booking widgets and content management of Specials and rates on the traditional website.
6. It is  open and extensive and can it publish content, specials and packages to other channels at reasonable cost

For more on our Facebook travel platform application see  arcResBookings.coma

You may try this leading Facebook hotel Marketing and Management system for free and evaluate how it can help your marketing. http://arcres.com/facebook-offer-bookings.cfm

The full story and demo video may be read on our ezine article 

10 Tips on Article Marketing for Holiday Travel Destinations & Tourism

Travel articles area good way to promote your hotel, holiday, travel activity and destination. See this example Article Marketing Romantic Holidays

10  Tip to Article Ranking

1. Do not write advertorials or what are seen as self-service promotions. 

Advertorials are not generally effective, neither are infomercials. Self-serving articles do not impress those who are looking for good independent information.

2. Publish content related to your promotion. It must be a good information article. Your links provide direct contact and create important back-links to your website- This help improve your Page Rank and Search Engine listing

3. Choose Authors who are know and respected

4. Choose channels that are considered authoritative. EzineArticles, Hubpages, Qondio, Bukisa, Tunblr and our own TravelersInsights.com

5. Don't pepper articles with links and don't duplicate links to the same URL

6. Create a Video for the article and post it to YouTube and all video channels.

7. Create printed documents  of the article and submit these to Document services like Slideshare. 

8.Use Web 2.0 properties to Chat about your article, link to it and create a linked network.

9. Bookmark your articles on Digg, MIXX, StumbleUpon, Mister Wong and the top social bookmarking sites

10. Do several press releases on benefits and features. Use WebPR advanced package and add a video. 

If you have not done it before, get a professional to help you. Theer is quite a bit to do and a lot of tools to use. At the end you must ping all the sites and create your links.

We can help you - consult@axses.com

Advertise your special on these articles with AXSES arcRes Publishing systems - http://arcres.com/hotel-marketing-tourism-specials.cfm

Adventure Travel Destinations:Hotel Travel & Tourism

Adventure Holiday Travel is our business and our passion. Travel enhances and changes lives. We help make adventures vacation & travel to adventure destinations accessible, affordable and special by putting travelers in Direct Contact with hotels and adventure tourism operators in the destinations.

Check our adventure special deals, vacation packages at top adventure travel destinations for families, singles and groups.

For exotic adventures to soft and gently adventure holidays, cultural holiday adventure, culinary adventures or just the adventure of exploring new places, people and nature.

Please click here for more information.

Can Google+1 Stop Facebook's Dramatic Rise?

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Will Google's new Social Media Google +1, an optional browser extension, be a contender against the rise of Facebook as the world's most visited site? If not, will it matter to Google, and why is Google working so hard to be a player in the Social Media and failing so often (buzz, friends connect, wave, etc.)?

The chart here shows the latest trends in searches for Google, Facebook, and YouTube; Facebook has surpassed all, and is climbing above all at an accelerated pace. 

As holiday buyers look to friends and friends of friends for advice and suggestions on travel, destinations, hotels and holiday activities, many are choosing to seek out information on Facebook hotel pages, Facebook groups and Facebook friends reviews. This "social trend" continues to influence how people buy travel, how they research holiday options and how they choose destinations, hotels and vacation activities. It is influencing where they go, how they get there and what they do.
 
Google must be contemplating the future of search, as social site like Facebook and their "word of mouth appeal", make inroads on search. Some say search has become dysfunctional, offering too many unspecific links to promotional pages. The results are often designed to sell affiliate marketing products like cell phones, Smartphones, Amazon books and gadgets. Marketers have become experts at mastering Google results with crafted articles and Search Engine Optimised (SEO) web pages, promoting products and services associated with the top keywords and phrases being searched.

Search for "Adventure Travel Destinations"; you will get 16 million results. Those on the first page are Google's top picks, but are they right for you? Perhaps our site http://Adventure-Travel-Destinations.com is what you are looking for, but if it is not ranked by Google, you will not see it. 80% of searches look only at page 1 results and the competition for getting on page one is daunting to small hotels and tourism marketers.

A goal of search is to provide a single "right" answer to any question. The right answer is one that is tailored to you. But who knows what you mean when you search for "adventure travel"? The concept of adventure is entirely personal. To many, it is a challenging physical endeavor, like climbing a mountain; to others, it is a cultural exchange, and to some, it is exploring nature. At times, it is different things to the same person because there are, in fact, many "yous". We are complex beings and our needs change in time, by occasion and by circumstance. The point is that the software algorithms of a search engine are not the best judge of what "we" want and many are turning to Social Media, in search for more meaning.


The merger of Social Media and Search is on the horizon, with Bing and Facebook leading the effort. Google, pondering its options, has moved quickly to fill the gaps by including social media in its results and evaluating social footprints. It leads in mobile search and sees the Smartphone and social media merging into a permanent new business sector. Smartphones make connection social, instant, pertinent and more permanent, creating new opportunities for e-commerce, dialogue and service. See  How Travellers use Smartphones.

Smartphones searching the web are expected to outpace all searches from laptops and desktops within the next few years. This is why Google has made Mobile its number one strategy.  Mobile is the new Social arena and Google +1 might just tie it together in the internet browser. Google +1 may succeed where Google previously failed because it combines Google strengths in search, mobile & cloud computing. This could well be the new social universe. The task for Google is to get consumers to accept its new technology and its browser.  

The future for travel marketing is going to be more mobile, more social and more connected. Google has not been good at creating a social platform, but it just might succeed in creating the new social universe where connection transcends platform.

For now, Facebook continues to grow as a travel and tourism marketing platform, with applications that allow hotels, tourism companies and holiday destinations to load, manage and market their brands and products on their Facebook pages. Facebook Fans are booking holidays on hotel and tourism Facebook pages where marketing is understated, connections are personal and loyalty is rewarded. 

Load your travel brand and bookings on Facebook now: arcRes Publishing - Facebook Trial

10 reasons to book Adventure Holiday Specials Direct from Destinations Suppliers

Our new Adventure Travel Destinations site is tracking on the search engine for searches like "adventure holiday specials and deals". The focus of the site is marketing adventure travel for direct bookings at hotels and tourism companies. Making adventure travel more affordable by buying direct from hotel owners and tourism operators just makes sense.

Hotels and Local Tour companies are the Adventure Suppliers. Adventure travelers often do not understand that it is the Hotel and not the Online Travel Agent (OTA), like Expedia, that provides the product. 

Many travelers feel that the OTA is the travel supplier and have come to think that OTAs offer the best prices for all holidays and travel adventures. We have seen travelers check out rates on a hotel website and book with an OTA, because the price was better at the OTA.

The AXSES   VacationSpecialDeals.com initiative is an attempt to change this. We have also added options for hotels to mange rates and offer Best Available rates to all travelers who book holidays direct.

There is no reason why travelers should think the best deals are via OTAs. Here are the reasons to book adventure holidays direct. It's not all about best holiday specials and deals, but best rates and specials has become a necessity.

1. Best rates are often guaranteed for booking direct with the hotel owner or tourism operator
2. You are dealing with local a Hotel and tourism owner who has special knowledge of the adventure holiday package and all of its holiday options
3. You get real, expert, local advice on the package and the destination
4. It's generally easy to ungrade and, often, owners may upgrade you when dealing direct.
5. It's easier to change dates and option, or even cancel.
6. Local hotel owners often has special arrangements for local activities and offer holiday discounts on local tours and adventure activities
7. Local owners want you to be completely satisfied with your adventure holiday experience. We know of local hotel managers who have paid for a couple who were getting married to go somewhere else, as the OTA had not understood exactly what they wanted. They were sent to a jungle hut, when they wanted a Caribbean beach.
8. You get special attention and special privileges when booking your adventure holiday direct with the hotel & tourism operator. 
9. Local owners often have insights and connections that can make  your holiday. For example, a trip with a local  fisherman is seldom arranged by an OTA, but can be organised with a Local Hotel Manager. A night on beach with Leo, the stargazer in  Barbados, sipping wine and eating beach-fired roasted breadfruit, is a romantic adventure and learning experience that is never organised by an OTA. 

Local knowledge can make an ordinary holiday a real adventure and learning holiday.

Add your Specials to AXSES arcRes for Global advertising and distribution on sites like Craigslist, Google Shopping, BarbadosVacationSpecials.com,  Adventure Travel Destinations, and Romantic Holiday Destinations.

See more at Adventure Travel Destinations Marketing affiilates

Example: Family Adventure Holidays Specials and Deals -  Advertising

Dominica Carib People - The Kalinago

A Fascinating Culture much aligned by folklore. This article is a personal account of my visit, meeting, discussion and research. Its a part of the Dominica Article Ranking ,Video Blogging &; Destination Marketing for Dominica.  For more on Dominica see http://BookingsDominica.com & http://bookingsdominica.com/dominica-nature-island.cfm




full article:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Dominica-Carib-People:-A-Culture-on-the-Edge&id=5244976

Just launched - Romantic Holiday Destinations

http://romantic-holiday-destinations.com

Romance is a huge part of the travel market and has become a word that in many ways is synonymous with travel. Extending far beyond its original meaning,  romantic holidays means something about the place, the experience and the ambiance. 

Paris is Romance because its aura is Romance:  The landscapes, the Champs Elysees, the French Chateau, the Louvre, they even sound romantic. 

So to is the Kasbah in Tangiers, a romantic place. The sounds evokes  the odor of ripe dates, olives in the market, palm trees in Hotel El Minzah courtyard, rich dark roast Arabian coffee, mint tea and the sea breeze fresh off the ocean. It is steeped in history and mystery, a romantic mystery conjuring up images of the exotic and the unknown. 

Romance is all of this:  Adventure, mystery, luxury, exotic, wild, peaceful, tempting, dangerous, exciting, a hideaway and an escape. Romance is a state of mind and an expectation. Romantic holiday are now family affairs. Holidays to romantic places are as appealing to families, singles, groups, and business as they are to couples and honeymooners..

As holiday makers strive to live the experience,  to seek mystery, the exotic and the place, we as marketers are re-defined our tourism product.

And so it was, that with our launch of  Adventure Travel Destinations a few weeks ago we took note of the growing interest in Romantic Holiday Adventures and launched  Romantic-Holiday-Destinations.com. Its aim is to provide travelers with information and special deals from  the most romantic places on earth, giving them the motivation to visit.

We are offering hotel and tourism operators the opportunity to tell their stories and add their products to these pages as advertisement and real time real time bookable specials.

The content is largely build by hotels & tourism companies who use arcRes publishing systems. In these days of hard times everyone is looking for deal and arcRes Specials Marketing is the idea vehicle with which to promote a hotel brand. 

We are offering a Free trial of arcRes Specials publishing & marketing to the tourism industry. Once a brand product or promotion is entered into arcRes, it  can be published to numerous channel, such as Facebook, and to devices like iPhones. 

A single subscription to arcRes Special Publishing and Marketing will automatically publish hotel brands to many travel sites including:

• Google Shopping
• Craigslist
• CaribbeanVacationSpecial, BrabadosVacationSpecials, Stlucia, Dominica etc
• Adventure-Travel-Holidays(i)
• Romantic-Holiday-Destinations(ii)
• iPhone and Smartphones Travel Shopping Applications
• arcAds distribution & publishing network (ezine and web2.0 properties were we place tourism advertisements)
• AXSES Affiliate network of lined sites like RealHolidays, CaribbeanHopping, TravelAgentRes and others where advertisers may be featured on a random bases.
• 100's of independent travel sites using arcRes syndicated news and RSS Feeds

 90 day Free Trial 
More Info and Sign-Up form for arcRes Publishing

 Video on arcRes marketing for romantic vacations and much more

We Look forward to bringing romance to your business! 

.

related article see our hub page http://hubpages.com/hub/Romantic-holiday-Travel

New Videos: How to Add Bookings to Facebook

With 500 million subscribers and a growing population of travelers using Facebook to share holiday information, travel plans and to check out reviews and share experiences, Facebook has become a power house for hotels and tourism. Now with the Integration with Bing - Facebook is about to power your search results in  away never done before. Our HubPage article explains some of the trends to note and contains videos on: A live demo of a Facebook bookings app, and how to setup arcResBookings on your facebook page.

The HubPage article covers several topics on Facebook and its future with Bing, Mobile Phones search and travel as it relates to tourism suppliers and hotel owners see http://hubpages.com/hub/Marketing-Tourism-with-facebook-Bookings-Mobile



For a Free Trial of  ArcResBookings see http://arcres.com/facebook-offer-bookings.cfm

Adventure Travel Destination Marketing Launched

AXSES officially launched its new Adventure Travel Destinations Marketing Portal http://adventure-travel-destinations.com. In a departure from our normal destination specific marketing such as http://BookingsBarbados.com, the new site includes multiple destination all of which offer special and deals for adventure holidays.

We see holiday and vacations as a form of adventure, even if you just go for sightseeing, you are traveling, going to new places or getaway to places you have been to before, to do something different, to meet new people and explore. There are adventure trips for family adventure holidays, romantic adventure vacations for couples, adventure getaways for singles, learning, culture, educational and gourmet adventures for wine tasting, great dining and every holiday escape.

The Adventure Travel Destinations' Affiliate page allows destinations, hotels and tourism operators to join in advertising their adventure holidays and to add special deals and promotions for travelers. Their is a video that describes the marketing benefits and a sign up link for hotels & tourism suppliers to:

Register Adventure Specials for a FREE 90 day Trial

Cost range from only $20US monthly for a special Ad on the entire network which include Smartphones (must have a Smartphone friendly website) and other optional features such as adding specials and booking options directly onto hotel Facebook pages.

Related links - AXSES CASE STUDY on Adventure Travel Destinations Marketing 
http://www.slideshare.net/irclay/adventuretraveldestinationsmarketing

How travelers use Smartphones

Smartphones are changing the way travelers use the Internet.

Publish Post

They are fundamentally different and better than a laptop or PC for finding and using information.

* Mobile is
More Dynamic | More Personal | More Locally Aware | More Reach | More Effective
More Portable | More Connected | More Satisfying |More Human
Mobile can see, hear, touch, talk and know where you are!

for full story see http://hubpages.com/hub/how-travelers-use-smartphones

Also see our page http://why.smartphonetraveller.com

AXSES Launches Tourism Video Blogging Marketing Service

For a full video blogging service, we provide photography/video, story boarding, article writing, narration, blogging and marketing. Marketing video includes distribution of the video to 27 key video sites, including YouTube, DailyMotion, etc. Your videos will be published to 100s of booking marking sites, RSS aggregators, Blogs, social media and Web 2.0 sires. Articles will be crated and published to ezines and article directories.

For examples, see our Dominica Campaign on YouTube, HubPages, Ezine Articles & Travelers Insights Magazine

Contact AXSES

More on Video Blogging and Hotel & Tourism Marketing >>>

Dominica the Caribbeans nature island - naturally romantic -

Dominica is Colour, the sea with many shades of monochrome blues and gray create a painters landscape that is totally unique. The landscape is pink, red, yellow, blue and white on a carpet of green and brown. The town is painted in bright greens, reds and blues; Strong colors that insist you notice, but they are never gaudy, and sit in perfect balance. Even the wildly coloured fishing boats are in harmony siting on their canvass of gray and silver sand , the green-blue, gray-white sea and sky. There is something extraordinary about the way the colours blend. The boasts on the beaches and anchored in the shallow waters, are painted with personality, each individual, yet complementary. They say much about the style of the place and its people. The entire Island seems at times to be symphony of colour in perfect harmony.
There are many places with bright and vibrant colors, but often they fight and clash each other. But it is not so in Dominica. Do they all use the same artist I wondered. Have they been to the same school of art, is art and painting taught like this in all schools. Perhaps there is just one artist doing all this work. Then who is his or her teacher. I decided to accept that mother nature is the teacher and the divine artist here. In the "nature Island" everyone is an artist working with the same pallet, fitting in rather than standing out.
Fitting in rather than standing out. It is a phrase that suites the Dominica temperament. Although they are independent and different, the sense of a community is not left behind.

It was what I noticed at the Carib village and from articles written about Dominica and its people. They may not have always been this way, but perhaps centuries of battles have made them weary of strife and they have always had a great respect for nature. They are people of nature and nature just IS as people sometimes just ARE; content with being close to the earth and one with all. Being is a possess of observing, going with the flow, accepting and fitting in rather than standing out. Dominicas fit in, with styles.

Please click here for more information.

Caribbean nature island Dominica, romance in the wistle of a

Dominica is about discovery. Much of its 360 rivers, rainforest and mountains are still unexplored. Sightseeing, trekking, hiking, diving is among the best in the Caribbean. But Dominica's true nature is a gentle peace; quiet in a land of towering mountains and cascading rivers. Stepping back in time, you are miles away from the modern world and its fast pace, time moves slowly in Dominica and that is the way Dominicans like it.

Dominica's unique quality of life draws people to it. Gilles, a French entrepreneur escaped to paradise, as he says, and open the Sea Lounge with the "Best French cuisine in the Caribbean" says Gilles. "I got to the point where I had taken care of my responsibilities, got my daughter thought her education, and now it was time for myself. Dominica appealed because I wanted to get away from the rat race and do something worthwhile where it might matter. I like the spirit of the people and the place".

The Travel writer, Paul Crask, also fell in love with it. American executives are discovering it for the right reasons and escaping to their mountain homes, "It will not be overdeveloped" says Colin Piper, Director of the Dominica Tourism Board, "we prefer to keep things simple and preserve the unique experience that is Dominica".

I hope that Dominica does not become another Antigua, Barbados and St. Lucia where hotels and condos are everywhere. It is not your typical Caribbean beach holiday destination. There are several white sand beaches in the North but the land is private and the developers are not flocking in because there is no international airport and no one wants to tear down a mountain to build one.

The roads are narrow and often steep with many switchbacks. It takes an hour and half to drive from the airport to Roseau the capital - 27 miles. It's not highway driving, you are driving thought the jungle, sometimes a rainforest or a banana plantation, on the edge of a mountain with a panoramic view of the ocean coastline.

You come to Dominica to escape and rejuvenate in nature. Paddling up Indian River takes you to a new place of peace and quiet and character. It is Dominica - The nature Island, a brief moment to escape, take your foot of the accelerator and enjoy the calm of nature as paddle you up the river. The steady rhythm of paddles dipping in the water, is almost hypnotic, it is very soothing. In this island you will sleep in comfort of a boutique hotel, elegant without being overstated, or climb into your cottage in the treetops at Jungle Bay resort.

What you will notice in Dominica is colour, bright and vibrant but never gaudy. Nature abounds with its colour. Along the roads wild flowers spread a carpet of red, blue, white and yellow on a green tapestry. The towns and villages are alive with bright greens, yellow, reds and all shade of blue, and in the fishing villages the well cared for fishing boats are painted with personality. Pink fishing boats say as much about the owner as about the boat!

This is an island of individuals, about personal choice and the determination to be different. It is for discerning travelers who are not the typical tourist. It is, and I hope will always be, an undiscovered treasure tucked away in time, where old-fashioned values last.

Please click here for more information.

Facebook Travel Blog Launched

AXSES launches a Facebook Travel Blog. While there are several Facebook blogs, this blog is for hotel and tourism suppliers and reports on Facebook issues and developments as they affect travel.

AXSES is a leader in developing Travel applications for Facebook and helping hotels and tourism suppliers load and manage room, products, rates, photos and content on their Facebook pages. We see Facebook as a valuable resource for travel marketing.

So do many tourism and destination marketers. New Zealand boasts 200,000 Fans and has made Facebook a strategic part of its 2011 World Soccer Promotions. See http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/news-and-features/news/fans-flock-to-rwc-2011-on-facebook

For a free trial of arcRes Facebook Bookings and Facebook Tourism Content Management, see http://trial.arcResBookings.com

New Facebook blog - http://facebookhotels.weebly.com/facebook-blog.html

Facebook Direct Bookings for Hotels & Tourism

A new Release of arcResBookings.com for Facebook with a new Video showing  just how easy it is to get your arcRes content, rooms, rates, images and property info onto your Facebook pages. Special rates and coupons can be offered to Facebook fans special content and welcome message may be customised for Facebook. Works for Hotels, villas and all accommodation as well as car rentals and tourism operators.

See story on our HubPages  

Apple hears the market and opens iphone a flash

We all take some credit for the latest move by Apple to open its iPhone platform just a Flash.

Our first HubPage article on Smartphones was Jobs not done well which took issue with the lack of Flash on iPhones and Apples closed approach.  Android took full advantage of the situation  as its sales soared and the DroidX became called the new iPhone SmartPhone Shootout.

.

The news was full of advise and criticism for Apple. Apple has heard the message and moved. 

The lepord can change its spots see http://hubpages.com/hub/iPhone-Outrage-take-effect





For more on Smartphone Mobile Marketing for Travel see http://SmartphoneTraveller.com  |  Try out our Smartphone VacationSpecials marketing at http://trial.SmartphoneTraveller.com | See more research at http://research.SmartphoneTraveller.com

Mobile travel bookings need a Smartphone travel strategy

The travel and tourism technology industry has been slow to adopt a smart mobile strategy for travel bookings and marketing. Some of the first to enter the race are the Online Travel Agents, who have ported travel bookings along with their version of hotel and tourism information to the iPhone and smartphone apps.

The independent travel technology suppliers, who provide products and services to the tourism industry, are catching up. They are still behind, and many hotel booking engines do not work on smartphones, but this is changing.

AXSES has shared its own strategies in past blogs and has created an entire social site/blog on Smartphone know-how and strategies. For example, see  http://strategies.smartphonetraveller.com and our discussion on Travel Bookings / Website redesign. Our lastest  Hub on Smartphone Strategies  lists the top 6 Criteria in Rating your Mobile Travel Technology Partner and provides advice on vital issues that are easily overlooked.


Only Travel technology suppliers can lead hotels and tourism suppliers into mobile marketing with Booking engines on Smartphones.  The new Mobile Market has spawned a host of new suppliers and new tools, but travel is complex and few of the new entries understand the intricacies of tourism. Tourism technology is  a very specialised industry that is highly integrated and interwoven - from the point of planning, shopping, departure and destination holiday activities, to return, sharing and building loyalty: The travel shopping and vacations experience is the worlds largest and most integrated business system. New Smartphone building tools that don't understand this industry, fail to offer suitable solutions to hotels and tourism operators.

Tourism Mobile strategies are best supplied by tourism technology companies that understand rates management, channel management, packaging, property management, guest relations and loyalty programs, inventory management and allocation, affiliate management, global distribution, yield management and direct bookings.

For details and criteria of what you need to look for in building a Mobile Bookings and Smartphone Marketing strategy, see our Hubpages on Tourism Strategies for Smartphone Bookings

Hotel Smartphone website brings more bookings than Apps

AXSES Smartphone Hotel and Tourism Marketing Strategy

This blog is a little out of step with the way we do things. First, we are sharing our Smartphone Marketing strategy while the mobile products we discuss are being developed. It's perhaps brave, perhaps naive, perhaps foolish, but we have a solution that is dynamite and right for the market. While developers are rushing to build apps, the fact is that only 1/5 of traveler users are using apps. Travelers prefer to use the web. "While about a third of Smartphone owners use their devices for travel-related activities, only one-fifth of all Smartphone owners have installed travel apps on their devices." ReadWriteWeb based on Smartphone Intelligence survey by  Compete.com. 


The smart website solution is very affordable and aimed directly at where the smartphone market is now and where we see it evolving.

Over the last 15 years, AXSES has been  a leader in tourism development with many first to market products, like http://Realholidays.com dynamic package and matchmaking for hotels and travelers. AXSES created http://Bookable-maps. Commended by Google, Bookable-ads.com,  is a first in merging advertising and bookings, making adds more effective and dramatically increasing the travelers' time on the site and their click rate. We were first with our  direct bookings application for facebook, allowing small and mid-size hotels, car rentals and tourism suppliers to load and manage their info directly into Facebook using arcRes Publishing.

You will note from our last blog that we feel hotel and tourism operators need to move quickly to make their information and marketing efforts Smartphone-ready.  But we are not proposing that they have to develop new websites or smartphone apps. What we propose is to treat this market just as we do Facebook add-ons. We are now enhancing arcRes publishing, adding a Mobile Module for smartphones.

What this means is that we create a standard way for information to be loaded, stored and managed for websites, for Smartphone applications, Web 2.0 applications, like Facebook, and for Web marketing.

For clients already using arcRes as a booking engine or a marketing system, getting onto Smartphone is just a few clicks away.

For hotels and tourism operators not already using acrRes, there is no better time to sign up and get Smartphone mobile. For tourism suppliers who  have a booking engine, arcRes will step through a setup and publish the Smartphone website and  marketing system. arcRes is the complete publishing system for website information, booking engines, Facebook pages, special promotions, collaborative marketing, packaging and marketing.

See the video as an example of what we mean.



What does it mean to tourism operators, hotels, car rentals, restaurants, tours and local attractions?:

For arcRes clients, there is no fee to create the mobile website as they will already have the content is arcRes and just need to tweak it. We will host the smartphone website and bookings for 25$ per month. For non-arcRes users, there is small cost to set up and hoist the new smartphone website.

No bad, considering the size of the market. For More on AXSES arcRes, see arcRes: the Complete Tourism Platform at http://tourism-marketing-platform.com | For More on AXSES Smartphone Travel marketing applications, see http://SmartphoneTravelApps.com

 Final word on Apps vs. Smart websites

I don't believe the industry will put up with this idea that every  Smartphone must have its own app. That worked when there was only iPhone. With Android, the game has changed. Their are over 40 manufacturers and the pace of innovation and new products in unprecedented. Check out the latest Motorola Droidx 4.3 inch display . Apple is already falling behind. Open your technology and do the proper job. You are about to repeat your past when you could embrace much more. Be open; you have so much to give!

 "61.6 million Smartphones were sold in the second quarter of 2010, as compared to just over 40 million in 2009, with the biggest change coming in operating systems. Android overtook Apple's iOS for the number three spot worldwide and passed Research In Motion's operating system to take the number one spot in the U.S" Garner .

More like this: see our Hubpage apps vs websites- whats the difference
Check our research pages at http://research.SmartphoneTraveller.com

Coming soon - Tools to build your App or Website | The demise of the App

Hotel websits on Smartphones need rethinking

"Most regular websites look horrible on a Smartphone." So says Chris Atkinson, Founder at MobiSphere.

I agree, and we have the proof of that in the video below. This is particularly true for the Hotel and Tourism Operator's website,  where bookings are complex and include many dimensions: Terms and meal plans, upgrades and add-ons,  different rates by season, special deals and promotions,  different rate plans, family plans and packages.

Over the last few years, hotel reservation and booking forms have become wider as developers and application designers put all information on a single screen. The Smartphone just can not handle it. It's time to get back to basics.

Many hotel and tourism owners think the scrunched-up websites on the Smartphone are cute and perfectly adequate. It amazed me that a 700-pixel screen of our site, Barbados.org, did look cute and is readable on a tiny screen. But on closer inspection, it is not so smart and it is rather like the video below, in some cases.

It is inevitable; these sites must be re-designed in order to provide the service. The re-design must be from the ground up. Smartphone and mobile users have a different mindset and they want pertinent facts in precise form. Content must be concise.

There is no doubt that the Smartphone mobile market it going to be vast.
(see whyMobile.PDF). 

eMarketers' research show that both travelers and tourism operators have plans for the Smartphone market.

The question is how best to get there

 eBusiness Strategies found that 40 percent of Smartphone owners say they’ve done at least some of their leisure travel research on their mobile device; 25 percent say they have booked travel through their phones.  Smartphone use is accelerating at a rapid pace as consumers and business users shift from desktop PCs, and  laptops, to iPhones, iPads, Androids, BlackBerrys and other platforms.

 

A critical choice is: should you do applications for every phone, or a build a better web experience?. 

Applications are great. They can be fully optimised for the Smartphone to take advantage of internal features on every phone.

The problem is, of course, that you have to develop an app for each phone (operating system at least).

At the same time, travelers have to download the app, and they have to find it!. App stores have a long way to go to replace web search. Apps are proprietary and closed. They are becoming lost in a crowded app store that has not been designed for search and retrieval. As apps get more numerous, the store seems more inadequate.

When I talk to smartphone users, they all use their phones to browse the web. Many say they browse far more that they look for apps. So that tells me it is the right place to start. I think the apps idea is not mature for travel shopping, compared to the number of users who still browse the net. My view is that web browsing will not go away and it is the right place to start. App stores will not, in my view, replace the search engine, as people will want to find information and services that are free and readily available on the net.

Well, it's a view in hindsight! We initially created a Smartphone application for travel shopping (see our PR http://SmartphoneTraveller.com). It was pretty straight forward and works well. Several hundred travelers have downloaded it already and we are committed to apps as a long-term strategic solution for tourism.  But our next initiatives will be in mobile websites and web-based services for Smartphone mobile website.

We are soon to introduce new applications to help hotels and tourism operators get their own hotel websites and marketing information Smartphone-ready. Websites are ready now with a longer-term strategy to build the same content and new services into apps. It's a comprehensive Smartphone Tourism Marketing strategy; building for the immediate and for the long-term. 

But not all agree with the rational of building smart websites. Apple says that iPhone users don't want search; they want apps. I agree that they certainly don't want to search for regular sites. But the app idea undermines the concept of the web as an open and comprehensive service.

My vision of the future is that people want openness, and if there are great apps, they will want it on their own Smartphone. The best way to deliver that openness is via the Internet. It is where we will see the next burst of innovation as the net morphs into the Smartphone, bringing the entire universe of information to your pocket as quick and easy and as versatile as an app.

Watch out for our next blog, where we outline AXSES Smartphone Strategy for Hotels and Tourism Owners. Direct sales straight to a pocket for you!




LINKS
HubPage on this topic | arcRes travel Platform | 

BREAKING NEWS
Just off the Press: Aug 22 2010 - Eye for Travel EU study finds  "consumers were almost 3 times as likely to access travel services via a browser, compared to an application".
With the ongoing enhancement in Smartphones and development of the web and more Smartphone-ready websites, we expect that consumers will continue to prefer browsing over using an app to shop for travel.

The Next Hotel Marketing Wave - Publish or Perish

The tourism marketing and development work we did for Dominica has opened our eyes to the future. Almost as a sideline, we created the TravelersInsights.com magazine. It was a personal account, inspired by our need to understand and document the brand. When marketing the destination on the Internet, it provided a framework for the conversation we entered or created. This was a success. We managed to place the new central reservation system we had created BookingsDominica.com on top of search results for most of the important Dominica Travel search words and phrases.

The TravelersInsights Dominica however sat on the shelves and was largely ignored by the Discover Dominica Authority (DDA). Hotels loved it so much that every single copy of the draft run disappeared. We knew that it was a worthwhile endeavor, but it needed the DDA to use and distribute it. This did not happen!

Adversity is often the mother of invention, and in trying to find a better use for the TraveleresInsights Dominica publication, we discovered online publishing. 

There are thousands of online resources where you publish travel stories, articles and destination promotional pieces. They break down into blogs, ezines, Web 2.0 resources, bookmarking, dedicated interest channels, document storage, re-publishers and online magazine racks.

Online magazines were our first foray. They are are slowly taking over from the corner store. Here, you get full-colored magazines of very high quality. In may cases, they may be downloaded or delivered by courier. Services like Magcloud print runs are very reasonable, at only 15-20 cents US per page for small runs. Try to get a regular printer to do that and you'll see what I mean. This is a good and inexpensive outlet for destination marketing. Their are no expensive print runs and no inventory. Quality magazines can be ordered one at a time and delivered anywhere (Print on Demand -POD as in TravelersInsights.com).

Closely related are the document sharing systems, like Slideshare. Here, high quality documents are stored online in PDF format, ready for download.

Next, we looked at ezines and started with ezineartciles.com. The submission was rejected, as they thought it was too professional and suggested we had copied it. When this was cleared, up the piece went on to be featured in Travel Tips. We are still working our way through these ezines with a list of over 500 services and some paid help in submitting to them.

It was at this point that the thought struck: Hey! Digital Publishing is the new marketing!

What better way to get noticed than getting publicity: print coverage online. One that you can do yourself, or at least control yourself. It is a slightly new twist on an old and dying adage, replace print with the hybrid of digital marketing. Both in print and online, have it ready to download, ready to print on your own desktop, or have it shipped to your destination sales staff, travel agent or traveler.

What is most interesting, from an Internet Marketer's perspective, is the fact that your listing in these online services often allows backlinks to your website. This means that your website get seen and, as these sites are often very authoritative, it means that Google and the search engines pay attention. This will help you get listed on top search results and directly increase you bookings.

I think I see a fundamental shift in marketing coming - see my article on Bukisca - Publish or Perish. These sites are examples of the new Web 2.0 platforms that are rapidly becoming voices and influences. We have used HubPages, Squidoo, RedGage and many, many others. See our Tourism Marketing Platform in the arcRes-Publishing link below for a researched list.

In our business of tourism marketing, we will often drop in our clients' Special promotions, hotel deals, car rental offers and restaurant advertising. For an example, see Barbados Special HubPage on Smartphones.

It's what we at AXSES have been gearing up for for a decade! Those who are our clients will know how we have positioned AXSES products to serve direct business to hotels and tourism suppliers.

Our flagship product, arcRes.com, has changed from a simple booking engine to a full-fledged publishing system.

We even coined the name arcRes-Publishing before we fully understood the impact it might have. 

Jobs wants iPhone to dominate Travel

I wrote about Steve Jobs not doing the Good Job a week ago. I am not happy with the moves Steve is making to dominate the market and limit travelers' choices by exempting Flash and other travel apps from the iPhone store. See Jobs not done well

Today, CNet and Unwired revealed Apple's patent application for its travel-apps. The plans reveal more of this new face of Apple - A company more and more interested in going it alone.

I don't think it's wise. The internet is about sharing and being open. Consumers love Apple, but they also like free choice, and if Steve does not give them an iPhone that allows them access to the websites they want to see, it's just not going to cut it. No matter how great the technology, it has to be open to succeed.

Others, like Android and BlackBerry, are working hard to make the smartphone a universal product reaching all corners of the web. iPhone, already losing market shares to Android, will be a past piper, if Jobs and Co. fails to see the light. Apple iPhone revealed.

Related links see AXSES http://SmartPhoneTraveller.com

For Hotels and Tourism operators - Get arcRes Free Advertising and Marketing Trial - quickly advertising your brand and holiday specials, packages, deals on hundreds of travel marketing and shopping sites

smartphonetraveller.com

June 2010. AXSES SCI, Bridgetown Barbados, launches a unique travel shopping application for mobile market and smart phones.

This application combines arcRes Specials Marketing of http://BookingsCaribbean.com and the themes and moods describing each island from http://CaribbeanHopping.com.

It is currently number 1 on AndroLib Marketplace for a search of Travel Shopping .

AXSES Caribbean Travel Shopping is a FREE app. that can be downloaded to the mobile and used to find hotels and activities offering special deals and book them on the phone.

Caribbean Travel Shopping - Android 

For more info on this app see AXSES site http://SmartPhonetraveller.com and more about how the application can be used by Hotels and Tourism operators http://SmartPhonetravellapps.com

Other Resources: Google Android vs Apple iPhone HubPage| AXSES Squidoo Page
How to get your Hotel on smartphones hubPage 

Dominica Tourism Authority gets AXSES Arcres Travel Platform

The Dominica Tourism Authority (Discover Dominica Authority, DDA) selects the AXSES Travel Platform for the tourism industry in Dominica.

Colin Piper, CEO/Director of the Discover Dominica Authority, says, “We selected AXSES because its people have a deep understanding of the travel marketplace and the right suite of products and resources to help our travel marketing.”

The AXSES Travel Marketing and Bookings Platform is a unique marketing and bookings solution for destinations, hotels, tourism operators and car rental companies. It offers the full spectrum of advertising management, bookings, interactive branding and systems for direct marketing. It is ideal for destinations, as it plays by destination rules and promotes the destination product with direct to hotel and tourism owner sales and bookings.

AXSES, know for putting Barbados.org on the net, and owners of http://Barbados.org, is also a world leader in travel software. A team of Barbados programmers are now at work building what they call the next generation travel shopping platform. Many of AXSES' products are first of a kind. Its Facebook application, which allows Facebook Fans to get quotes and book direct from Facebook, published a year ago, is an example of AXSES leading edge innovative and adaptive thinking that caught the attention of Dominica.

AXSES has completed the first stage of the project which is to build the new e-commerce Dominica Marketing portal which is the Dominica Central Reservations Center http://Bookingsdominica.com. The sites have been Search Engine-Optimised (SEO) with dozens of 1st-page positions on strategic keywords.

A Dominica travelogue was completed as part of this project and it is being marketed with print and online Dominica magazine publications: TravelersInsights.com. TravelersInsights is a cloud publishing service for destinations developed by AXSES and part of the AXSES arcRes Travel Platform. The articles are being distributed to over 300 online ezines and are available on magazine and document services, like Slideshare, ArticlesBase, as well as TravelerInsights and BookingsDominica


The DDA and AXSES are jointly marketing the Dominica Reservations Center, which is being cross linked and marketed with http://dominica.dm the official website of the Dominica Tourism Authority.

AXSES is now installing booking engines on Dominica hotel websites using the arcRes bookings widgets http://BookingsWidgets.com.

As part of the project to create the Dominica Travel Platform, AXSES staged a 3-day seminar to the entire Tourism industry. The seminar was attended by over 50 tourism partners and enthusiastically supported.

AXSES key personnel Kathy-Lynn Ward and Kris Gooding delivered keynote addresses on web design, use of technology, branding & marketing in the interactive age. The seminar included interactive examples of AXSES Next Generation Shopping Platform, which is being installed as the Travel Platform for Dominica.

For more info on the AXSES Travel marketing platform, see http://TravelBookingsPlatform.com
Built on the arcRes e-commerce suites the travel platform combined advertising management with e-commerce marketing and publishing. arcRes Bookings-Expert the booking engine for hotel and tourism operator websites, allows hotels and activities, tours, car rental cos and tourism suppliers to advertise and publish their product and brand to smartphones (http://SmartphoneTraveller.com), Google Shopping, social media and hundreds of affiliated travel marketing sites.

Jobs not done well

JOBS not done well.

its interesting times with Apples latest iPhone 4 hitting a communications snag and Apple, the consumer favorite, saying "you have to buy the patch". Well Steve had to back down and weeks later made it Free. Suddenly is seems that the iPhone is not the darling of the consumer. Google android phone shipping at 1000 per day are outpacing Apple. A quiet backlash is taking place and for good reason read more at http://hubpages.com/t/16fdbb

smartphonetravelapps.comFor latest on smartphone apps for the travel mobile market see http://smartphonetravelapps.com


Interesting times ahead with Apple saying its our way or the highway and more and more taking the highway. By many account Android is outpreforming iPhone. Interesting for travel when both Apple and Google declair a travel focus.

Hotels, travel Agents, tourism operators and destinations await the outcomes.

We will keep you posted on the site linked above.

New Travel Marketing Platform for Hotels & Tourism

AXSES Travel Marketing and Bookings Platform launched.

we have published a 16 page color brochure to outline this unique travel marketing, bookings and publishing solution. This new arcRes tourism platform combines technology, services, automation tools, distribution services and application software for hotels and tourism operator, travel destinations, tourism association, chains and affiliate marketing.

Publish your travel products and travel bookings to mobile smartphone, social sites, facebook, google shopping and hundreds of travel sites.


AXSES arcRes Travel Platform Features
arcRes travel platformAXSES arcRes is a powerful travel marketing platform
It can be used for hotels, villas, condos, apartments, car rentals, tourism activities and destinations.

arcRes is a booking engine and a central reservation system
The booking engine comes with easy to install travel booking & shopping widgets for any website. The central reservation system can be a simple widget or a full destination website.

arcRes is a travel publishing system
Rates, specials, packages and destination content in arcRes can be published to channels such as mobile phones, social media and travel portals. Special promotions may be sent directly to travelers via email, RSS and special purpose applications developed by AXSES.

arcRes help you to organise, manage and market your travel business

InteractiveBrand

"A brand does not exist on a shelf — it exists in the hearts and minds of people"... Mahesh Murthy 2010

This blog is about the new age of the Interactive Brand. It will point you to a series of newsletters and web sites that explain the secrets of the Interactive Brand. The brand that connects!

To stand out from the crowd you need a purpose that defines your brand as different. This is the hook. It makes your brand news worthy and, if people like it, it may just enter the conversation.

Take a look at our Social network site - it has a great video about social media. Made a few years ago when facebook was still a baby, not the second most visited website in the world, it is very valid.

This social conversation is part of the interaction that successful marketers are engaging in. The Apple iPad and Google Buzz both have created a Buzz of conversation without a single ad.

The Social Media hotel in NY climbed to the top of the conversation using Twitter and facebook to get a message out that they were friendly, open, social and interested in things that are happening in NY. Their hook was connecting with special interest groups and building around events that interested them, like Craft Beer Week and hosting a party for a Mashable Social Media event.

In Barbados theCoconut Court Hotel has hired a Community Manager and moved into the community conversation announcing its social happy hours, breakfast specials and a full calendar of social events which is communicated using social media.

It's a crowded field but brands can take off "hook, line and sinker", via viral marketing, word of mouth, social media and the Internet.

Viral marketing does not need to be conducted through major advertising firms or tech savvy companies. It is managers and staff, real people that make the conversation. Well mostly, we note that Obama needs a social media aid to keep up with the conversation.

Obama's hook was "Yes we can" and his team turned that into a victory, it was clearly a purpose that was different.

Once you have your purpose you need a website that communicates this - see our 10 steps for good website design.

Your website is one of the most powerful communicators of your brand. Your website is where social media will go to discover more about you. If you do it right its where Internet searchers will find you. So make it special, make it have the best content and best process. Be wary of how your content is used on the net and be the guardian of your brand. In particular be wary of how other online channels and online travel agents can effect your brand.

Promoting your brand on the internet has a lot to do with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). All that you do in Social Media will help you get indexed and found on the major engines. Unlike Social Media Interaction, we don't suggest you do your own Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), this is a job for the pros. If done wrong it can wipe you off the Net. See our summary of the key points in Your Brand and SEO

As we note in "Your Brand and SEO", an important differentiation in communications and brand appeal as well as in Search engine Ranking is the Process. The process is about Interaction. The process refers to how the brand is deployed, the methods, form and function and all the ways that it is dynamic, changing with your use, tracking your experience and your interaction to give you what you want. It is, in a way, both the media and the message.

Rates and quotes are a simple example; if travelers perceive that your website rates are not clear and not fair rate, they will go elsewhere. We are in a buyers market and getting the best price is almost a way of life now. It's too easy to find great deals at Expedia and Priceline and if your website is not in line you will lose direct business and brand loyalty. Read about the fair rates perception and your brand Interactive fair rates and brand Integrity


The Hook

A Tourism website and product needs to have a purpose and be different - we can't all be the best luxury hotel or the best budget hotel, so some are opting for the best party hotel, with non stop improvised jazz, jam sessions, beach parties and picnics. Others cater to families, singles, couples, the getaway crowd and to sports tourism etc. Soon these differences are not enough and the hook has to be something more. The "best" is tired and better retired.

A hook is a hook only if it connects with the customer. It has to be more than a market segment; which is best described as travel and holidays theme marketing. The hook, by contrast is about differentiation across market segments or themes, it has to have a global purpose with real appeal. When Nike used "Just do it" it connected. It connected to the sports minded who wanted to just do it, and it connected because of its association with the "Best" athletes. Best is Ok if it's real and not just a tired word. You have to show it.

There is trend today to be more edgy. I am not sure I like it. I don't think a good cook has to use foul language to win customers but, Hey, It works. Even Mickey Mouse is showing his darker side in Disney's re-branding of Mickey.

Mickey's popularity in the United States has begun to wane with the growing competition from Nickelodeon, Pixar and Dreamworks characters that are more edgy. Mickey's personality has to grow with the times to remain relevant in the marketplace.

Travel writers are doping the flowers in their language and become more outlandish telling the good, the bad and ugly with character. So too the brand needs to be articulated with straight talk and frank conversation - see Mahesh Murthy on Interactive Branding.

AXSES Interactive Brand directory

SEOContent

SEO Content and your Brand in the age of interactive Brands

I like when Max Starkov (eHotelier) says "Creating
the best, deepest, most unique and relevant content (textual and visual) about your hotel on your own website, naturally optimised for the search engines (SEO), should become a top priority for any hotel in 2010.

A year ago we did a study to see where our hotels placed on searches for their own names. The results were not great, in some cases they were not even on the first page, falling behind TripAdisor, Expedia and a dozen other mega sites. After reading Max's article we did another study of hotels we host and surprise! they are tops.

Well we have been preaching the benefits of strategic content and putting it into practice for years. It has helped, but we cant be patting ourselves on the back to hard. Google and all are always tweaking their search systems to be more RELEVANT.

If you are looking for a brand name hotel you probably want to see the official website in the top results. The engines are getting it right at the same time as hotels have become more aware of managing their brand, mastering their own url and optimising their content, taking control of their intellectual property and product.

Max's insights are helpful - here is my annotated summary of his views relating to a hotels SEO for its brand:

- Keep your own website content unique (duplicate content will hurt your SEO)
- Use the Best content on your website
- Be very smart about sharing content - Don't give away your brand
- If the channel is not linking to your site, be sure their description is “different”
- Make sure your content is optimised for your USP and for the Search Engines (SEO)
- Offer live quotes and availability calendars
- Display available Rate Plans and seasonal Specials
- Dont Duplicate content - see the full report


Giving away your best content and best rates to other websites can be bad for business.

Search Engines send travelers to the BEST content।
If you want direct business, be sure your website is better that the rest.

The pressing question today is how will a brand get top billing, not only for its own name but for its target markets and keywords.

It is a good time to review the whole business of Search Engine Optimization. For those of you who care to look under the hood, here is my summary - for a summary of this summary see our newsletter. For more detail see our SEO hints page.

The 5 essential of SEO optimisation


1. Define key pages.

The first point is that we never optimise a site - we optimise
a page at a time. Each page must have its own distinct message and content. If you duplicate content it will hurt your SEO.
2. Establish key phrases.
The point is that you need to translate the message into a simple word or short phrase; for example, if you want to be on the top of searches for "Caribbean Romantic Holidays" then that might be your phrase. Check it out by doing a search - there are 2 million results- can you get to the top? Remember only 10 of 2 million will be on the first page. look at your top competition and be sure you can compete. Is your
site going to be as authentic, relevant and with great content?. If not try to refine your phrase to something you can be best in and that is relevant (ie has a market use https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).


3. Tags. The phrase then must become the name of the page (eg caribbean-romantic-holidays.html)- it must be added to the search engine tags (meta tage in the page) and it must be the title of the page, it must appear thru the content and again in the end of the page.
4. Links. Of course there are 2 million pages vying for top spot for that phrase, so all this will not get you top billing. SEO choose the pages that are most relevant and have most authentic links. You need respected links. Links from the AXSES and barbados.org network are high valued links. Be sure to be linked from several of AXSES urls: BookingsBarbados.COM, realholidays.com, barbados.org, barbadosHolidayThemes.com, barbadosholidaypackages and barbardaosholidayspecials
are all excellent links.

Seek out similar directories and listing opportunities that have good Page Rank (popularity - over 5 is good Borg is 6 out of 10. Expedia is 8).

5. Social. A good place to start linking is on social media. Write comments
that link to your page. Find other sites that will link to your page and subscribe
to appropriate directories. Create a facebook page and use twitter to send out
invitation to vist your page. twitter about event in your area and of interest.
Twitter about your activities it all gets counted.


Dont loose site of the objective.
If a traveler gets to your site make sure they find what they want, have a reason to buy and an easy way to do it, right away.


Content is king. In the end it all comes down to content. Search engines
look for relevant and rich content. Use videos, sideshows , images, dynamic
content, quotes and calendars. The technology you use counts. Form, function and process is an important factor in determining relevance. Event the speed of your site will get it points or loose them. Optimise everything, make your site dynamic and interactive.

We are in the age of the interactive Brand

An honest interactive brand consultant

View more presentations from Henning von Vogelsang.

More on SEO see http://arcres.com/search-engine-optimisation-tourism-marketing.cfm