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Simple tips to boost online visibility and direct bookings
At inthevendee.com we have been fierce supporters of direct bookings versus OTA (online travel agency) bookings long before it became a movement. It’s painful seeing small businesses in our community commit a significant percentage of their income to online travel agencies whilst losing a grip on direct bookings. We understand the Internet. We understand that the relationship between hospitality businesses and OTA’s can become toxic. Hospitality proprietors need 100% of their booking revenues to live, to reinvent, and to maintain their business. We’re not saying not to use OTA’s. We’re saying, get in front of them. Here are some tips and tricks to take back control over direct bookings. Internet marketing is a long-term strategy. So, start now!1. WEBSITE IS YOUR TOP MARKETING TOOL (but not the only one) We’re not making this up! You need to have a modern, responsive and active website for online marketing purposes. If your …
The days to avoid driving in France summer 2022
The traffic info below shows the summer 2022 weekend days by codes orange, red & black. In Southern Directions Fridays and Saturdays from June 25 through 13 August 2022 Orange or red on all routes ***Black Saturdays*** 30th July and 6th August 2022 everywhere Saturdays 9th, 16th, 23th July 2022 Red on all routes Saturday 6th August 2022 Red on all routes In Northern Directions Friday – Saturday from July 8th to August 27th 2022 orange or red all routes Weekend 29th – 30th July 2022 orange all routes Saturday 6th August 2022 red all routes Weekend Friday 12th August through Monday 15th August 2022 orange everywhere BUT red in direction Rhone valley – Languedoc Friday 19th, Sunday 21st. and Monday 22nd August 2022 orange everywhere Saturday 20th August 2022 red on all routes Friday 26th August and Sunday 28th August 2022 orange everywhere Saturday 27th August 2022 red on …
New Dutch owners at Base de Loisirs La Tardière! An interview
After years of exploring Europe by motorcycle and camping in a small tent, Dutch couple Leonoor and Arno decided it was time to run their own campground… To offer the friendly hospitality they had always experienced, to others. Their search for the perfect place, the campsite that “spoke to them” took years and finally brought them to the Vendée. At inthevendee.com, we extend a warm welcome to them, and we hope that YOU will take advantage of their excellent facilities at the Base de Loisirs in La Tardière, whether you want to camp or spend a pleasant family afternoon by the lake with a cup of coffee or a drink on the terrace. With this interview we’d like to introduce you to our new Dutch neighbors!Welcome to the Vendée! Introduce yourselves. Who are you, what is your background, where do you come from? Hello! We are Leonoor and Arno. It …
Sharing Vouvant with the World
I am Marie Vivies. I was born in Fontenay le Comte and I grew up in a rural Vendée village called Antigny. I have always been attracted to the English language, that is why I focused my studies on discovering the working of its mechanisms. I also wanted to discover my own country, so I attended university in various cities around France: Angers, Rennes, Poitiers and Lyon. It was thrilling to experience life in a big city, but the years I spent there also made me realise how deeply I was attached to the Vendée. I taught English for 5 years but something was missing. It took time to understand that teaching English was not making me happy. Practicing it in conversation with people not known to me was more pleasant than explaining the language to youngsters. In fact, what I really liked was making someone discover something during a …
What it means to be a responsible tourist
The concept of tourism is going through a massive shift. The term awareness has entered our bloodstream. Climate change as a global concept has been presented to us for years as an abstract need to heal our home Mother Earth but through it all we just kept on travelling, setting our bucket list as the higher priority without the necessary imagination to understand or embrace responsible travel. There is nothing like a pandemic to make us see how fast the environment can heal and how we can have a positive effect on the world by taking travel away. Now we’re learning about the effect of our carbon footprint and the effect we have on local economy. We long to travel and we want to be a responsible tourist. But what is that?As late as last year’s travel trends, travelling was seen as an activity with nothing but positives attached. Travel …
The future of travel examined
For the third spring in a row we have scoured the Internet, travel magazines, world news and statistics to bring you a summary of the expected travel trends. In 2021 it’s certainly not travel bloggers and influencers or sector statistics that show the way forward. This year it will be the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic guiding our travel behaviour. The roll-out of a vaccine presents a light at the end of the tunnel BUT we’re not out of the woods just yet. The average human being is certainly dealing with lockdown fatigue. In this article we’ll be delving into the immediate future of travel: what it looks like in 2021 and beyond, the mindset of travellers in a pandemic, who benefits (and who doesn’t), old and new travel trends. It’s time to rise from the ashes of 2020 like a Phoenix and look the future of travel straight in …
Photography tips part 2: Social Media
Imagery can cause an instant click in the web-user’s mind. There are simple things you can do to raise the visual impact of your business representation on social media. Following the steps of our basic tips and tricks will take your various online shop windows from amateur, to professional, in just a few simple steps!Let’s recap from Photography tip# 1 First, let’s recap! As mentioned in our ebook “23 Effective Marketing Strategies for your Hospitality Business” (we’re giving it away, just let us know you want it!), visually striking content is part of the psychology of the Internet. Along with interesting written content, it a driving force of what keeps us searching and clicking. So, ask yourself, compared to the images you pursue online, the images that make you feel an emotion, how does your own social media feed hold up? Are you giving the user what you yourself enjoy? …
Photography Tips 3: how to prepare images for the Internet
Following our articles about Food Photography and Social Media photography this third and final photography tip focuses on how to optimize your images for the Web. While this tip is for the more advanced user, we encourage you to explore the techniques described here. But we’ll certainly include tips and tools to take an easier route for (almost) the same result: beautifully cropped and optimized images that are accepted by social media entities and look great on your website with minimum loading time.Good photography is a powerful business tool. It’s also FREE! In our image driven online world, memorable photographs are essential.Image optimization explained In offset printing (on paper), the image used is of the highest possible quality, usually saved as a PNG, short for Portable Network Graphics, a file type that allows for a full range of color and better compression for the purpose of printing. The image has …
Petra of Le Puy Ardouin tests own Tiny House accommodations during lock-down
After a long search for the perfect spot to live in France, Dutch couple Petra and Jan fell for their rustic farmhouse ‘like a ton of bricks’. We can understand why! Among the ancient trees, across a sloping terrain, one can almost touch the sound of silence. Le Puy Ardouin is an earthly place that speaks for itself, that brings you back to simplicity. Sunday, March 15th. We’ve just completed a training course in the Netherlands and plan to drive to France tomorrow morning. We hear that from 18.00 that evening all restaurants in the Netherlands have to close their doors. We’re worried about making it back to our place in France, Le Puy Ardouin, because there’s a threat of a lock-down. That’s why we decide to leave immediately and drive through the night. On Monday morning we’re relieved to be greeted by our dog Lola and our friend Peter, who …
The silver lining of lockdown at B&B Au Passage du Gois
When we asked to find a title or tag line for their blog post, Martine told us that she thought the motto of footballer Johan Cruyff was appropriate to describe their almost 2 months of lockdown. She found a balance in routine, in sunshine and in the wildness of her husband Hemko’s confinement beard.It doesn’t happen often, but for the first time in a long time there was something you couldn’t find on Google. What is a COVID-19 confinement in France, how does it work and when will it be over? But there wasn’t much information initially so, we thought… well, we’ll need to come up with some sort of answer ourselves. We sat around the table and made some kind of a plan of action. We said to each other: we will not be sleeping in, but get up at our normal time and get to work, because time …
Owners of L’Etournerie Gites & Camping Vendée look to the future
We have asked a few Vendéen small business owners to discuss their plans for the future whilst coping through enforced quarantine. In a first installment, allow us to introduce you to Renée, René, Jacky, Emma & Mariecke, a Dutch family who own L’Etournerie Gites and Camping where tranquility, good food, and flowers are central to Dutch-French hospitality in the Vendée!In 15 years, you develop habits. Or maybe a rhythm. At the beginning of the year, you start looking at everything that needs to be done before you can announce that you are ‘open for business’ once again. You tick off all those things and then you put up the sign “OUVERT”. Only this year, a pandemic with the inevitable French government’s announcement of a complete lockdown starting March 17th, threw a spanner in the works. At the beginning, everything was so focused on China that no one in Europe was really …
Vendéen private chauffeur goes the (social) distance
We have invited a few Vendéen small business owners to discuss how they are coping with the pandemic. In this installment, please allow us to introduce you to Anne, private driver and proprietor of Melkhior, who has used recent weeks to work on building passenger confidence post-quarantine.Hello! I am Anne, a professional driver in my company Melkhior. I offer private chauffeur services in a seven-passenger van equipped with leather seats, USB socks and Wi-Fi on board. The service is quite simple. We accept reservations by phone, text or email and provide a quote that determines the cost in advance. A typical workday means working with companies and individuals traveling any distance for tours, airport transfers (Nantes, Paris, La Rochelle), accompanying them on business or to touristic sites. From the start of tourist season, I transport many British, Irish, and Dutch passengers as well. More recently, in March, I was being hired to travel …
Moving forward: tips for small-business digital housecleaning during Covid-19
We’re at the start of tourist season here in the Vendée but in times of uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, when we’ve all had to scale down our “business as usual” activities or shut them down altogether. Of course, time is a gift. There are things you can do to keep moving forward, to make your online business presence stronger than ever. This may involve precisely the tasks you never have the time, or take the time, to do because they’re not your favourite, but like your antiques, your online life deserves-needs- a polish too. UPDATE YOUR IMAGE INVENTORY Spring is here. No doubt, with all this extra time, spring cleaning and gardening is a productive activity right now. But spring also translates to our online business life. With flowers beginning to bloom and blossoms on the fruit trees, spring is a perfect time to update our business image …
Travel Trends 2020
Generational shifts – A number of last year’s travel trends have climbed right into the new decade but as trends go, they shape and mold to our ever-evolving sociological needs and issues. Social media has certainly managed to blast every world border out of existence up to and including… space. Yes. Puzzling as it is, what with space tourism not quite a reality just yet, the rising excitement around Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic’s progress toward space tourism has pushed space travel right onto the Travel Trends 2020 list. Internet millionaires from Gen X on down, appear to be ready to take on the challenge! The Influencer Effect – We can’t help but wonder how Greta Thunberg feels about the notion of blasting toward the skies in a rocket? The next generation to enter the travel market is Gen Z (currently 10 – 25 years old). While environmental consciousness is certainly …
Ready for the 3rd annual #bookdirect guest education day?
The first Wednesday in February is #BookDirect Guest Education Day, a worldwide campaign of solidarity for owners and managers of holiday rentals to work together towards a better balance between direct bookings and reservations through online travel agencies in their business. Everybody is invited to participate this year on February 5th, 2020 and at inthevendee.com we’re ready to support and help you! Big online booking websites such as Airbnb, HomeAway (Expedia), Booking and TripAdvisor add a high percentage of booking fees to the reservation total and as a third party they act as a wall between you and your (potential) guests. Booking directly with the owner or manager ‘deletes’ any 3rd party commissions. Dealing with the customer directly creates not only trust but also a positive (human) relationship with future contact at its beating heart. The long-term result is a better balance of direct bookings and reservations through online travel agencies. What started …
Present your business with GOOD images! PART 1: food
Imagery can cause an instant click in the web-user’s mind. Time and time again. It explains why travel -and food photography has become so important online. Do you feel like that’s not you? We don’t want you to worry! There are simple things you can do to raise the visual impact of your online business platforms, social media and/ or website. They are, after all, the windows to your services. Our tips and tricks are especially written for people who feel overwhelmed by the digital side of the business. They will help you to bring various shop windows from amateur, to professional; and help boost your picture repository to use for months to come!Good photography is a powerful business tool. It’s also FREE! Summer is an ideal time to get started.Introduction to our tips and tricks As mentioned in our ebook “23 Effective Marketing Strategies for your Hospitality Business” (we’re …
Why your website matters more than ever
So, here’s a question: before the Internet, would you ever have considered starting a business without being listed in the Yellow Pages? Recently, during a business lunch with a group of fellow small business people, someone said to me that he had canceled his website. I’m not sure I managed not to physically cringe. When I asked for a further explanation, that person explained that the website received zero traffic. He had even paid someone to update it, but this had not generated traffic either. Ergo, the website received the ax. Have you ever felt the need to erase your entire online business presence? Or, do you believe a Facebook business page, and/or a listing on a travel e-commerce website provide enough exposure? The truth is that clients and potential customers want to find your services at their fingertips. And by this I don’t mean via the Yellow Pages. Phone …
SSL Recommendations for your small business website explained
As a small business owner with a website advertising your goods, from products to services to the tourism industry, you might be aware of news reports indicating trends are evolving toward all sites being updated with an SSL certificate. In other words, making a website ‘private’ through encryption, making it more secure. Why it is so important for 2018, and is compliance required? We have been asked this question often in recent weeks, and in the same breath we hear people being told that website encryption may be an unnecessary expense for them. Up until recently, this was true, but only if a website was not handling sensitive personal data e.g. with log-in, password, email, payment information, etc.However, not following these new recommendations, will have implications for your business online Before 2018, there were already two major reasons to fortify your website with an SSL certificate: To hide the back-and-forth …
Your business with Google explained
If you’re one of those small business proprietors who haven’t figured why you and Google should be like two peas in a pod, you are not alone! AND this blog post is definitely for you. In our blog post Why your Website matters more than ever we have discussed why it’s important in today’s marketing world, to have a website. But it’s important to understand that gaining traffic to a website is not as simple as ‘having a website’. There are many more components to being seen online than meets the eye. You see, to be found by the almighty Google search engines and for your information to be shared with their users (that is, persons using Google to perform Internet searches), it is vital to register – or CLAIM- your business with them. To claim your business with Google and get it included on Google Maps, go here. Before …
A look at 2019 travel trends
The higher purpose of social media – It was bound to happen that social media would become a goldmine for measuring travel statistics and especially trends. In addition to tourism statistics released annually by your local tourism board such as the Vendée Tourism Studies 2017 (French only), social media can offer useful insight into how our travel habits as a society evolve over time. Especially Pinterest and Instagram have become the go-to research -and travel journal medium for travellers. Over-tourism – iconic destinations live not only in our own dreams and goals, but in that of just about everybody. Who doesn’t want a holiday in Paris or Barcelona or Rome or New York or London, the French or Spanish Mediterranean? In fact, the most popular places are probably at the top of our own bucket-lists more often than not. In some ways these destinations are the victim of their own success. Overcrowding …
How to use our marketing ebook
Let’s keep this introduction very simple! We wrote our little ebook simply to provide information on the techniques you can apply to your Vendéen (or any) small business to gain more attention on social media and drive more traffic to your website (tip# 1). If you’d like to learn how to marry your physical business with good digital business practices and the Internet – resulting in visibility and (ultimately) sales, we encourage you read it. Grab pen and notebook. Roll up your sleeves. By moving today’s digital marketing trends and techniques from theory to practice, your online presence will gain its footing. The ebook contains 23 tips, some of which already contain a little more information, and some of which will be further unraveled in related blog posts. THE GOAL OF “23 EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY BUSINESS” form a global idea of website machinations learn the basics on …
The European GDPR affects your Small Business in the Vendée
The LAST thing we want to do is to bore you with technology, but as the In the Vendée website is here to marry tourism in this beautiful area with your small business such as B&B, gites, campgrounds, restaurants, bars and any other hospitality or other business you may be the proud owner of …. the General Data Protection Regulation DOES affect you. The law has been in effect for nearly five months now. Many websites are still not in compliance. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), known as Regulation (EU) 2016/679, is “a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission intend to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union.” This regulation has been there since April 2016, with the intention for it to become enforced starting 25th May 2018. Its tentacles are far reaching for your business presence online, including changes in the way entities …