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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 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 …
Your new Girl Friday in the Vendée
Do you have a list of chores that need doing but you just don’t have the time, or are unable to do for health reasons? Ali’s return to excellent customer service in the Vendée is wonderful news and we’re delighted to help her announce her new business! We all need a little help sometimes… Girl Friday help, that is!Hi! I am Ali Goodgame. Many people in the Vendée may remember me as your friendly expat landlady from Bar Le Clemenceau in Mouilleron St. Germain. Since we made the difficult decision to stop the bar in September 2019, I had an immersive experience working at the well-known local food processing business Fleury Michon. I enjoyed working with my French colleagues very much and the job gave me a routine and focus through the difficult lockdown period due to the pandemic.While working there I realised just how much I have missed working …
Business opportunity!
Actual image of portion of our stockIf you are looking to set up a business in France, this could be the opportunity for you. Due to impending retirement we are selling our stock of 15,000+ second-hand books in English. The stock includes everything from classics, novels and bestsellers, biographies and memoirs, self-help, cookbooks, children’s books etc. Note: the image left is a portion of the actual stock. The shop has been open since 2015 and is currently based in an outbuilding on our property. For further info, please do not hesitate to contact Cindy via email – cindy.allen@hotmail.fr Until then, it’s business as usual and everybody is welcome to browse and purchase books! (Please note: the main image is generic and not representative of the inventory that is for sale.)Share this Post
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 …
Tourism & hospitality in the Vendée: surviving the immediate future
We have been asked to share our thoughts about whether or not there will be tourism in the Vendée this season. To address this, means we feel it important to address tourism & hospitality in general, as that will inevitably affect what happens in our department. The following are musings and logical thinking as having lived – and survived – 9/11 working for a major airline and related hotel industry, applying the gravity of a pandemic and its possible repercussions. 1/Is Covid-19 here to stay? The answer to this question seems quite logical: as long as the disease spreads and without a vaccine to inoculate the masses, yes, unfortunately Covid-19 is a long-term global health crisis we’ll have to deal with or work around. If we reach back to 9/11/2001, the world came to a standstill in the wake of a shocking terrorism attack that delivered a gut-punch to air …
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 …
Journées Régionales de la Visite d’Entreprise – Open Door Days Vendée
For the fourth time since its inception, the public is offered a chance to go behind the scenes of small, medium and large companies spread throughout Pays de la Loire’s departments, including our own beloved Vendée. From October 24th through 26th, sectors such as industry, craft industry, agribusinesses, building, environment, oenology, fashion, transport, services and more open their doors to the public.What are the Journées Régionales de la Visite d’Entreprise ? Over the course of 3 days, the group Visitez nos Entreprises and participating businesses bring the visitor to the heart of their production workshops, manufacturing laboratories, farms and factories to showcase the quality and diversity of products created or grown in Pays de la Loire and thus, also in the Vendée. The open doors are a unique opportunity to allow young and old, families and schoolchildren, job seekers or the curious, to discover company histories, to get an idea of the …
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 …
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 …