Tourism businesses and event organisers may spend a significant amount of money and time on promotional activities, but did you know there are many high exposure opportunities on the internet where they can be promoted for free?
Events
There is always plenty going on in Victoria. From community festivals to markets, concert, sports tournaments, shows and international events, there is always something happening, no matter what day of the week or time of the year it is.
Promoting events can be a costly and time consuming exercise, but when it comes to exposure on the internet, Victoria 365 should be your first priority. This website presents a huge collection of events that are happening 365 days a year in Victoria. All listings are free of charge and there are self-serve facilities so you can instantly register and update your listing as often as you like. Simply go to the list your event page to get started.
One of the exciting features of Victoria 365 is that your listing is stored in the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW). This national database is used as a source of content by over 100 distributor websites, which means that not only is your event featured on Victoria 365, but it will also appear on other websites which publish event information without you having to do a thing. It offers a fantastic opportunity for wide exposure on the internet for minimal effort and zero cost.
Australians love their pets, and dogs are the most common of them all. It is estimated that there are close to 5 million pet dogs in Australia, with around 40% of households owning a dog.
As Australia becomes more dog-friendly, people are increasingly taking their pooches with them when they leave home, providing company and sharing a common experience. Whether it is a coffee or meal at a cafe, a trip to the beach, or even a holiday away from home in dog-friendly accommodation, dogs are being welcomed in more and more places.
If you operate a dining establishment in Victoria that has areas where dogs are permitted, you can list your business for free with Dogs On Holidays. That website is a comprehensive guide to enjoying Victoria with you dog and includes listings of dog-friendly accommodation, restaurants, beaches, parks, activities and events. While the accommodation listings require a small cost to list, all restaurant and cafe listings are completely free of charge. It’s a great way to gain good exposure for your dog-friendly business. Simply fill in your details on the advertising page and your listing will be published promptly.
Tourist attractions, tours, wineries, markets, restaurants and pubs
Visitors to Victoria are spoilt for choice when it comes to finding interesting things to see, enjoying fascinating experiences and indulging in the amazing food and wine that Victoria is renowned for.
Many businesses which cater for tourists, day-trippers or visitors are able to be listed for free with Travel Victoria. The Travel Victoria website is a valuable resource and features many thousands of listings including tourist attractions, scenic tours, cruises, wineries, breweries, markets, restaurants, cafes, pubs, farm gates, public sporting facilities and accommodation. All listings (except for accommodation) are free, and submissions for inclusion can be made on the advertising page.
A number of accommodation managers in Victoria have been receiving unsolicited emails requesting that they renew their listing on the Victoria Tourism website at www.victoriatourism.com.au.
Before going any further, it is very important to note that Victoria Tourism is in no way related to the official government tourism organisation of Tourism Victoria. In fact, the company behind the confusingly named Victoria Tourism website is Accommodation Find Pty Ltd – one of several companies based in Queensland who have a history of false billing scams.
Instead of past practices of sending out what resembled bills in the mail for advertising on their websites, their tactic for the Victoria Tourism website is to send out emails requesting authorisation for continuing an apparently existing listing.
A copy of a typical email sent out by Victoria Tourism (Accommodation Find Pty Ltd) is shown below, with the personal details of the recipient removed.
The email is rather strange, being a screenshot of a letter which isn’t very clear and is not easy to read.
Notable features of the email are:
It is issued by Victoria Tourism (not Tourism Victoria), with a green and blue “V” logo
The company behind the website is listed as Accommodation Find Pty Ltd
The ABN on the email is 18 086 159 195
The contact phone number is 1800 199 863 which also relates to the companies Special Days Pty Ltd and Internet Find Pty Ltd – all based in Queensland
The cost to advertise is specified as $95 for a 12 month listing
Many accommodation providers who receive this email never signed up for a listing on the Victoria Tourism website and may be unaware that they even had a listing on there.
The email implies an existing business relationship by stating:
“It has come to my attention that your listing on our Victoria Tourism website is due to expire…”
Also:
“Please forward through your authorisation for its continuation for the next 12 months.”
This implies that the recipient of the email has already authorised and paid for at least one 12 month advertising period and is being asked to pay $95 to renew it for another 12 months.
However, these implications are false. The Victoria Tourism website has only been running in its current form since the end of 2015. How can all these accommodation providers who are receiving this renewal email be at the end of their 12 month advertising period in March 2016?
The organisation behind the Victoria Tourism website also previously created the Vic Tourism website at www.victourism.com.au. Read about the history of the Vic Tourism website for further information.
While the Victoria Tourism email does not resemble a bill like other letters that Accommodation Find Pty Ltd has sent out in the past, all accommodation owners that receive it should not submit their authorisation to renew without careful consideration. Keep in mind that:
The email is an unsolicited offer to continue a service that was most likely not ordered in the first place
The email implies a past business relationship and existing advertising authorisation
The website title of Victoria Tourism is an exact reversal of the two words which constitute Victoria’s official government tourism body of Tourism Victoria. Such word tactics are a common method used to try and confuse people into thinking they are dealing with an official organisation or popular brand.
If you have inadvertently provided authorisation to Victoria Tourism to bill you for an accommodation listing that you thought was with Tourism Victoria, you can lodge a report with the ACCC by visiting their report a scam page. Specify “false billing” as the scam type in your report.
Update for 2017
A number of accommodation providers have received unsolicited emails from the Victoria Tourism website requesting that they check their listing and review the details. An example of such an email is below.
It is unclear if there is a cost involved in updating such a listing when invited to do so via email, however when examining the advertising page, an annual cost of $99 is mentioned.
Curiously, the contact details for the Victoria Tourism website have changed since the original email that accommodation providers received last year. In particular:
The phone number has changed from 1800 199 863 to 1300 656 789
The postal address is now listed as “Inter Find”, located at P.O. Box 309, Oxenford, QLD, 4210
The ABN on the original email (18 086 159 195) is not the ABN the website’s domain was registered with (37 086 159 211)
For those who may at first glance assume that Victoria Tourism is in fact Victoria’s official tourism body, then the Queensland postal address they provide should make it clear that is not the case.
Another update for 2017
The organisation behind the Victoria Tourism website has recently began sending out more emails, requesting businesses check their details on a new website titled HotelFind – www.hotelfind.com.au.
An example of one of the Hotel Find emails is below:
Again, it is unclear if there is a cost involved in claiming or updating a listing.
On its website, HotelFind claims that it is:
“a trusted brand that helps promote accommodation and tourism Australia wide”
This is quite a bold statement given that the website has only been online for a few months, and that the website owner, Amanda Stichbury, was fined and convicted by a court of law in 2014 and also in 2017 for breaching Australian Consumer Law over a series of false billing charges.
Anyone who receives an invitation from HotelFind to check their business details should confirm if there are any costs associated in updating or maintaining their listing. If costs are involved, the benefit of having a listing on the HotelFind website should be carefully considered.
Update for 2018
We have received reports that some accommodation providers and tourism businesses in Victoria have received unsolicited emails from Victoria Tourism in regards to listings they apparently have on the www.victoriatourism.com.au website.
“You are receiving this email because you have listed with us” is the justification for receiving this in the email, although the businesses that have contacted us say they never signed up for a listing.
The Victoria Tourism website claims to have tens of thousands of businesses that have listed with them, yet the vast majority of listings have a “claim business” button displayed, implying that these businesses have not actually applied for a listing.
A example copy of an unsolicited email is included below. Note there are no contact details displayed in the email, other than the email address of data@victoriatourism.com.au and links to click on in order to confirm the business details. The email states that Victoria Tourism is “supported by ClickFind.com”.
An example of an unsolicited email from the Queensland based organisation of “Victoria Tourism”.
Anyone who receives this email from Victoria Tourism to check their business details and receive the enquiries that are claimed to have occurred should confirm if there are any costs associated in updating or maintaining their listing. If costs are involved, the benefit of having a listing on the Victoria Tourism website should be carefully considered.
Update for 2019
Visit Victoria (Victoria’ official government tourism organisation) and the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) have been recently inundated with reports of its members being hit with requests by Queensland based “Victoria Tourism” to claim their business listing on their website (www.victoriatourism.com.au), then hitting them with a bill for it.
Visit Victoria has described the organisation behind this as a “scam company”, given its long history of false billing scams which resulted in the company being convicted and fined in a court of law during both 2014 and 2017.
Visit Victoria and ATDW have stated that they are “providing evidence of these invoices to the Office of Fair Trading in Queensland, who are building a case to take enforcement action against the scam organisation“.
We received an interesting phone call a few weeks ago from a motel in Lakes Entrance, in Victoria’s beautiful Gippsland Lakes area.
This motel had been advertising on our website for the last 5 years. In fact, when their annual renewal was due last year, they paid their subscription and sent us an email thanking us, including this comment:
“Travel Victoria is excellent value”
It’s always nice to receive positive feedback from clients, particularly when they feel the return on their small investment with us is good. After all, how many times do you hear people instead complaining that fees are too high!
Anyway, the caller from that motel announced that he had recently taken over ownership of the property. He said that he was unhappy with how the former owners were paying for all this advertising with multiple websites on the internet, and that he was going to change all that. While he said our $70 annual fee was not large, he said all these small internet advertising expenses do add up. Therefore we were told that our services, along with a number of others, were no longer required.
Today we did a search for that motel on Google, and found that the new owner had pulled it off virtually every single website that the motel used to have paid advertising on. Some of the search results Google currently shows are to websites the motel has been removed from, but those those pages are now non-existent, so Google will eventually stop showing those listings. So all that is really left is the motel’s own dedicated website, a range of free listings on low quality directory websites, and of course it can be found on TripAdvisor.
If potential guests wanted to do further investigation on the internet about that motel, they could be easily forgiven for thinking it had closed down. The last review on TripAdvisor was 6 months ago, and so the only thing of any significance left for that motel on the internet is its own website, which people may assume hasn’t been updated for a long time.
One possible theory we have is that the new owner is someone that has little faith in the usefulness of the internet. Perhaps one of those old school of motel owners who always placed advertising within magazines or in brochures that you see at a local visitor information centre, and still believes that’s the only useful way to promote accommodation. The world has changed, and these days people of all ages, from all over the world, use the internet as their preferred method of planning travel and browsing accommodation to stay in. Sure, there is a place for advertising in print media, but accommodation owners are living in the past if they think the internet can simply be ignored as a fad or purely an entertainment medium.
Another theory we have is that the new owner may have knowledge and appreciation of the internet, but not about internet marketing. So they may simply assume is all they need for their motel is a website to cater for those people using the internet. The problem with this way of thinking is that unless someone does a specific search for this motel by its exact name, its website will not be found. People will tend to do more general Google searches, like Lakes Entrance accommodation or motels in Lakes Entrance, and thus it is extremely unlikely the motel’s small website is going to feature anywhere near the top of the search results returned. In fact, the Google results for those search terms will be dominated by some of websites which this motel has specifically withdrawn from advertising on!
Another point to consider is that more and more accommodation providers are offering potential guests the convenience of instant, real-time online booking facilities, either via their own website or through a third party agent. A motel owner, such as our former client from Lakes Entrance, who is actively reducing their internet presence, is bucking the trend of consumer demand for online information and booking facilities.
When it comes to promoting an accommodation business, the internet should be embraced, not dismissed. We live in a changing world, and businesses need to keep up with the times.
Accommodation businesses operating within the Great Ocean Road region in Victoria have been on the receiving end of a false billing scam. It has been operating since 2012, resulting in bills being sent out for unauthorised advertising on a tourism website.
Invoices are being sent out by Holiday Great Ocean Road for advertising on the www.holidaygreatoceanroad.com website. A sample of a typical invoice they post out in the mail is shown below.
An example of an invoice sent out by Holiday Great Ocean Road – www.holidaygreatoceanroad.com (recipient’s details blanked out)
Note the key characteristics of this invoice:
It originates from a company titled Special Days Pty Ltd which is based in Sydney
The company’s ABN is 37 086 159 211
Their postal address is PO Box 4050 Parramatta NSW 2124
Their billing enquiry phone number is 1300 656 789
Their FAX number is 1800 198 388
The invoice amount is $108.90 (i.e. $99 plus GST)
The advertising commencement date, conclusion date or duration is not stated
In order to convince the recipient of its authenticity, the “reference” box states the name of who has apparently authorised the listing, usually without a surname
Most people who receive an invoice like this never actually signed up for a listing with Holiday Great Ocean Road. The first they find out about it is when a bill arrives in the mail. If they ignore the bill, they may receive more of the same invoices in the future.
Despite the fact an advertisement on Holiday Great Ocean Road has usually never been ordered by the recipient of the invoice, a cover letter is included which includes the following claims:
“I emailed you several times and phoned your business but I was unable to get a response.” This statement is generally false as most accommodation providers have never been contacted by phone or email prior to the invoice arriving in the post.
“Once the listing is deleted you can lose your ranking on holidaygreatoceanroad.com for key words as well as your Google ranking as the site is optimized for your establishment.” This is a very misleading claim. Firstly, the www.holidaygreatoceanroad.com website receives so few visitors (not even Alexa.com has any data for it at the moment) so it is unlikely that a listing, or lack of one, will make any difference to a business. Secondly, because www.holidaygreatoceanroad.com is so poorly ranked in Google, there is only minuscule Google ranking value provided in the form of a link to an accommodation provider’s own website.
Accommodation listings on the Holiday Great Ocean Road website are typically created by copying information, including wording and photos, found on other websites that an accommodation provider is listed on. This process may be automated which means vast numbers of listings can be created with very little time and effort. If this data collection process occurred a long time ago, it may mean information they are displaying can be quite out of date. This may negatively impact upon your business or mislead people who do happen to view your listing on the Holiday Great Ocean Road website.
Unfortunately, some accommodation providers have paid the invoice for advertising they never ordered due to confusion over business names. The Holiday Great Ocean Road / www.holidaygreatoceanroad.com name and website address may be confused with a well-established business with exactly the same name but different website address – Holiday Great Ocean Road / www.holidaygor.com.au. It must be stated that the latter (www.holidaygor.com.au) is an award-winning and reputable accommodation booking service which has operated with the utmost of integrity since its commencement in 2002.
It is extremely important that accommodation providers keep current list of all organisations they are advertising their accommodation with to ensure that any false bills, particularly those with similar names to reputable businesses, are quickly identified. Should there is any doubt about the authenticity of a bill, contact the sender and ask for proof of authorisation.
For more information refer to the false billing scams information page on the ScamWatch website which has been set-up by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC).
If you’ve unintentionally paid money to Holiday Great Ocean Road, or even if you just receive one of their unauthorised bills in the mail, you can lodge a report with the ACCC by visiting their report a scam page. Specify “false billing” as the scam type in your report.
A new false billing scam is actively targeting those who manage accommodation properties in Victoria. Bills are being posted out for unauthorised advertising on a website which bears a name very similar to Tourism Victoria – Victoria’s official tourism body.
Unauthorised bills are being sent out by VIC Tourism for advertising on the www.victourism.com.au website. Below is a sample of an invoice they post out in the mail to many accommodation businesses.
An example of an invoice sent out by VIC Tourism – www.victourism.com.au (recipient’s details blanked out)
Note the key characteristics of this invoice:
It originates from a company titled Accommodation Find which trades as QLDTourism.com and is located in Queensland
The company’s ABN is 18 086 159 195
Their postal address is PO Box 1601 Oxenford QLD 4210
Their billing enquiry phone number is 1800 199 863
The invoice amount is $95.00
The advertising period is not specified, just the vague mention of a “12 month subscription”
In order to convince the recipient of its authenticity, there is a box titled “authorisation name” that specifies the name of who has supposedly authorised the listing, usually without a surname
To ensure that in the eyes of the law this tax invoice is regarded an optional invitation to advertise, there is wording on the invoice which states “this invoice is only payable if you wish to subscribe or renew your existing subscription for the product”.
Most people who receive an invoice like this never actually signed up for a listing with VIC Tourism. The first they find out about it is when a bill arrives in the mail. If they ignore the bill, they may receive subsequent invoices at regular intervals in the future.
Accommodation listings on the VIC Tourism website are typically created by copying information, including wording and photos, found on other websites that an accommodation provider is listed on. This process may be automated which means vast numbers of listings can be created with very little time and effort. If this data collection process occurred a long time ago, it may mean information they are displaying can be quite out of date. This may negatively impact upon your business or mislead people who do happen to view your listing on the VIC Tourism website.
Leigh Harry, CEO of Tourism Victoria, urges all Victorian businesses not to fall for the ‘VIC Tourism’ false billing scam.
The way the advertising bills have been sent out has convinced some accommodation providers into thinking that VIC Tourism is the Victorian government’s official tourism organisation Tourism Victoria. This has resulted in some people paying the bill because they believe they are registering their accommodation for world-wide exposure and endorsement through the state’s official tourism body.
The chief executive officer of Tourism Victoria, Leigh Harry, has issued a strong warning through several media outlets to all businesses in Victoria to be on the look out for what he describes as “a dodgy letter and invoice” which seeks payment for an unsolicited 12-month listing on the unofficial and low-traffic Vic Tourism website. Mr Harry has warned that the letters and invoices being sent out by Vic Tourism are “a scam”, and they are not related in any way whatsoever to Victoria’s official tourism organisation.
It is critically important that all accommodation providers keep an accurate list of all organisations they advertise their accommodation with. This ensures that any false bills, particularly those with names very similar to official organisations, are quickly identified. If there is any doubt about the authenticity of a bill, contact the issuer immediately and ask for proof of authorisation.
For further information, refer to the false billing scams information page on the ScamWatch website which has been set-up by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC).
If you have inadvertently paid money to VIC Tourism, or even if you just receive one of their unauthorised bills in the mail, you can lodge a report with the ACCC by visiting their report a scam page. Specify “false billing” as the scam type in your report.
A false billing scam which began in 2010 is still targeting accommodation providers in Victoria. It involves sending out bills for unauthorised advertising on a travel website.
The unauthorised bills are sent out by Accommodation VIC for advertising on the www.accommodationvic.com.au website. Refer below to a sample of the invoices they post out in the mail to accommodation businesses.
An example of an invoice sent out by Accommodation VIC – www.accommodationvic.com.au (recipient’s details blanked out)
Note the key characteristics of this invoice:
It originates from a company titled Special Days Pty Ltd which is based in Sydney
The company’s ABN is 37 086 159 211
Their postal address is PO Box 4050 Parramatta NSW 2124
Their billing enquiry phone number is 1300 656 789
Their FAX number is 1800 198 388
The invoice amount is $99.00
The advertising period is not stated, just a mention of an “annual website listing”
In order to convince the recipient of its authenticity, the “reference” box lists the name of the person who has apparently authorised the listing, usually without a surname
In order to legally disguise this tax invoice as an optional invitation to advertise, there is wording on the invoice which states “this invoice is only payable if you wish to subscribe or renew your existing subscription for the product”.
Most people who receive an invoice of this type have never signed up for a listing with Accommodation VIC. The first they find out about it is when a bill arrives in the mail. If they ignore the bill, they will typically receive another one sometime in the future, despite the fact wording on the letter attached to the bill states that the listing “automatically expires if unpaid”.
It has been reported that at least one business who actually did end up paying the $99 annual listing fee then received another bill in the mail only 6 months later for another $99. As there are no starting and ending dates for the listing period specified on the invoice, just vague wording of an “annual website listing”, it is unclear exactly what period the listing fee covers.
Accommodation listings on the Accommodation VIC website are typically created by copying information, including wording and photos, found on other websites that an accommodation provider is listed on. This process may be automated which means vast numbers of listings can be created with very little time and effort. If this data collection process occurred a long time ago, it may mean information they are displaying can be quite out of date. This may negatively impact upon your business or mislead people who do happen to come across your listing on the Accommodation VIC website.
Some people simply pay the bill they receive because:
They have recently taken over the business. When the bill arrives, they assume the advertising must have been ordered in the past by the previous owners and therefore the listing is effective and good value.
The website name is similar to one that they currently list with. In the confusion, they simply pay it, wrongly assuming it’s their authorised advertiser.
They are too busy to spend much time investigating it. Given that the bill is for a relatively small sum, they decide it is more cost-effective just to pay it and get it out of the way rather than conduct an extensive assessment of it.
Competition with other accommodation listed.If other accommodation in their local area is displayed on the www.accommodationvic.com.au website, they may feel pressured to keep the listing. However it is important to realise that not only are many of listings on Accommodation VIC unauthorised, but that website receives only a small number of visitors compared to other similar websites.
It is important that accommodation providers keep an up to date list of all organisations they have advertised their accommodation with to ensure that any unauthorised bills are quickly detected. If there is any doubt about the authenticity of a bill, simply contact the issuer and ask for proof of authorisation.
For more information refer to the false billing scams information page on the ScamWatch website which has been set-up by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC).
If you’ve unintentionally paid money to Accommodation VIC, or even if you just receive one of their unauthorised bills in the mail, you can lodge a report with the ACCC by visiting their report a scam page. Specify “false billing” as the scam type in your report.
Competition between the states with their tourism websites
Each one of Australia’s states and territories has their own official tourism website. If you own or manage an accommodation property, it is certainly beneficial to have some exposure on these official sites as they are used by a wide range of travellers.
Victoria’s official tourism website is Visit Victoria, while Tasmania’s equivalent is Discover Tasmania. When it comes to advertising your accommodation, they are quite different.
Go to the Discover Tasmania website and you will find around around 1,050 accommodation listings for this small state with a population of 495,000 people (2011 Census). Pop over to the Visit Victoria website where there are around 1,400 accommodation listings in a state which is home to 5.35 million people.
So why does Victoria, with more than 10 times the population of Tasmania and being home to the second largest city in Australia (i.e. Melbourne), have only a slightly larger listing of visitor accommodation on its official tourism website? It mainly comes down to cost. Accommodation listings are free on Discover Tasmania, hence anyone operating an accommodation business in Tasmania can receive, at no cost, exposure on that state’s official tourism website. To do so, they just need to register their business in Tourism Tasmania’s TigerTOUR database. In Victoria, accommodation listings on Visit Victoria cost $250 per year, although this is reduced to $100 for accredited tourism businesses. This cost therefore discourages some accommodation operators in Victoria from listing on Visit Victoria.
This raises an important question. Should official tourism websites for Australia’s states and territories provide free accommodation listings in order to promote tourism and encourage people to stay overnight and contribute to the local economy? Tasmania and Victoria appear to have different views on that idea.
Low-cost ways of getting travellers to visit your website
An accommodation provider may typically spend between $1,000 and $5,000 getting a website developed for their business. A professional image is created, all facets of the accommodation are on show, but who is looking at it?
The next step many make is to then market their accommodation on commission-based travel websites, such as Stayz, Take-A-Break and Wotif. While you’re generating good business from these popular and high-traffic websites, your brand new shiny website sits there, unused. This is because most high profile travel websites that market your accommodation do so on a commission basis (i.e. they take a percentage of the revenue you earn from each booking), and thus won’t allow you to display your contact details or a link to your elaborate website, otherwise they may lose a sale if you contact the property directly.
So how do you get extra people to find your website when they are on the internet?
Pay-per-click search engine advertising. Use a search engine like Google, and you’ll notice ads appear related to your search terms. Sign up to Google AdWords and pay for your website to get listed in these advertiser sections. The problem is that unless you’re going to target niche search terms, then buying ads that appear when people search for things like “accommodation in Ballarat” could cost you several dollars per click. Do the sums and unless you’ve got deep pockets or get a lot of bookings, this can be quite an expensive option.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). You employ an SEO expert to make changes to your website such that search engines like Google will rank your site highly for search terms of your choice. To see results, you may need to wait months or years, and still there can be no guarantees as per our recent article on ranking high on Google. SEO alone is not enough as the wording on your website is just one of hundreds of points Google considers when ranking websites for certain search terms.
Listing your business and website on a popular travel website. While there’s not many, there are a few travel websites which will happily advertise your accommodation and allow you to display your phone number, email address and a link to your website. They typically charge a fixed fee (like a newspaper advertisement) as they cannot collect commissions or track bookings while all your details on show to prospective guests. By choosing a travel website that ranks well in Google for general search terms related to your accommodation, you’re effectively getting items (1) and (2) listed above for a modest fixed fee.
Given that the cheapest and easiest way to get exposure for your website is to list it on a travel website, you may wish to consider:
Travel Victoria – that’s us! For a small annual fee, you get a full page listing of your accommodation property, complete with phone number, email address and link to your website. In January 2012, our most popular listing by far, Lorne Caravan Park, was viewed by almost 2,000 people, with over 500 of them clicking through to the caravan park’s website. Generating those clicks using advertisements on Google, assuming $2 per click, would have cost the caravan park $1,000 compared to just $5 for their listing in January. Our average click rate for all listings in January 2012 was 31, so that’s still an expected $62 cost in Google AdWords versus $5 on Travel Victoria.
Weekend.com.au. Whether you get a free listing or a paid listing, your website link gets displayed, allowing you to funnel traffic to your website.
Great Places To Stay. If your accommodation is “special”, a listing on GPTS includes all your contact details and a website link, directing people to fully explore your offerings on your own website.
So don’t ignore the low cost and high value method of giving exposure to your website by listing it on a popular travel website. For a fixed fee, the visitors you attract can be endless.
Keep an up to date list of all the places where your accommodation is advertised
Surprisingly, many accommodation providers keep no proper records of where and with whom they are currently advertising their accommodation with, which makes it very difficult to keep track of it all.
Here are some incidents we’ve personally experienced during the last couple of years that illustrate lack of proper record keeping.
We received a message from the owner of a fleet of holiday houseboats who wanted to list with us based on a personal recommendation they received. The funny thing was, they were already advertising with us! Their houseboats has been listed with us for the last 4 years and they always promptly paid for their renewal each year without fail.
An email arrived from the owner of a caravan/holiday park and requested that we update their advertisement with the latest tariff schedule which they enclosed. The strange thing was, they had let their listing with us expire about 6 months prior, and has been sent several notices by us advising them of the cancellation of their advertisement.
We were contacted by a property owner who said that they could no longer find their accommodation listed on the Travel Victoria website and enquired as to where it went. Oddly enough, their advertisement expired over a year ago and was removed. However, despite receiving several notifications about that, they somehow thought their property was still listed with us.
It is important to keep a list of all the organisations and places your accommodation is advertised with. For each organisation you advertise with, note down:
The name of the organisation that publishes it, along with a phone number and email address
The title of the publication or website the advertisement is published in
The amount of the last renewal fee you paid (if applicable) and the date of the advertisement’s next renewal
A note specifying how to make updates to your advertisement. If you’re able to make changes directly yourself, list your login name and password. Otherwise record the contact details of someone who can make changes to your advertisement for you.
Keeping such a list will ensure that:
When you alter your tariffs or change any features of your property, you will know exactly which organisations need to be notified
When reviewing advertising options in the future, you will have a complete list of your existing advertising exposure
You will be able to avoid scams whereby organisations try to bill you for advertising you never ordered. By having an up to date list of all your advertising commitments, you’ll be able to identify and reject any bogus invoices or renewal requests.
Evaluate and compare advertising offers before signing up
If you’re an accommodation provider, you will no doubt be regularly swamped with offers from websites wanting you to advertise your business with them. You may receive these offers via letters in the post, email (some of those may even contravene the Australian Spam Act of 2003!), phone calls or even people visiting your business personally.
These days, having exposure for your accommodation on the internet is not a luxury, it’s a necessity if you want to attract a significant number of guests. But how do you choose where to advertise?
It’s important to evaluate the website that your accommodation will be advertised on to ensure you’ll get decent exposure and you are dealing with a reputable organisation.
Ask how many visitors come to their website per month. Don’t be mislead by statistics related to the number of “hits”. A “hit” is triggered when a distinct item, be it a page of text or a single image, is downloaded off a website. If one page has a large number of embedded images, then someone viewing only that one page can trigger something like 50 hits instantly. A more meaningful measurement term is the number of “visitors” which provides a guide to the number of real people who browse the site. For example, during October 2011, there were over 162,000 visitors to the Travel Victoria website, which generated about 10.5 million hits – quite a difference in those numbers!
Don’t just take their word for their claimed website visitation statistics. A very rough guide you can use to examine the performance of a website is to enter the website address at Alexa. Alexa records statistics of website visitors through those who use the company’s toolbar in their web browser. The lower a traffic rank, the more visitors it gets. Other statistics are available, including the average number of pages visitors view and how long they stay on the site. Note that the results are more accurate for high-volume sites as more data is collected. Also use it to compare different websites against each other to see which performs best.
Ask the website operator to supply a list of search terms in Google that lead people to their site and thus to your advertisement. If you rent out a holiday house in Venus Bay, then you’d want their website to catch people who would be typically be searching for terms like “Venus Bay”, “Venus Bay accommodation”, “Venus Bay holiday”, “beach accommodation”, etc. If searching for terms like that in Google isn’t giving at least one entry for their site in the top 5 results returned, you’ll want to question them about how people will find your property’s advertisement. Keep in mind that search engines such as Google are the major way people find information on the internet unless you’re advertising with an organisation that is a recognised household name whereby people will go directly to their website instead of searching.
Ask for a complete list of all advertising costs. The advertising rates may appear cheap, but then you may have to pay a set-up fee, a maintenance fee each time you want to make changes to your advertisement, or maybe there’s extra costs for add-ons like displaying extra photos or a link to your own website. Some websites may charge a commission on enquiries or bookings, which can potentially cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year.
Check the website owner’s credentials. View details relating to the website owner by doing a lookup on the website address using Whois. If the website is based in Australia, search for the website owner’s Australian Business Number (ABN) or if they are a company, the Australian Company Number (ACN) using the details you found in the “whois” search. Also search for their business details within the business register of the state or territory the website is based in.
Verify there are no consumer warnings or significant negative information regarding the website in question on the internet. A good way of doing this is to use Google to search for the website address or name (put quotes around it) followed by the word “scam”, “warning” or “fraud”, and see what comes up. Click the links that come up and carefully read the content, as some websites (including us at Travel Victoria) publish actual reports of scams and fraud, which doesn’t mean they (or us!) are the actual source of them.
