Turnberry - Ayrshire the Winner

In retrospect, the only thing it lacked was the Happy Ending.
Of course The "it" was The Open Championship at Turnberry in Ayrshire last week. If only the eight iron had landed more softly, if only Tom Watson had chipped or, to put his finish in perspective, if only Cink hadn't played the last two holes in three under par!
Anyway there are lots of what ifs at any Open Championship - Watson was indeed not the only golfer to lose out with five at the last; Chris Wood and Lee Westwood bogeying the final hole to miss out by one. And if Tiger had picked up a single stroke on Friday to finish four over instead of five would he really have been unable to finish on less than one under? (Well actually yes is probably the answer!)
But in the long term the winner must be Turnberry. A whole host of questions about whether the course was up to it; whether the hotel would be ready or the roads handle the traffic or potentially disastrous attendance figures were put about in the industry and the press.
In the end however Turnberry once again proved that golf is much more than one single element; it is eclectic and Turnberry drew together all of the elements to showcase a region and a country better than any tourist board or marketing campaign ever could.
The views of the coast line looking towards Ailsa Craig and The Isle of Arran were simply magnificent and as good as anything emanating from any other coastline in the world.
Even the mildly annoying Boss Yacht played its part in showing how much fun the sailing waters of the Ayrshire Coast were and we'd be delighted if they want to send us a photograph to use it widely!
It was a shame however that the notion that Turnberry was somehow difficult to reach kept on being uttered by commentators and journalists and even in the winner's speech. But then again is it a shame? Yes perhaps it is more difficult to reach than some courses or resorts but therein perhaps lies its unique selling point. Maybe we should be promoting Ayrshire as a hideaway? Truth is Turnberry was and is only thirty minutes from Prestwick Airport which with Ryanair means less than three hours from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden; two hours from Stansted and the south of England and an hour and a half from the centre of Dublin.
Hardly John o Groats!
So with the recently announced closure of the Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Ayrshire with the loss of seven hundred jobs the TV coverage gave Ayrshire folk something to be very very proud of, it was indeed a good news few days for the area hopefully bringing with it an Open Bounce - an increase in visitors, spends and incomes.
More than anyone playing in The Open, Ayrshire needed this victory the most.

Merchandising Your Online Rooms

The old adage borrowed from another industry of, “Retail is in the Detail” should be applied to how you promote your Rooms online. Customers who want to purchase online have the same needs and wants as those that come through your front door.

You wouldn’t ignore a customer who was hanging around the reception desk waiting for some information on a room rate before booking, and neither should your website.

Among the key factors that concern customer’s booking rooms online are,

• What does the room look like?
• What’s included in the rate?
• Is the rate good value for money?
• Can I picture myself staying in this room, at this hotel?

If you are on an accommodation website and these questions cannot be answered then you are much less likely to book online. In some cases you may grudgingly call or email the property, if you really really want to stay, but it’s just as easy to go back to your search engine and find another hotel website which can answer your questions.

It is these principles that has driven the development of Bookassist's online reservations booking engine.

Bookassist Makes it Easy to Promote your Rooms
Every Room Package loaded onto a Bookassist Booking Engine benefits from clearly displayed rates, high resolution room images and lot’s of descriptive text, together with an accurate reflection of any applied discounts.

You can see the from the example image that the customer is drawn towards the discount information presented in brighter colours, thus illustrating the value for money.
They can also see an image of room itself, which will expand when you mouse over it. And underneath the rate information, (which helpfully spans 7 days) there is significant text descriptions that is persuasive and alluring.

In addition to these key features, the Booking Engine also enables you to group different packages together, as you can see in this example which shows the Superior Rooms options.

What to do next
To find out how the Bookassist Booking Engine can help you to promote your Rooms more effectively and increase your online sales, contact the Bookassist Scotland office on +44 (0)1292-521-404 or email them at Scotland@bookassist.com

Manage Your Customer Reviews

As we all know Customer Reviews can be a very useful tool when deciding where we should be heading off to. Whether it be a First Choice resort in Egypt or a business venue in Edinburgh we're pretty quick these days as consumers to hit TripAdvisor before we go too far along the line.

And of course that's what our own customers are undoubtedly doing as well and in recognising that fact (not necessarily liking it!) we all have to ensure that our consumer profile on-line reflects our businesses as we would wish.

James Kennedy from Bookassist Scotland explained to us that the company ethos is to help accommodation providers drive traffic to their own website; always has been and always will be and that it made perfect sense to put Customer Reviews onto the reservations system to ensure that reviews could be seen from the hotel's own site.
He explained the process, "Once a client who has booked using Bookassist has left the hotel, they will be emailed asking them to rank and review both the system and the accommodation experience."

"The former helps us identify where we may need to support a hotel or improve our reservations service but even more importantly the second allows you to get a very quick turnaround on your guest comments."
Sure, you may not to publish them all but even poor comments can be used to retrieve negative publicity either through the guest's word of mouth or if he's web 2.0 literate his posting on to TripAdvisor or other travel sites.
It would seem clear that Guest Review Management simply has to become part of your PR/Customer Relations/Market Research and very necessary to spend some time in this area to improve your service, identify problems and in the end improve your bottom line.
To make this easier, Bookassist's latest upgrade now allows all administrators the ability to manage their own guest comments choosing to either reply or publish each one. They also provide on request an easy to understand guide on how to manage guest reviews made on TripAdvisor.

1. Review your guest comments regularly
2. Respond to negative comments positively and directly
3. Publish positive responses on-line with Bookassist
   

For more information opn how to manage your guest reviews with Bookassist give James Kennedy a call on 01292 521404 or email james.kennedy@bookassist.com

CalMac to run Sunday Service

Having just come back from Egypt, one of the striking memories was how a brief visit to Cairo can reinforce the need to respect cultures of those you are visiting - without any effort it is easy to cause offence or at the very least discomfort. However that is two way and whilst religious doctrine in downtown Cairo may cause some eye brow raising at European dress it does no more. It allows the freedom of tourists to dress in their own way not only for economic reasons but for reasons of social acceptance.

So is it not astonishing that here we are in the 21st Century and there is still an argument about whether a boat can bring visitors to and from a Scottish island on a Sunday?

Respect for religious beliefs is a given until those religious beliefs impinge on the freedoms of others. Surely?

If the hotelier wishes not to open their hotel, or their bar or their restaurant that is their perogative but as I recall CalMac previously received legal advice who said it would be unlawful to refuse to run a service because of the religious views of just part of a community.

The opposite case was put by The Lord's Day Observance Society who after taking their own legal counsel they said that a six-day timetable did not erode an individual's human rights unless access to a ferry was denied on religious grounds.

"If a service is being provided, for example a ferry is running on a particular date, it would be unlawful to deny that service to any person because of their religious belief or lack of it."

"To any person?" What about to all persons?

Now how would Christopher Brookmyre or Ian Banks novelise this one...

Read the BBC article on the proposed service.

Glasgow Faring Fair?

According to business consultants Deloitte, Glasgow hotels are apparently faring better through the recession than those in other British cities, with Edinburgh not far behind with both heading the stats for occupancy and earnings from their hotels, according to analysis by Deloitte business consultancy.
The UK figure showed a fall of more than 11% in the first six moths against last year but Glasgow saw only a 1.6% fall, and Edinburgh only 4.5% down. Glasgow hotels achieved 72% occupancy with the average room rate dropping by less than 1%.
Marvin Rust, hospitality managing partner at Deloitte, said that business "could be buoyed by strong domestic demand for tourism this summer as more Britons holiday throughout the UK".
He said British hotel business had held up "exceptionally well" in the global economic downturn, down by 11.1%, especially when compared to other countries across Europe, some of which were seeing RevPAR drop by 40%.
The results aren't overly surprising perhaps given the currency exchange rates and even the recent weather but any idea that this level of success is here to stay is a dangerous proposition. There are many who would suggest that what happens post summer will give a greater indication of the real strength of Scotland's hospitality sector. Working on maintaining shoulder and off season business will be critical for the industry as a whole.

TripAdvisor - Good or Bad?

We saw this article a few days ago on Hospitality eBusiness and thought it would be worth publishing from a Scottish perspective particualrly as VisitScotland are still swithering on whether their formal links with the national tourism portal is indeed good or bad for business.
First of all here's the position as stated by VisitScotland.com website.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to improving customer experience online - and increasing sales of tourism product as a result – VisitScotland.com is teaming up with TripAdvisor, the world’s number one travel review website to provide independent feedback on Scotland’s hotels."

It goes on to state;

"TripAdvisor will provide reviews from real travellers of almost 1000 accommodation providers across Scotland who currently offer online booking. We believe the real benefit of this will be seen in terms of increased bookings for participating accommodation. Unbiased user-generated reviews have been proven to turn lookers into bookers by using the trust consumers place on the opinions of travellers like themselves."

Hotel eBusiness' article looked at the pros and cons of:

1. Creating a link on the hotel website to the customer reviews page of the hotel on TripAdvisor


2. Displaying TripAdvisor reviews directly on the hotel website via the TripAdvisor Review Widget

They have always recommended against both of these options explaining why.

Creating a link on the hotel website to the customer reviews page of the hotel on TripAdvisor.

"Have you looked at your property page and your customer reviews on TripAdvisor lately? Have you noticed that the page is full of advertisements by all the major online travel agencies, all the major hotel brands, and many of your competitors?"

You can see what they mean... Have a look at the VisitScotland Trip Advisor for The Marine Hotel in Troon as an example.

It not only gives the hotel reviews but offers rates from various sources, list competitor hotels and runs sponsored ads down the right hand side. "By linking from your hotel website to TripAdvisor you are actively encouraging your potential customers to book with the OTAs or someone else."

Current wisdom is that hotels should be increasing their own direct bookings through their own websites. Tripadvisor certainly cannot always be seen to be complementary to this goal - why push your clients from your website to a third party distributor?

It can be extremely expensive nowadays to bring visitors to your website whether through paid search, website development, SEO, hosting, email marketing, analytics, or any of the social web tools and you would not want to lose them that easily by sending them out of your site to another supplier to whom you're then paying a commission or booking fee

Displaying TripAdvisor reviews directly on the hotel website via the TripAdvisor Review Widget

The TripAdvisor Review Widget is placed on the hotel website by uploading a special TripAdvisor code that “pushes” live customer reviews from TripAdvisor - in some ways this very similar to what is on the VisitScotland website. TripAdvisor promotes this as ‘friendlier’ than the above above because the hotel website visitors do not have to leave the site, and therefore will not be exposed to advertising by the OTAs and competitors - however if you click view all reviews you will be taken out.

The issue of Lack of Control over Customer Reviews is also addressed In the author's opinion, "No hotel will ever publish a negative customer review on its website. Having TripAdvisor push live customer reviews to the hotel website creates the very real threat that negative reviews will appear on the hotel website as soon as they are posted on TripAdvisor. How do you control that?"

We would disagree that accommodation providers will neverpost negative reviews; honestly made negative comments can play a positive role in hotel's website marketing if they are addressed and replied to stating how the situation has been resolved. nothing but positive reviews can be seen as a little false and too comfortable.

Booking engine Bookassist offer their hoteliers the chance to publish guest reveiws and reply to them directly in their own website. It can be made to work

"However there is no way that you can filter out negative reviews with this TripAdvisor Review Widget and there is no doubt that when the competition discovers that you feature “live” customer reviews from TripAdvisor on your website, they can betempted to write a fake negative review about your hotel themselves."

The final paragraph of the article certainly pulls no punches!

"The industry in general should not contribute to the expansion of monopolistic customer review depositories like TripAdvisor. This site already has more than 30 million unique visitors every month. It already has a big chunk of the marketplace. Its closest competitor has only 5 million visitors a month."

Our opinion?

VisitScotland should not be using TripAdvisor on its site. Full stop. Period.

Cosses Country House Switches on Bookassist

Cosses Country House, the Luxury Bed and Breakfast Inn in the South West of Scotland has reintroduced Bookassist back onto their excellent website. Bookassist have been working on getting Cosses back into the fold for a few months and James Kennedy of Bookassist Scotland was delighted to have them going live just as Tiger Woods and company get set to tee off just up the road at The Open at Turnberry.

Cosses is another one of Ayrshire's premier tourism properties benefitting from the functionaility of the Bookassist online reservations system and join others such as Fairfield House, Enterkine, Gailes Hotel the new Woodland Lodge nearby and a range of B&B's and Self Catering operations.

Cosses offers guests luxurious dinner, bed and breakfast accommodation in wonderful surroundings, 2 miles south of the fishing village of Ballantrae, in Ayrshire. It sits on the border of Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway, close to the sea, and is the perfect situation for exploring the whole of South West Scotland.

You can find out more about Bookassist by visiting their corporate website