A few weeks back I got a call from Lunch (aka David Doudle of GoinOffSafaris). Anyone interested in cage shark diving in Australia should check out Lunch’s site – I think he has the world’s scariest shark picture on his home page.
Lunch runs a tourism business, promoting not only the cage shark diving tours Port Lincoln is famous for, but also his own guided tours of the Eyre Peninsula.
He also runs a wheat/canola farm, and on this particular day he was out harvesting his canola crop. As his harvester is GPS equipped, he could quite easily operate it and chat on this phone (hands free, of course). After a few carefully aimed digs at the Freo Dockers (just wait till next season), Lunch got on to the main topic of his call – Google Analytics.
While we talked about what was working for his site and where we wanted to improve, Lunch pointed out he had the best view in the world, looking out over the Great Australian Bight. And he sent me some photos to prove it.
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- The Great Australian Bight from Lunch’s Harvester
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- That GPS navigation better be good
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- Lunch Planning His Next Blog Post
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- Ok, enough with the Dockers roasting
Lunch is pretty savvy about the web these days, and by following his website via Google Analytics, he has seen first hand his growth in site visitors after optimising his site for popular keywords and writing blog posts.
Once Lunch gets his iPhone, he can install one of the handy Google Analytics apps (the BAM Analytics app is a good free intro) and also the WordPress app for iPhone. So he can take photos while on his tours and post them to his blog, and then check out his stats.
Lunch’s story is not unique. A lot of regional tourism operators can use technology to tell their story. And of course telling your story is a great way to market your tourism business.
I hope Lunch’s website continues to flourish and that the Dockers dish out some punishment next season.
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Nice article Glenn. You can tell that you a more of a IT guru, rather than a farmer as the crop that I was harvesting there is quite clearly wheat, not canola as you mentioned!
And the Freo Dockers…? Gee, I just hope that they are still going to be included in the AFL comp by the end of the year.You still need to beat more than 1 side to be a major threat to the other clubs!!
Seriously, you are correct with keeping up with modern technology & by using tools available.This is no different from any other business to make your job simpler & more effecient.
In our farming business, GPS technology paved the way for us to use auto steer components which saves us time,fuel,overlapping so everything is more efficient & as we dont physically have to steer the machine, we can concentrate on other areas & we do not get the fatigue factor that usedng to do with the job.
Our tourism business is the same where the tools that are now available reduce the time needed to be spent in the office & as you say Glenn, having everything at the fingertips via a iphone is gold & it all comes back to production & effeciency. This gives me more time to be able to do what I really like doing & thats heading to the beach with the family for fish and swim, especially in this hot weather 7 thats where I’m going now!!
cheers mate.