I’m delighted to be launching OM4Tourism – a site dedicated to online marketing resources for small to medium tourism businesses.

We decided to launch a site just for tourism operators because:

• you have told us how important the Internet is to your business success, and
• we believe small tourism businesses offering unique experiences have a great deal to gain from online marketing.

At PublicityShip, we have already enabled small businesses to grow through online marketing. To find out exactly how our very first online marketing clients, ocularists Paul & Jenny Geelen, achieved phenomenal success purely through online marketing with us, check out this case study.

We have continued to develop our services since then, and established our first two tourism sites: NingalooBlue.com and GreatOceanRoad-Torquay.com.au

Why Tourism?

Small tourism businesses offering unique experiences have far more to gain from online marketing than large operators, wholesalers or online agencies.

Why? Because with smart online marketing, you can now reach your target customers directly, wherever they are in the world, placing you on a level playing field with bigger businesses. To find out exactly why this is happening now – and why Glenn turned his life upside down to create businesses based on this model – read this article.

We also know that the tourism industry is rapidly responding to the enormous changes occurring due to the widespread availability of broadband. Travellers are researching, booking and writing about their experiences online, and the rate of growth is extraordinary.

The popularity of blogging is growing fast too, which is good news for tourism because blogging represents a fantastic way to help your clients understand the experience you offer them, in a way that can be much more authentic and up close than a website on its own.

Scan some of the 1.7M+ travel postings on Technorati travel blogs for a while, and get a feel for how many travellers are sharing their thoughts and experiences using blogs as the medium.

This is why we have developed online marketing strategies and services to help tourism operators market themselves online.

How We Can Help

Most tourism businesses have websites. But a website is not a marketing tool on its own. Keyword Analysis, Search Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Affiliate Marketing offer significant opportunities for tourism operators to reach travellers while they are researching and planning their trips, and to increase bookings and visitor numbers.

We’ve put together a carefully researched and tested set of services, that will enable you to get online marketing at your own pace, spreading the cost and drawing our support as much or as little as you need us.

We can also guarantee dedication. Travel and tourism is close to my heart, having spent six years working as a travel writer and then editor of national travel industry magazine, Traveltalk. This brought me face to face with a wide range of tourism operators and fired up my determination to help this passionate group grow their businesses.

After joining Glenn Nicholas and Julia Sutton as manager of their new business, PublicityShip, in 2006, I established the Hidden Jewel Awards for small tourism operators because we saw how these businesses were struggling to enter the spotlight at established state and national awards schemes.

Thanks to Glenn’s extensive experience in business development and IT, I also quickly learned the ins and outs of online marketing, and recognised the potential for tourism operators to take advantage of the Internet’s level playing field. Since then I have been itching to launch this site.

We Want to Hear from You

We’re dedicated to helping you market your business online, so that you can claim your share of the growing number of travellers planning their holidays online. So do contact me with your feedback, requests and suggestions.

To kick off a few ideas, I’ve just published an article based on interviews with 12 tourism operators from around Australia. It examines some of the most common challenges faced by businesses marketing to overseas visitors, and I’ll be posting on each of those challenges in more detail. You can read the complete article here.