Undara Opera in the Outback

I’ve published it in full below.

This event is #10 on 100 Great Things to do in Australia that you’ve never heard of.

Can you create an event that makes the list?

Only 25 days to go to Opera

Time is running out to secure your seat under the stars to witness Undara’s premier musical event, Opera in the Outback.

Surrounded by tall eucalypt and acacia trees, the acclaimed Ten Sopranos are geared up to set the bush alight with their powerful harmonies and evocative tones.

Two evening performances with Friday night’s Sunset Serenade seeing old favourites from the likes of The Beatles, Peter Allen and Roger and Hammerstein performed like never before while Saturday’s Constellational Classics are a perfect blend of much loved operatic renditions including ‘O Sole Mio’ and ‘Amigos Parra Sempre’ staged under a canopy of stars.

Ten beautiful ladies will inspire those new to opera and excite the connoisseurs over two evenings in the purpose built outdoor amphitheatre. More than just singing, this is truly unique event that, now in its eighth year, is going from strength to strength.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to throw out the swag or set up camp in the outback. With tickets limited to only 300 per performance, this intimate event WILL sell out.

Voted #10 – 100 Great Things to do in Australia that you’ve never heard of
…Australian Travellers Magazine 2007

Tickets are $110pp per night.

Camping from $10pp per night – Powered sites available from $15pp per night
3 Course Dinner / Breakfast (for the weekend) including both performances from $338pp (not including accommodation)

All accommodation is strictly limited – book now.

To book your campsite and opera tickets, call 1800 990 992 or go to the Undara website.

Undara Volcanic National Park is 275km Sth West of Cairns on the Savannah Way, near Mt Surprise. Road is sealed all the way – (Allow 3.5 hours driving time.)

For more media information, photos or interviews, please call Mark Schmitt at Undara Experience (Sales and Marketing) on 07 4031 7933 or 0448 771 232

Marketing your Tourism Venture – Create Something Unique

Being able to manage their own websites has already proved a huge benefit. In a recent interview, Group Principal Jon Jessop said:

Being a new business means that we aren’t always getting things right the first time. Our opening function date changes, policies change, rates go up and down all the time, or we realise we’ve forgotten key information; so it’s great to be able to jump onto the website and change things whenever we need to. We don’t have to worry about calling up someone and waiting a week for the changes to take place, not to mention a possible bill at the end!

OM4Tourism has developed 2 websites for the group – EdgeResortsWA.com.au, which will go live shortly, and KalbarriEdge.com.au.

Read the full interview with Jon about the Edge Resorts website development.

Website development: Edge Resorts describe their experience

After optimising and indexing their website with Google, they registered with Google’s Local Business Centre. This means when someone searches Google Australia for “Broome accommodation”, Captains appears on page 1 under Local Business Results.

As a destination-focused business, you can’t afford not to be registered with Google’s Local Business Centre – it costs nothing and also gives you a listing in Google Maps.

This is useful for your own site – once you have a Google Maps listing, you can capture a link that enables you to place the interactive Google map in your own site at no cost. It also makes it easier for people searching Google Maps for your accommodation or tour outlet.

Go to Glenn’s article on Google Local Search to find out how to register.

Getting onto page 1 in Google search

The choices you make right at the start can make the difference between a boat wrecked on the rocks and a yacht on the open ocean with wind in its sails.

I’ve written an article about the 4 most common myths we have come across when working with small businesses – particularly tourism operators. The myths are listed below, and you can read the complete article here: Website Development and Design – 4 Common Myths.

Myth 1. The best person to create my website is a graphic designer

If you were building a hotel, would you get the interior designer to choose the location, draw up the plans, construct the building, put in the wiring and plumbing, install the telephone and Internet system? Of course you wouldn’t!

Myth 2. When someone comes to my website, I need to grab their attention

Your website isn’t a billboard attempting to attract attention by distracting viewers from other things. It doesn’t need to shout, flash or entertain with moving images. It needs to inform – easily and quickly.

Myth 3. To create an effective website, all I have to do is put my brochure online

Transferring a brochure online to make a website is often the first step in online marketing, but a website is a bit like a sailing boat. It won’t go anywhere unless you remember to give it sails.

Myth 4. The more people who visit my website, the better

If 20 people enter Arcadia Bookstore and 1 person buys a book, then another 10 people enter Zenith Books and 9 people buy books – who wins? Arcadia got more visitors, but Zenith sold more books.

Tell us about myths that you’ve come across either by commenting here or by posting on our Tourism Marketing Forum.

4 myths of website development and design

This set me thinking about what takes people that extra step from reading your stories to responding to your stories by commenting or making contact with you.

My colleague felt that trust might be an issue. As soon as someone clicks, responds, signs up, asks a question, they reckon you’re going to zoom in on them with the hard sell.

Another colleague recently mentioned the issue of confidentiality – many in his profession don’t want to lay themselves open to others and are reluctant to ‘trust’ the web medium, such as blog comments and forum posts.

We already know that building trust is an essential objective for all small businesses, and that this can be done by blogging your story to the world, by being authentically you and conveying your experience, expertise, track record and authority.

Then I came across this Smart Company blog post: Sell Like a Woman. If you’re male, don’t let the post title put you off! There’s an interesting point made here.

You can tell your story in two essentially different ways, and getting your head around this is important if you are going to market your tourism business effectively.

When you tell me a story, it can be all about you … or all about me. Yes, of course all your posts are going to be about you in some way – but the point is to look at what you are essentially conveying.

Are you saying to your readers “We do this” or “We offer that” or “We are great because”, or are you looking at your business from their point of view and enabling them to engage with you from their starting point? Are you essentially saying “You can do this” or “You can have this experience” or even “Look at these guys – they did it and so can you”?

For example, have a look at this blog post: Planning Your Great Ocean Road Drive Holiday.

Yvonne Hunter is a great blogger who understands how to give people what they want in order to build trust. The effect is to get you thinking, this looks interesting, I’d like to do that, I CAN do that. The post is about the reader, not about Yvonne, although it is based on her experience and she includes a link to the most relevant page on the website.

You will rarely, if ever, find a blog post by Yvonne that talks about her accommodation and how great it is. And yet, as her partner, Tim Kottek, told me recently:

“The site is now getting about 1000 visitors per month. The blog as well as the authority pages have helped the home page to a Google Ranking of 4 out of 10, with internal pages ranking at 2 and 3 out of 10. Three of the 10 most viewed pages are from the blog. And it is those popular blog pages that have lead to e-mail requests.”

So it is possible to build trust through your site content, which leads to enquiries, especially by blogging.

For some businesses, this takes longer than for others – and I suspect this is the case with my colleague – but persistence invariably pays off. In tourism, our experience is that it doesn’t take long at all to see a significant improvement in traffic and enquiries – but only if you are blogging effectively, keeping site content up to date, and giving people plenty of opportunities to click and contact you.

Getting website traffic but no enquiries?

The Marketing Discussion Forum creates a space to discuss marketing issues, directing questions to OM4Tourism or to other Forum users, and answering questions posted by others.

We know that tourism operators recognise the value in working together to boost the industry as a whole, and many smaller operators are relatively isolated from the wider tourism community. The Discussion Forum facilitates a sharing of marketing tips and information among those who are at the chalkface of tourism.

The Support Forum is there to support OM4Tourism clients in their online marketing, in particular with questions related to OM4Tourism websites. If this is you, ask away, and we will post answers as questions come in.

To register, simply go to this page, click on the ‘register’ link, and follow the prompts.

We look forward to seeing you there!

OM4Tourism Forums launched

If the experience of Elizabeth Fleetwood is anything to go by, online marketing seems to offer the best solution.

Elizabeth runs Hobart Historic Tours, and is relatively new to online marketing. The path that led her there is probably familiar to many small tourism businesses.

“I had made some efforts to join in Tourism Tasmania’s international marketing efforts,” she told me. “But I find it too expensive and cumbersome for my operation. For example, it would simply not be worth my while to go to ATE [the Australian Tourism Exchange], as the minimum cost would be about $10,000.”

Another avenue to reach international visitors is through the magazines that go into hotels that attract overseas visitors. But again, advertising in these publications is prohibitively expensive for a small operation like Elizabeth’s.

“I think the future is more likely to be on the web,” she concluded. “And I am more likely to look at marketing opportunities in that medium.”

So far, Elizabeth has concentrated on links, including Discover Tasmania, which brings most of her online enquiries, and the Tasmanian Travel & Information Centre, with brochures in the Centre’s physical office in Hobart, which still brings the majority of her bookings, thanks to a great staff who know her product well.

She has recently signed up with BookTasmania, an interface that places her product on travel distribution sites at her discretion on a commission-only basis, while allowing a booking system directly linked to her own site.

Linking out to other relevant sites to encourage back links is a good strategy for achieving higher search ranking, and you can read more about how Elizabeth is doing this in my blog post.

With the percentage of international visitors booking her tours now at 40%, Elizabeth’s attention is focusing on the quality of her product and marketing online. Getting these two things right will take her a long way towards building her business cost-effectively.

Profile: A search for cost-effective marketing

A River Bed is a self-contained retreat at Airey’s Inlet on the Great Ocean Road.

Already doing well domestically, Wendy Deighton is looking at ways to get the message out to potential visitors from overseas.

Given that the Great Ocean Road is a highly popular destination, we believe Wendy’s best bet is to have a presence on dynamic destination-focused sites, and this reflects her own plans to forge strong online links.

She is already listed on OzStayz, GreatOceanRoadHolidays.com.au and we have just put her in touch with Tim Kottek and Yvonne Hunter at GreatOceanRoad-Torquay.com.au.

These sites will certainly help to bring her attention from an overseas audience.

She is also keenly aware of the need for thorough keyword research to attract more visitors, and recognises something that we have also recently discovered – ‘kangaroo’ is one of the most highly searched wildlife terms!

Kangaroos have been seen on the front lawn and often on the other side of the river which guests can view from the studio – something that will definitely help her to get the attention of overseas visitors wanting a truly Australian experience.

Wendy also points to the difficulty some small operators face when clients want them to arrange every aspect of their trip for them.

Tourism operators aren’t travel agents, and you don’t want to spend time organising a complete holiday when you only benefit from one small part of the package.

Creative packaging with other tour operators in the same region can give overseas visitors exactly what they’re looking for though. Then all they have to do is book transport – very easy to do online.

In addition, each operator involved in the package promotes the whole deal, which brings more attention to you.

Beyond this, linking into the best destination sites and relevant online travel agencies means even if you get a direct enquiry from a high-maintenance client who wants more than you are able to offer, you can refer them to your affiliate site.

By funnelling destination searches into an effective site with recommended tours and accommodation neatly packaged – we believe operators such as Tim, Yvonne and Wendy could be onto a winner.

Profile: Forging links that bring traffic

You can find out more at this link, but here’s the essence of what he’s looking for:

We seek short compelling stories, exciting tales or insightful anecdotes (100 – 400 words) from your guest or your own stories about a guest/visitor experience you feel represent how your trips “Enhance Quality of Life”.

If you have submitted an entry to the OM4Tourism Hidden Jewel Awards, you will already have these stories at your fingertips.

There’s no catch to the submission, and if you get noticed, you’ll get the benefit of distribution to a wide network of interested readers via Tim’s online marketing and media publicity channels.

Get your adventure travel experience noticed

The Rainbow Connection is a useful example of a business that has a clearly defined market, and uses that knowledge to build business.

As the first and only gay and lesbian designated accommodation in Central Australia, the business is ideally positioned to corner a growing and lucrative market segment. Around 80 per cent of guests come from overseas.

“Our guests are looking for stylish, soft adventure experiences and iconic visitation,” said The Rainbow Connection’s Phil Walcott.

“They are aged from early 20s to late 70s, gay or lesbian (including transgender, intersex etc.), cyberspace savvy, professional, with a medium-high level of disposable income.”

Knowing the market well means understanding that a significant proportion of guests will find the accommodation through online search, coming directly to the site or via the major gay and lesbian online associations: GALTA (Gay & Lesbian Tourism Australia) and IGLTA (the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association).

Phil is Regional Director of GALTA for the Northern Territory and finds that ‘bundling’ of product through GALTA is a highly successful strategy. GALTA works hard to support similar businesses around Australia and has a presence at significant events across the country.

Linking to organisations and agencies that target your market is essential, and needs to go beyond listings to proactive packaging and participation in collaborative marketing initiatives.

“We have benefited from forging strong links with mainstream operators locally, domestically and internationally, and with RTAs [regional tourism associations], STOs [state tourism organisations], ITOs [inbound tour operators] and Tourism Australia.”

Phil also seeks out links and listings on other relevant sites and ensures that The Rainbow Connection is marketed through the international gay and lesbian Spartacus Guide.

Getting the word out is only part of the picture though. Once travellers find the site, effort goes into personalised email contact, and The Rainbow Connection keeps in touch with past guests through email, encouraging word of mouth marketing.

This is a market that values personal service and attention to detail, so this kind of follow-through is vital.

Significantly, the marketing strategies that The Rainbow Connection has found most effective don’t involve expensive advertising campaigns. Online marketing is bringing and retaining virtually all their guests, along with a presence at carefully targeted events, and one important international guide listing.

Success comes from a clear knowledge of where their prospects are, how they research travel, and what they are looking for.

Profile: Tourism success means getting to know your segment of the travel market