Visitor Information Service

iVisitorGuide is a visitor information and travel planning service delivered in partnership with your regional tourist board. Tourism Providers subscribe to receive tailored data sourced from the tourist board which can be geographical e.g. we compile a list all Things to Do within a 10 mile radius of Hotel X, or the Tourism Provider can also choose products that are more complementary to their brand e.g. a 5 star hotel may refer clients to Michelin or other award winning restaurants in the locality but may choose to omit takeaways or fast food joints.

The important point is that the visitor information displayed is detailed, up to date and relevant to the consumer not only because it is all local to where they propose visiting but also because the Tourism Provider has had the opportunity to select products appropriate for their target market.

The vast majority of Tourism Provider websites make little or no effort to properly explain what else there is to do in a destination and access to this type of content is much more important to consumers than Tourism Providers perhaps realise. Research by Frommers Unlimited indicates that 66% of consumers find travel websites do not have enough information on Things to Do.

Background to the iVisitor Guide project

In March 2008 Visit Chester & Cheshire [VCC] commissioned a project to develop an online cluster amongst a varied selection of Tourism Providers within Tatton, Cheshire. VCC’s Invitation to Tender outlined that...

“Cluster development is a key element of VCC’s strategy and will support efforts to simplify how visitors plan and book their trip. Online cluster development will also enable visitors to find the information they need to make the most of their stay. We envisage clusters will enhance public/private sector partnerships, which will add a significant contribution to the region’s visitor economy.”

The stated key factors of the project included:

• Consumer demand for tailored visitor information
• Access to up to date, accurate, quality DMS data
• Be sustainable business models
• Enhance the consumers online experience
• Allow individual tourism providers to be part of a more impressive marketing image
• Enable cluster members to enjoy higher levels of business
• Share market intelligence
• Capture consumer data
• Online booking integration

From these requirements The Tourism Consultancy proposed iVisitor Guide, a new approach to cluster development. The iVisitor Guide programme proposed the creation of an online cluster that was realistic and particularly relevant because all of the key components necessary to enable successful completion of the project were now present; these being:

Cluster Development

Left to their own devices Tourism Providers will not develop their own clusters nor will they promote other businesses - even though it would benefit them to do so.
Successful cluster development is usually reliant upon the proactive participation of the businesses that are meant to actually form the cluster. The reality however of getting businesses to work together is fraught with difficulties. Business owners are busy running their own business, do not properly understand the benefits, are sometimes wary or unsure about other cluster participants [particularly their competitors] or personalities get in the way - they just might not like someone!

With iVisitor Guide we have developed an option that removes these obstacles, has very few technical barriers to entry and is now proven to be a service that is of real value to the participants.

The programme devised was a unique and new approach and the catalyst to enable active participation within the cluster was the development of a consumer facing brand. For iVisitor Guide to work we had to create a solution that successfully combined the following:

1. Consumer brand
The brand that was developed was iVisitor Guide – together with a logo that would open up a ‘Guide’ for ’Visitors’ that was full of very useful ‘Information’ to help them make the most of their stay [see above].

Cluster members were asked to display this logo prominently on every page of their own website together with explanatory text detailing that consumers should click the logo if they wanted ideas on where to stay, what to do etc. Clicking on the logo would open up an online visitor guide that had been personalised on behalf of the business to reflect the target market of the Tourism Provider.

2. Access to up to date relevant content
Your regional tourist board has invested time, resource and money in a Destination Management System that holds comprehensive data on virtually all known tourism stock in the area. By linking this data to an Enterprise Content Management System [eCMS] upon which we built the cluster sites, we now had the basis upon which this data could be shared amongst all of the Tourism Providers who would form our original pilot cluster.

3. Online distribution strategy
Once the brand was created and we had access to content we then needed to create a range of websites that could ‘bridge’ the gap between a Tourism Provider website and the tourist board’s data. The strategy of creating a link directly from the Tourism Provider website opened up the opportunity for us to reach a whole new segment of online consumer that typically was not going to the tourist board website for this type of content.

Our partner for this pilot was Visit Chester & Cheshire [VCC] and at that time VCC only really had the opportunity to reach volume consumers via its main online channels – www.visitchester.com and www.visitcheshire.com. These websites provide compelling content and market all tourism across Cheshire but Tourism Provider websites do not typically ‘link’ to a tourist board website – mainly for fear of losing their hard won online prospective customer to a competitor. This leaves VCCs main channels operating in isolation of the Tourism Providers they are promoting.

Tourist Boards also always operate in a very crowded market place, where very many businesses are competing for the same audience. Research on the volume of online bookings indicates that tourist boards typically reach less than 1% of the available market. The major travel brands – Lastminute, Expedia, Laterooms etc collectively account for c20% of the same market. This leaves more than 79% of all online bookings taking place directly on Tourism Providers own websites i.e. the vast majority of online traffic is generated at provider level on Tourism Providers own websites.

The iVisitor Guide service enables us to rapidly deploy marketing led websites that enable a Tourism Provider to give the consumer up to date, relevant visitor information [with very little effort] and opens up the opportunity for tourism board generated content to be accessed by significantly more people. It also generates much more interest for the businesses themselves.

IllumiNESS at Ness Botanic Gardens

Visit IllumiNESS From Dec 5th at Ness Botanic Gardens. Here's a shot taken in the garden at a sneak preview last night. Buy tickets HERE.

See the gardens in a different light!

Also if you need help with somewhere to stay, places to eat and other great things to do visit the Ness Botanic Gardens iVisitor Guide.

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Helpful Hotels

Providing visitor information on your hotel website will significantly enhance the chances of you getting the booking.

However, as many as...
38% of consumers will avoid booking a hotel because the hotel website does not give them enough information about the destination! 
[Forrester Research]

When potential customers visit your website, that is your opportunity to convince them they should choose your hotel.

Helping consumers and encouraging them to book your hotel should be amongst your highest priorities. Providing up to date, relevant Visitor Information can help reassure guests and compel them to book. Letting them know more details about the area they will be staying in can only HELP the decision making process in your favour. Trust in your hotel will be at its greatest when consumers are given the much bigger picture of the local area. People are looking for more information, and are seeking ideas and incentives to help them make the most of their stay. By helping consumers you will be helping yourself.

Are you a helpful hotel? Helpful hotels are tour guides helping consumers capitalize on their time during their stay. Helpful hotels do a little bit more than just let you stay the night, have breakfast and then swipe your credit card. Helpful hotels care about whether or not their guests actually enjoy their stay. Helpful hotels provide this essential visitor information prior to the booking because they understand it will improve their look to book conversion ratio. Examples of helpful hotels within the iVisitor Guide network include:

Chester Grosvenor & Spa
Grosvenor Pulford and Spa by Kasia
Alderley Edge Hotel
Inglewood Manor

If you'd like to join the iVisitor Guide network please let us know. Together we can make sure that you don't lose those 38% of consumers who otherwise will be booking to stay somewhere else.