The other side of my business is the Bay Rose House B&B situated at the foot of Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, and I can personally vouch for the power of the internet in gaining a competitive advantage in the tourism industry. Government best practice guides emphasise the benefits of

• having a web site
• keeping it up to date
• using it to target your markets
• expanding your horizons to reach a global marketplace
• getting a good position on a search engine
• selling when the office is closed
• reviewing your web site statistics to see how popular you are, and
• keeping in touch with your customers using newsletters.

In only our first year, in a property with very few returning visitors from the previous owner, and having missed the print deadlines for all the major tourist accommodation guides, we achieved well over 50% occupancy throughout the whole 12 months and over 80% occupancy throughout the peak season. This far exceeded the average for the district. 75% of all our customers found us on the internet, 15% stopped by when passing, and the remaining 10% were mainly overflow from other local establishments and callers at the local Tourist Information Centre.

In fact it was a little embarrassing in conversation with other B&B owners in the area, who were saying that they were still as empty as during the Foot and Mouth outbreak, when we had been virtually full ourselves. (We really felt like a real-life example of the Beachview Guest House proprietor in the cartoon on the left).

You can visit the Bay Rose House web site, that achieved all this for us, at: www.bayrose.co.uk.

Not all establishments can justify a site of this size, however I am very happy to help build or enhance your web presence in any way you wish. If you just want a simple on-line enquiry form, or whether you want to go the whole hog and have on-line booking with real-time credit card processing, and perhaps integrate a reservations tool such as Guestmaster or service such as Active Hotels, I would be delighted to discuss these and other options. Photographs of your accommodation or your tourist attraction can be captured and put on-line very easily. I can write your copy for you or you can use your own. You can have your web site hosted by me or I can put it on your existing internet service provider's web space (e.g. Freeserve, BT Internet, etc). I offer a friendly, jargon free approach, and my prices are very reasonable.

If you want to find out more about using the web to promote your tourism business, please don't hesitate to get in touch by phone or email. I am not and do not claim to be an accredited UKOFB or TMB (Technology Means Business) provider (and frankly if I was, my prices would have to be racked up to cover the very high certification fees!). You do however get sensible, practical, cost-effective hands-on assistance with enhancing your web presence from someone with current real-life knowledge of marketing a tourism business on the internet.