At last the mailshot for the local Hotel, B&B and Guesthouse owners is ready. It'll be send next Tuesday and followed up the following week. Its says ...............
"IT’S OFFICIAL – You should be getting lots of online bookings”
You could get up to half your bookings on-line, without any set up costs!
According to official figures 11% of guest accommodation bookings are made over the internet. But that’s not the full story, it’s an average. The truth is that some properties get up to 50% of their business from the internet, while others get NONE.
You may be wondering why? You might think that only the most expensive websites succeed – but you’d be wrong. You might think that its only for the largest hotels – wrong again. Online booking is successful for all types of Hotel, B&B and Guesthouse - yours included. Indeed, at the Irish Hotels Federation conference in March, all delegates were told “Get online or lose out”.
The truth is that to get online business you need to have a website that is linked to a really effective online credit card booking system. And I mean a proper system that checks your latest availability and makes an instant reservation.
NB: Most Hotels and B&B’s fail to get bookings because their website only has a request form – with a promise to reply soon. That just won’t do. Customers will not wait. With thousands of other Hotels and B&B’s offering instant online booking your customers will simply go elsewhere.
Free Offer We’re offering you a Free booking system for your property because you are local to us and we’d like to promote your business. But don’t get me wrong. We’re not offering this for free just so that we can charge you to install it – its free.
We will create an online booking system with you that can take credit card bookings 24 hours day. Your bookings will be totally secure. If fact, your online system will be exactly the same as some of Ireland’s biggest hotel groups (many of whom have paid a lot of money for this same facility). Your booking system will work from our website, and if you already have your own website we can add credit card booking to that too – for free!
“It’s great. We’ve had a website for years. But with Martin’s help our online business way up.”Kate Fitzgibbon – of Ahernes Youghal
But that’s not the end of the story. You see your booking system won’t find new guests by itself - you need to have internet customers using it. And to find these - you need marketing.
That's where we will add even more. My name is Martin Finn and I've been an internet marketeer for the past 14 years. My company, based in Youghal, has set up the first and only holiday website that exclusively sells this area – the area of East Cork and West Waterford that we call The Irish Riviera.
Look at the success!
We have just completed our first summer season, and it was a great success. Since spring, we have had an amazing 63,000 visitors to our website. That’s over sixty thousand visitors wanting to know more about holidays in this area.
And they are still arriving; every day another 150-250 new visitors come and discover that The Irish Riviera is a great place for their next holiday. Most importantly they also research and book their holiday accommodation.
You see, visitors don’t just read about the area, they make online enquiries and on-line bookings too. Over 6,000 of our visitors have either asked for further details such as pricing, availability or just booked there and then . Its all handled automatically 24 hours a day. You can take bookings day and night – effortlessly.
2004 was our first year and yet we’ve generated over €100,000 of extra business for local accommodation. In fact, we created far more demand that we could meet.
2nd Free Offer
That’s why we’re also offering you a FREE listing for your property for 2005. A free listing on The Irish Riviera will give you access to our website visitors, and with your online booking system you can convert them to paying guests.
So that’s a free booking system (that can often cost thousands of Euros) and a free listing on the premier website selling this area. I can hear you thinking “There must be a charge – and there has to be a catch”. Well yes, we do make a charge, its just 10% for credit card bookings that are taken using our system. And that’s all. As for the catch – well … this free offer is only available for the first 20 properties to sign up. This letter has been sent to 98 local owners and managers – you should make sure that you are in the first 20!
NB: I should add that the online booking system relies upon your daily access to the internet and email, and your maintenance of online availability. Its not hard and we will help you.
So what do you have to gain? A chance to get access to more bookings, throughout the year. What do you have to lose? Nothing. There’s no risk, and no cost to you. Join us today and you could be online and taking bookings within a few days.
Even More. We’re adding new sections to The Irish Riviera all the time. We concentrated in Youghal for 2004. Now we’re expanding to the full Riviera for 2005. Don’t miss your chance to be listed in our pages for Ardmore, Lismore, Dungarvan, Ballycotton and others.
That’s not all. We also produce The Irish Riviera Guide, a free book that is given away from our website. To date we’ve distributed over 1,000 copies, and have many hundreds on our mailing list waiting for the 2005 edition – which could have your free listing in it too.
You can be part of The Irish Riviera success story today. To get started, use the internet to go to
www.theirishriviera.com/freeoffer.html and join up immediately.
If you’re still not totally convinced. We will be holding a demonstration and seminar in Youghal before Christmas. But please be aware that the 20 free places may already be filled by then. Of course I’d be delighted to answer your questions, so please call me, within 7 days, on 024 20634.
There really is no reason to wait. You have nothing to lose. Remember every day that goes by another 150-250 guests have visited our website, and could have booked online with you!
