Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

I’m hoping to rope people into writing articles for the Whole Earth Guide in exchange for a link to their own website (or just for the fame that it’ll bring if they don’t have a website).

Anyway, my first volunteer has produced a truly excellent article on Hawaii which puts my humble effort on London to shame.

Still, ’tis early days and I will be gradually upping the ante with the quality of articles that are planned for the coming winter.

If you’d like to contribute to this effort, you can add your contribution here (select “Whole Earth Guide” as the property type and don’t worry about the talk of charging etc.).

One really big advantage of using a database driven approach to the Whole Earth Guide is that I get considerable development leverage from the existing B&B and self-catering listings sites. For instance, using the existing code base let me get the guide operational in a couple of days and there are already improvements visible on the listings sites courtesy of features that were needed for the guide.

Then there’s the global aspect of the guide site which will be leading to the listings sites supporting other countries before anyone applies for a listing. Already, Holland is an available option simply because of the Amsterdam article from the guide and Turkey will be following shortly.

In due course, there’ll even be an SEO advantage as it shouldn’t be that difficult cross-linking the trio of sites and that’ll let me start to use the website recommendations that I’ve been collecting from the properties listed on the accommodation sites over the last couple of years.

Finally, once I get the guide site operational, it’ll be easy to incorporate the information within it in other sites or create a new version targetted at other markets.

You always get a lot of peculiar phone calls around this time of year.

“I just booked a room on your website. Can you tell me if it has a bathroom?”. Well, no we couldn’t because they had quite literally just booked the room and it can take a few hours before we get the confirmation email or fax….. about 70% of the French who book online make phone calls within 5 minutes of making the booking to confirm that we’ve received it.

“I’m on your website right now. It says that there’s a room available. I want a room with a bathroom.”. Yes, it’s EUR 57. “No, it isn’t it says that it’s EUR 49”. That’s for the room with a shared bathroom, the room you want is EUR 57. “Can’t I have it for EUR 49?”. Well, no, but you can have the room with a shared bathroom for EUR 49. “But, I want an ensuite room”. Yes, that’s EUR 57….. We get a LOT of conversations like that one!

“I’m on your website right now. Can I book over the phone?” Yes, I just need a credit card and expiry date. “I’m paying by Cheques Vacances”. That’s OK, I still need a credit card number to guarantee the room. “I’m paying by Cheques Vacances I don’t need to give you a credit card number.” Yes, you do, we need it to guarantee the room…. after 10 mins of this he cancelled the booking that he hadn’t made.

“We’re here for the room.” Have you a reservation? “No, but we checked online a few days ago and you had rooms available today.” Yes, but we’re full today. Did you make a reservation?…. Surprisingly we’ve been getting a number of people lately who’ve just checked availability a few days earlier and assume that we won’t get bookings after they check.

A new development this year is that people are starting to book online whilst they’re on the way. Then they phone to check that we’ve received the reservation about a minute after they logout. Very confusing as the latest lot arrived about 10 minutes later.

One of the best things about the paid posts is that there are a fair number of them that I’d be writing anyway in due course. ‘Tis easy enough to pick these ones out as they’re a lot longer, more complete and get a photo or two.

I’ve even had someone offer to pay for one after I’d written it!

Now, the big question is how I can get people to sponsor the other websites directly….

Although our Whole Earth Guide is only two days old, we’ve already pulled in some cash from adsense on the site which is a good start seeing as it has very little content at the moment.

We’re aiming to add several new articles to the site a week over the Summer and hoping to step that up over the coming Winter not to mention site improvements that will be ongoing over that period. At the moment, it’s limited to articles on specific places or attractions such as our piece on the Rambla area of Barcelona but we’ll be adding the facility to hold articles on regions and countries in due course.

In parallel with this, we’re enhancing the new versions of our B&B and self-catering listings sites and will be cross-linking those with the Whole Earth Guide in due course (and indeed with our other listings sites).

If you’re very keen, you can even add your own article (about 300-400 words plus a photo) via the link at Our Inns (just select “Whole Earth Guide” as the property type) you can add a link to your own site from an article, but put it in the comments as I’ll need to edit it in for you.