Have you lately tried to book for accommodations in a popular resort? If you have, you must have found difficulty finding an open date for you and your family.
Summer is when people are on vacation mode. Not only rich families make it a point to go on regular outings. Even lower-middle income households take the vacation route from time to time. Moreover, it also is a good sign of the social and economic mobility of Filipinos that more and more of us have time and money for rest and recreation.
Clearly there is a growing demand for rest and recreation facilities. More than ever, the leisure industry represents a good prospect for those aspiring to go into a potentially lucrative business.
So you may have a beach, a water fall, caves and rock formations in a piece of land that you or your family owns. This is an excellent starting point. But these are just parts of an entire travel experience.
Remember that tourists are looking for a holistic and seamless experience.
Thus, you have to check the readiness of your place as a seamless, worry-free tourist destination.
Consider the following factors from an online source:
1. Does your place (city/town/province) have tourist information centers? A tourist center is where one can get the most updated information information about a destination. It is manned by knowledgeable persons who can tell any tourist the places that are a must-see and recommend the best itinerary. Be sure your resort is registered with this center and that brochures about your facilities are well displayed there.
2. Pay attention to directional signages. These should be all over the place and put up prominently. Signages should be consistent with the maps and drawn based on international standards.
3. Is tourist transportation available? When a destination is serious about promoting itself, it has to make sure there are direct means of transportation for people to reach it and that the transport has a regular schedule, is reliable, and is safe.
4. Are there clean, functional and strategically located restaurant and rest room stops on the way to your destination?
5. Are there tourist guides available? The best stories and information about a destination and its attractions can be told most eloquently and interestingly by tourist guides. Unfortunately, new tourist destinations lack good guides to tell and retell such stories.
Here are tips on how to market a resort business from www.tubik.com, especially if your resort is eyeing a corporate market:
1. Advertise high-standard, customized services and commodities
Business travelers need to have the details at hand. Business rooms should be highly equipped for the type of requirements that business travelers might have: from clothes iron and ironing board to espresso machines. Not to mention high speed wireless connection!
2. Special corporate rates and loyalty packages
Approach the individual travelers but also the companies who regularly send employees out on meetings. It is attractive to offer special rates, discounts and quick booking facilities in order to establish a convenient frequency in staying at your hotel.
3. Corporate events
If your facility has the right resources to hold business meetings and conferences, then promoting corporate events is a sure way to boost income regardless of season.
It is also critical to have a well-designed website for your resort, where your customers can take an online look at your facilities. You may also consider an online reservation process; make your contact numbers visible and available for inquiries.
And most important Aim for consistently excellent service. That way, customers would visit again and again and promote your venue by word of mouth. On the other hand, it is so easy for disgrunted customers to spread the word around social media about a negative experience they might have had in your facility.
Photo: Fontana resort, Clark, Pampanga, from pampangadirectory.net
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