A common theme tends to emerge when I speak to tourist board representatives. The new strategy, it seems largely across the board, is to target affluent, high-end travellers. The idea is to look for those who spend fairly big while they’re on holiday rather than go for numbers and appeal to mass-market tourism.

India’s approach

In many ways – not least sustainability and pressure on infrastructure – this makes an awful lot of sense. This article from the Times last year, about India encouraging the wealthier tourist rather than backpackers makes for an interesting read. To sum up, India wants well-heeled visitors rather than gap year students. “For a country with India’s overstretched infrastructure, backpackers do more damage than good to the economy,” said the country’s tourism guru Amitabh Kant.

Who are the affluent travellers?

Makes sense, yes? Well – apart from one little thing. It’s all very well trying to appeal to the travellers with deeper pockets, but you also have to identify who these people are. If you were to speculate, you’d say they are generally from well-educated, middle-class backgrounds and are in good, well-paying jobs. They’re also probably at least 30 years old and probably older than that.

And who are the backpackers?

Now then: What’s the difference between this market and the backpacker market? My guess is very little other than ten to twenty years. Jump in a time machine, and today’s backpackers are 2025’s sought-after affluent travellers. Let’s face it, most are either about to go to university or have just finished it; a good proportion come from fairly well-off middle-class families and there’s a good chance that they’ll only be operating on a penny-pinching budget or a certain period of their life.

What makes a destination attractive?

I have a little theory, and it goes a something like this: Backpackers are what makes a destination attractive. I don’t mean this in conventional terms – ie. That people want to go to a place because they’ll be surrounded by young people taking a year out. In fact, some of the places on the banana pancake trail in South East Asia are dire precisely because they’re full of trustafarians having nightly wanker conventions.

Word of mouth

But the key thing to remember is what happens when the backpackers get home. If they’ve had a great time somewhere, they rave about it to others. A buzz starts to generate; a destination starts to become cool; the media latches on; travellers outside the backpacker segment get curious as to what all the fuss is about.

The return

As the years go by, the original backpacker loses a bit of hair and gains a bit of a paunch. He gets a suit and tie, rises up the career ladder and perhaps starts a family. He becomes the type of person that tourist boards are so keen to attract. But he still remembers fondly the time he spent in country X whilst backpacking. The edges of the specifics are dulled, but he still talks fondly of the place to others in more general terms. And then, when the time is right, he might just go back for a very different holiday. In those intervening years, however, he has probably persuaded many to visit – fellow young backpackers at first, but increasingly the well-heeled visitor that India wants.

Two trips through the middle of Australia

Looking at it, I’m an example of this myself. When I was 22, I travelled up the middle of Australia in a backpacker bus. I loved it, although over time I was less able to explain precisely why. This didn’t stop me encouraging others to head through Central Australia however. I returned as a 30-year-old this year with my fiancée, driving a good rental car, staying in comfortable accommodation, indulging in a few fairly expensive tours and experiences and visiting a few places I’d missed the first time round. I had an even better time, and I’m still raving about it to anyone who will listen. Would I have been so keen to spend all that time and money if I’d not visited as a backpacker? I doubt it.

Think forward fifteen years…

Chasing the affluent visitor in the short term has its merits, but it shouldn’t be combined with discouraging the young, independent, shoestring traveller. After all, in fifteen years’ time, you’re probably going to want them back.

The debate about whether journalists and bloggers should accept freebies is so old and hoary that I’m reluctant to bring it up again. But my recent experience in Germany shed a bit of new light on it for me, so tough, back to the well-chewed territory…

For those not in the know, often travel journalists – and increasingly, bloggers – will get hosted free of charge by tourist boards, hotels etc in the hope/ expectation that coverage in certain publications and online outlets will result. Some publications and writers get high and mighty about this, saying they won’t take freebies as it leads to biased coverage. Other writers do take them, and insist that even though they’re accepting the hospitality, it doesn’t influence what they eventually write.

My stance

I stand somewhere in the middle. I no longer go on group press trips (which are usually about herding x number of journalists around on a bus, all covering exactly the same things and with very little if any time to explore independently) but I do accept – and often actively seek – free hotel rooms, tours, attraction tickets etc. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a necessary evil, more about keeping costs down than anything else.

Where I will go against the grain is the issue of bias. Is what I write likely to be biased as a result of accepting hospitality? Yes it is. And any writer that says otherwise is lying to themselves. The key question – and the one that no-one seems to elaborate on as they’re all too busy saying bias is full stop bad and that it doesn’t happen anyway – is “What sort of bias?”

Types of bias

For me, the bias is that if I’ve stayed somewhere for free or done a tour for free, I’m more likely to write about it in some way. This is pretty obvious. I’m less likely to write about something I’ve not experienced. So, yes, I’m more likely to seek to write stories about places and topics where I know I can keep my costs down through hosting. Is that unethical? I’m not sure, but it’s an uncomfortable admission that any writer who does accept freebies should make.

For me, the crucial question is whether not whether something does get coverage but the tone of that coverage. The companies and tourism authorities giving away the freebies aren’t stupid. They know that coverage is far more likely to be positive than negative. The problem comes when this becomes a tacit understanding between host and guest. There are many writers (and I’m sure, bloggers) out there who are quite happy to enter this unspoken pact in order to keep the good life coming. And this is why the whole question of whether to accept comps, FOCS, press trips and famils has come up.

The freebie test

Last week, I found myself put to the test on this front. I was researching a guide to Frankfurt for a newspaper travel section. The tourist board had put me up in what is rated as one of the best hotels in the city. Quite what the deal between the tourist board and the hotel was, I don’t know and I didn’t ask, but it would be fair to assume that all parties would be expecting me to include said hotel in the accommodation section of the guide.

Alas, there was a problem. Or, rather, numerous little problems. The carpets were stained, the maid was knocking on my door expecting to clean my room at 8.20am and then didn’t return by the time I’d got back at 4.30pm, internet access cost EUR22 a day and was excruciatingly slow, breakfast cost EUR32, little bottles of water from the minibar cost EUR7, the towels were thin and paltry rather than big and fluffy… and so on. Nothing in itself was truly awful, but the succession of small things added up to a hotel that is trading on past reputation, is blatantly profiteering at the customer’s expense and has become lazy in catering for its guests. When the (slightly dated and mundane) rooms regularly cost EUR200 a night, this is not good enough. Particularly when I had also inspected other hotels in roughly the same price bracket and they, frankly, were doing a better job.

Best course of action?

There was no way I could honestly recommend the hotel I was being hosted in as one of the best three top end hotels in Frankfurt. So, what does a writer do in this situation? If the answer is to just slip it in anyway as all the other guides do, no-one will pull you up on it and it’ll keep everyone happy, then there is a problem. This, for me, is where the ethical line is crossed.

As far as I was concerned, there was only one thing I could do: leave it out. If I was actually commissioned to review the place rather than pick out three top choices in town, I’d have written a not-exactly-flattering review.

But what about the fact that I was being hosted? How should I deal with the (probably expectant) PR people at the tourist board and, if necessary, the hotel. My solution probably isn’t perfect, but I e-mailed the woman from the tourist board explaining why the hotel would be left out. Unfortunately, I was then collared by one of the management team at check out, who asked how my stay was. I could have just muttered “fine” and sauntered off, but I felt the right thing to do was explain how I felt about the hotel and why I’d not be including it in the story. It was an excruciating couple of minutes, but I still feel it was the right thing to do. To his credit, the chap took it on the chin rather well, admitted to a few of the faults and explained that a substantial refurbishment is on the cards. Good on him – at least he’s aware of the problems and is prepared to deal with them.

The pact

This to me is the pact that you really should be making if, as a writer, you accept free stuff. It’s not the unspoken agreement to provide fluffy, glowing coverage that matters; it’s the responsibility to stand up and explain yourself in situations where your integrity would be compromised by fulfilling that unspoken agreement. And if you’re not prepared to do that, you should think long and hard about whether you’re doing the right job.

In fact, it’s so good, I thought I might share it. The PR’s name has been left off, but everything else is verbatim. Enjoy…

Hanjin Group Opens Navoi Cargo Terminal in Uzbekistan

◎ Korean Air held a ceremony to celebrate the opening of Navoi Cargo Terminal on August 12.

◎ With 1.46 million square feet of space and 100,000 tons of yearly capacity, the new cargo terminal features state-of-the-art facilities.

◎ The Navoi Cargo Terminal is part of Hanjin Group’s ‘Navoi Project’ to grow Navoi as a logistics hub of Central Asia.

◎ Korean Air will expand its cargo network by adding new routes from Navoi this year.

SEOUL, Korea (August 12, 2010) – Hanjin Group, the global comprehensive logistics group comprising air, sea and land transport, is speeding up the project to create a Central Asian logistics hub with the new cargo terminal at Navoi International Airport in Uzbekistan.

On Thursday August 12, senior management of Korean Air, a core subsidiary of Hanjin Group, and Uzbekistan officials gathered at Navoi International Airport to celebrate the opening of the Navoi Cargo Terminal. Among the hundred guests present at the ceremony are Mr. Chang Hoon Chi, President and COO of Korean Air, Mr. Dae Wan Jun, Korean Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Mr. Valeriy Tyan, Director General of Uzbekistan Airways and Head of the Uzbekistan Aviation Administration.

Since January 2009, Hanjin Group has been managing Navoi International Airport hand in hand with the Uzbekistan government to develop Navoi as the logistics hub of Central Asia and to facilitate Korean companies’ entry into the market. Hanjin’s ‘Navoi Project’ includes modernizing airport facilities, expanding global air cargo network and constructing the advanced logistics complex.  

“The new Navoi Cargo Terminal has been designed based on the Korean Air’s state-of-the-art cargo terminals at Incheon International Airport which leads the global cargo industry by setting very high standard. The Navoi Cargo Terminal is set to become the center of the modern day “Silk Road” with its advanced airport infrastructure,” Mr. Chang Hoon Chi, President and COO of Korean Air said.

“Korean Air will spare no effort in supporting the growth of Navoi into Central Asia’s best logistics hub, expanding global network and practicing aggressive marketing strategies as Korean Air participates in the airport management,” he added.

With construction underway since December 2008, the newly unveiled Navoi Cargo Terminal has been developed as part of the project to modernize airport infrastructure for Uzbekistan. The new terminal, with total floor space of 160,382 square feet on a 1.46 million square feet site, is designed to handle 100,000 tons of cargo a year and features state-of-the-art facilities such as refrigerated warehouses and quarantine stations. The Navoi Cargo Terminal’s capacity will be upgraded to process up to 500,000 tons of cargo a year as global cargo demand increases.    

The Navoi Cargo Terminal has been successfully completed thanks to the consistent support and technological know-how of Korean Air, which is the number one commercial air cargo carrier in every aspect from construction, operation and ground handling. Uzbekistan officials, including Mr. Rustam Azimov, First Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, has visited Korean Air’s cutting-edge cargo terminals at Incheon International Airport a number of times. Impressed very much by the success of Incheon, Mr. Azimov had ordered to design and build the Navoi Cargo Terminal jointly with Korean Air.

By opening the new fuel storage tank which can store sufficient fuel for 27 B747-400 jumbo freighters, all core infrastructure for Navoi International Airport to become a logistics hub will be set up in stages.

As part of efforts to develop Navoi, Korean Air has been operating its cargo flights from Incheon to Milan and Brussels via Navoi Airport seven times a week since 2008. Also, direct cargo flights from Navoi to Deli, Mumbai, Bangkok and Frankfurt have been flying nine times a week since last year. With the new Navoi Cargo Terminal now available, Korean Air will add its cargo routes from Navoi to Istanbul, Dubai, Almaty(Kazakhstan) and Dacca(Bangladesh) this year.

Hanjin Group has been conducting a variety of projects to create Navoi as a logistics hub of Central Asia.  Hanjin Transportation Co., Ltd. has co-established ‘Eurasia Logistics Service’ with one of the local ground transport companies and has been strengthening the ground network of Central Asia. Eurasia Logistic Service will cooperate with Korean Air’s cargo terminal and air cargo network, and establish a land transport network in Central Asia.

Also, Hanjin Group is currently constructing a residential complex in Uzbekistan for foreign investing companies to be located in the Free Industrial-Economic Zone, enhancing convenience of workers by providing accommodation and other facilities. As a first step, a 71,042 square-foot hotel with various facilities for business and leisure is planned to open this September.  

-Ends-

About Korean Air:

In 2009, Business Traveler magazine honored Korean Air for the fourth consecutive year as having the “Best Transpacific Business Class” and ranked it “The Best Airline in Asia” for three consecutive years; TTG Asia rated it as the Best North Asian Airline; the carrier was named the 2009 winner of the Global Travel Catering Distinction Award by Pax International magazine; World Traveler magazine rated it has having the world’s best inflight service; readers of Travel & Leisure magazine said it is one of the world’s top 10 international airlines, and readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine voted it has having one of the world’s top five business classes.

Korean Air, with a fleet of 132 aircraft, is one of the world’s top 20 airlines, and operates almost 400 passenger flights per day to 117 cities in 39 countries. It is a founding member of the SkyTeam alliance, together with its thirteen members, offers its 395 million annual passengers a worldwide system of more than 13,000 daily flights covering 898 destinations in 169 countries. The alliance celebrated its 10th anniversary in June 2010.

More on Korean Air’s programs, routes, frequency and partners is available at www.koreanair.com.

This morning, I had what I thought was an extraordinarily encounter. Guide book writers may be more acquainted with it than I am. But, to me, it just didn’t make sense.

I am currently in Bath, researching a city guide for a major Australian newspaper. As part of that, I need to recommend hotels to stay at, and to be able to recommend hotels, I need to at least have a look at them.

Dukes Hotel in Bath

One hotel that has had generally favourable write-ups in guidebooks and web sources is the Dukes Hotel. And as I was going past it, I thought I should pop in and have a quick peek if possible. At the reception desk, I was met by a middle-aged chap who was on the phone. As soon as he finished his call, I explained what I was doing and politely asked if it was possible to have a brief look at one of the rooms.

His response was: “I’m afraid I’m the only one here, and I can’t leave reception.”

Fine, I replied. Would it be possible to get a key and go up for a quick look myself so that I don’t have to trouble the busy man on reception?

I expected him to either acquiesce, ask if I could come back at a less busy time or say there weren’t currently any rooms unoccupied. What I got was a stern face, arms crossed and a firm “No” with a shake of the head. There wasn’t even an attempt to accommodate what was frankly a fairly reasonable request.

The costs of not being in guides

So I left the Dukes without seeing any rooms. It’ll not be going in my guide. This may not be such a big deal to the management at the hotel, but what if I was writing for the Lonely Planet (it is included in the current edition of Lonely Planet’s England) or another major guide that clearly drives an awful lot of business their way? One intransigent bulwark on the front desk could cost them an awful lot of money in the long run.

Customer requests

This may seem like a journalist moaning away with no relevance to the actual customers of the hotel, but think about it. What does this say about the standards of service at the hotel? If someone called down about a problem in their room, would he go up and deal with it or state that he can’t do anything about it because he can’t leave reception? If I was a potential customer walking in and asking to see a room as they needed somewhere to stay for the night, would that request be turned down?

No can do

As it happens, the only thing I can accurately say about the hotel based on experience is that a no-can-do attitude permeates and that I’d not recommend it to anyone on this basis. This may be ridiculously unrepresentative, but you have to go with what you know, don’t you? I may have arrived unannounced at what may have been an inconvenient time, but the fact that there was not even an attempt to assist speaks volumes about service standards at this particular hotel. And at between £139 and £219 a night, I suspect most guests would expect more than a defiant “no” when asking for something.

When it comes to budget airlines, Ryanair is the traditional whipping boy. People love to hate Ryanair, and automatically assume that it is the worst airline for underhand practices and add-on fees.

The truth, however, is that Ryanair has largely eliminated many of its naughtiest habits. Yes, it charges a fortune to check in bags, get a boarding pass at the airport or pay with anything other than an obscure prepaid Mastercard, but at least the website does things the right way. You have to opt in for any additional extras rather than opt out, and prices are quoted with taxes and charges inclusive.

Flybe web booking system

Fellow budget airline Flybe, alas, is merrily engaging in practices that Ryanair can no longer get away with. Recently, I had the ‘pleasure’ of booking flights with Flybe, and came across all manner of dirty tricks. These are detailed in full, with screenshots, here.

Opt outs and non-inclusive pricing

To summarise, however, Flybe quoted without taxes and charges inclusive – these were only added when a particular flight was selected. Flybe also assumed that passengers would be travelling with a 20kg bag – I actively had to opt out of this to avoid the £9.99 surcharge. After this, I was left hunting for the option to remove the preselected seat. The method of doing this – and avoiding the £6 preselected seat charge – is extremely (deliberately?) unclear.

Flybe’s ‘complete transparency’

That Flybe gets such an easy ride over this is incredible. The shameless contempt for the customer shines through, despite a laughable and oft-repeated statement on the site saying: “Flybe is committed to complete transparency regarding how we charge for our flights.”

Legal questions

Flybe’s booking process is undoubtedly cynical and aimed at squeezing as much money out of non-web savvy customers as possible. But, more interestingly, is it legal? Let’s have a look at the European Union Air Service Regulations, shall we?

EU regulations on inclusive pricing

Regulation 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and Council became law in 2008 (full text in PDF format here). Amongst the more salient passages is this one: “Customers should be able to compare effectively the prices for air services of different airlines. Therefore the final price to be paid by the customer for air services originating in the Community should at all times be indicated, inclusive of all taxes, charges and fees.”

EU regulations on opt-out extra charges

And here’s another one: “Optional price supplements shall be communicated in a clear, transparent and unambiguous way at the start of any booking process and their acceptance by the customer shall be on an ‘opt-in’ basis.”

Legal or illegal?

I’m not a lawyer, but something’s not quite right here, is it? Either Flybe has found some fiendish loophole that ensures its website just about complies with the regulations on a technicality, or Flybe is blatantly flouting the law. And if it is somehow within the letter of the law, then it is most certainly miles outside the spirit of it.

Questions for Flybe

At time of publishing, I had contacted Flybe three times to ask for a comment. I am yet to receive a response despite allowing a full working day for a response. I’m still keen to give right of reply – and get to the bottom of why Flybe’s website is as it is. So, if Flybe’s PR team is reading this, perhaps you could answer these questions:

1. Is Flybe aware of the law concerning inclusive pricing and opt-out extras?
2. If so, can you explain how Flybe’s website complies with it?
3. Is it fair comment to say that the Flybe website is designed to be deliberately confusing and push customers into taking optional extras they do not need?
4. Is Flybe prepared to change its website booking system to comply with the spirit as well as technicalities of the European Union Air Service Regulations. If not, why not?

Many websites – be they for hotel, airlines or generic travel companies trying to build their own brand – go down the travel guide route. All seem to do much the same thing; the sort of material that you’d find in a guidebook, only in a more condensed form. In essence, they’re trying to satisfy a web audience with a scarcely altered print format.

In print, the sameness doesn’t matter too much. You generally just buy one guidebook – and you go with the one that’s most up to date or that you trust the brand of. On the web, your site has to stand out. And thus the content has to be distinctive – but how to make it so?

A few good suggestions are gathering under the comments on Jeremy’s post, but I think two things are key…

Stop trying to appeal to everyone

Most guides try to offer something for everyone; they try to cover the range of options and tastes as best as they possibly can. And this is what leads to them becoming generic – they’re not written from the perspective of a particular segment of the target audience.

To make something distinctive, I think you need to identify what that target market is – be it businessmen, foodies, golfers, art buffs or parents with kids. I’d argue that there is one target market that is scandalously undercatered for – the traveller with a reasonable budget that just wants somewhere decent to stay whilst enjoying their break. These people are often made to feel left out by guides, which insist on calling rooms for under £100 a night “budget”, concentrating on ‘hip’ cocktail bars where a drink costs a day’s wages and only really going into detail about the town’s high end restaurants. These travellers – who don’t want to stay in a hostel, but want a decent place to stay for between approximately £40 and £80 a night – make up a significant percentage of the market, but are often made to feel like tight-fisted freaks.

A guide concentrating on that sector of the market, that focuses on the good rather than the cool and the value for money rather the cheapest or most lavish, would be distinctive. It could list and review scores of hotels in the £40 to £100 bracket rather than a token one or two, and it could include those pleasant terrace restaurants where the food is reasonable and the views are nice – the ones that are often left out because they’re not cool enough.

That’s one way of doing it. The other is to have numerous pages of the guide concentrating on particular niches. What are the best places for those businessmen, foodies, golfers, art buffs or parents with kids?

Stop trying to avoid offence

When I read a guide, I want to know the bad things. They put the good things in perspective. Objectivity is the last thing I want – opinion is a vital component of a guide.

You can usually tell when a guidebook writer hasn’t stayed at a hotel or eaten at a restaurant. If they have, they usually mention something specific or one of the negatives about the place. No-one ever writes anything negative about something they haven’t experienced themselves – a feisty opinion is more likely to draw attention and see the writer/ researcher caught out in the long run. Thus, a smattering of brutally frank one-liners helps build trust.

It also, on a more cynical level, builds page views. I know when Ninemsn commissioned a series of Insider Guides, it was always the Where Not To Go pages (such as this one for Darwin) that were in the most viewed list.

Alas, it’s an easy option to paint everywhere and everything on the OK-to-wonderful scale. Highlighting negatives gets peoples backs up. Hotels and restaurants complain and cause hassle, tourist boards are less inclined to give support when coverage isn’t likely to be glowing and local people start getting overdefensive.

But to be distinctive, you need to piss a few people off. Trying to stand out on the web is like trying to be a stand up comic – you can’t rely on jokes that nobody is offended by, because no-one will come to see you. Be brave; break a few eggs to make the omelette.

Part of this comes back to identifying the audience you’re writing for. When you’re writing for everyone, there’s always that nagging doubt that your opinion of a place won’t match that of people with completely different mindset and budget. You can’t say that the ‘hip’ cocktail bar is full of tossers because a number of such tossers will be reading your guide. Once you’ve decided who you are aiming at, you can tailor the criticism. A £30 shabby two star might seem like a palace to backpackers, but it’s a poor option for that unheralded group I was speaking about earlier – they’d be better off in the reasonable chain four star that you can get for £15 more. Whether the two star is a bargain upgrade from a dorm or a down-at-heel slum depends entirely on your perspective. A guide publisher needs to decide what that perspective is first – and then tell writers to adopt it and be warts-and-all in their coverage.

I’d like to say that the Hotel De Las Letras site is unique in this, but it most certainly isn’t. Many of its head-against-wall flaws are frighteningly common. But hoteliers, if you really want to make your site annoying and singularly unhelpful, here are a few tips to follow…

1. Meet the needs of the designer rather than your potential customers

When I was on a student paper, articles would be written and commissioned purely for the purpose of having something to enter for awards. That these tedious, overly earnest pieces were of no interest to the readership was an irrelevance – it was all about getting a shiny trinket and potentially furthering careers.

They may deny it, but magazines, newspapers and radio stations all do this – and so do designers. Give a designer a free reign, and they’re likely to use your site as an opportunity to show off what they can do with all manner of arty flourishes and technical wizardry. Alas, this often makes the site far more valuable as part of their portfolio than it does to people visiting it.

2. Add a Flash intro

Preferably one that lasts for at least 30 seconds and can’t be switched off.

Seriously though, if you have to even consider an option that says ‘skip intro’ then it shouldn’t be there in the first place. If a significant number of visitors are forced to get rid of something they don’t want before they can even have a look at what your hotel is about, what frame of mind is that putting them in? It’s certainly not one that’s conducive to booking on the spot, that’s for certain. Also, such intros can’t be viewed on many computers/ phones. As one writer said when I showed him the Las Letras site: “As I expected, it’s a completely blank page when viewed on an IPhone, which presumably means it’s a seething mess of Flash.”

3. Play some music

We all love music, don’t we? Especially some pseudo-funky lounge music designed solely for the purpose of producing an aural backdrop in bars populated by superwankers. Even more so when it’s forced upon us without warning. So stick some on your website, playing loudly from launch – and preferably without an option to turn it off. This goes down tremendously well with everyone – particularly those in offices having a quick peek at holiday options when they think the boss won’t notice.

Rule 1: Unless you are a musician or a record company, it is NEVER acceptable to put music on your website.

4. Hide the English language version

People who don’t speak the native language of the country your hotel is in should bloody well learn it if they want to grace your floors. So why not make them work to find the alternative language option?

The Las Letras site might well have an English option – I just don’t know where it is. It could be at the bottom of the screen. I don’t know – I’ve only got a small screen and there’s no scrolling function to allow me to see what’s lower on the page. Other sites fall into the trap of saying something along the lines of “choose language” but doing so only in original language of the site. And if someone’s Spanish/ German is so poor that they require an English language version, chances are that ‘idioma’/ ‘sprache’ will mean nothing to them.

5. Go for pictures rather than information

People don’t want to know anything about the hotel. They just want to see great big pictures of it. So fill the screen with them, and add little to no information about the hotel, the rooms or the facilities. People can just guess, can’t they?

This isn’t to say that pictures are inherently bad – they’re not. But detail is more important. The best way forward is to have a gallery option so that people can explore visually if they want, but ideally there should be as much information as possible to help guests make an informed choice. What size are the beds? How big are the rooms? What’s in the rooms? Are there lifts? And so on. This doesn’t have to be in one big splurge – but a tiered information structure that allows potential guests to find what they need hurts no-one.

6. Have separate booking screens and hide the prices

During that stage of vague trip planning, people don’t like knowing roughly how much something will cost. They prefer to be forced into entering specific dates and choosing a specific room type before being taken to a separate screen where they can discover how much it will cost on that day only. It’s good to go through all of this before discovering that a hotel is at least £100 outside your budget range and that you’ve wasted five minutes finding this out.

Is it really too hard to put “rooms cost between £X and £Y depending on season and length of stay” somewhere reasonably accessible on the site, so that people can at least have a ballpark estimate without the rigmarole?

7. Hide the extra costs

So the rate is room only? Don’t worry – no-one will want to know how much the breakfast costs, so don’t tell them. The same applies to internet access. As long as you provide WiFi, no-one will care whether it costs £1 or £30 a day to use it.

Alas, this isn’t the case, and I for one will never book a hotel without knowing how much the WiFi access will cost me…

8. Don’t let people copy and paste your address and phone number

This is something of a journalist-specific issue. If I’m writing a guide and need your hotel details, it’s far easier for me to copy and paste them than to flit between screens retyping. This is another crime of flash sites – info often can’t be copy-and-pasted (or, I believe, be seen by Google – which does you no favours in terms of search engine optimisation). But it’s not just about lazy hacks – travellers like to be able to write out their own itineraries, and it’s far better if they can paste the hotel address and phone number into a Word document.

9. Use a central reservations phone number

Big chains do this a lot. They have one central number for bookings, and don’t publish the number of the actual hotel anywhere. Because the ideal person to speak to if you’ve a specific enquiry about disabled access, non-smoking rooms, late check-outs or whether the bath and shower are separate is someone in a call centre 500 miles away who has never set foot inside the hotel in question.

10. Password-protect the media section

So you’ve been thoughtful enough to create a media section of the site for journalists requiring information, background history and photography of your hotel. That’s really kind. However, when I’ve got a short deadline, and need the information within minutes rather than days, if I have to apply to you for a password to access said section, I’m going to go to another hotel’s website instead.

Sarcasm aside, it’s really not difficult. If you want customers to book your hotel through your website rather than go through online booking engines that take a hefty commission, design the site with the potential guest in mind. After all, the website isn’t for your designer’s portfolio or for your own indulgence – it is for the people who may just want to stay at your hotel. And, if you don’t annoy them at every hurdle, there’s a far higher chance of them doing so.

Do you have any hotel website niggles? Share them by leaving a comment below…

For someone who does most of his work for websites and is almost surgically attached to his laptop, I can be something of a technophobe at times.

I don’t have an iPhone, and neither do I understand why I need one. I have a long-standing mistrust of Apple products (anyone bandying about the myth that they’re more reliable than PCs should try and use the succession of Macs that I have tried to lay out magazines and newspapers on) – and I don’t feel the need to have information on tap at every second of every day.

As for the iPad, erm, isn’t it just a less useful laptop?

In defence of guidebooks

And despite all the apps, online guides and mobile phone travel wizardry available, I still find a guidebook incredibly useful. And there are three reasons that I suspect a printed guidebook will take a long time to die out.

I’m discounting the usual ones here – it’s nice to have something you can hold and turn the pages of, it’s useful for when you’re on a plane and you can’t switch electronic devices on etc. These are romantic, but they’re not what’s going to keep the printed guidebook alive. The following points are.

1.       The sun

I am told that iPads have special screen resolutions and ‘ink’ that allows you to see the screen properly in bright sunlight. Of this, I am immensely sceptical. One of the ironies of working from home as I do is that I hardly ever sit in the garden to work – simply because I can’t see the screen. The best, most lovingly information in the world is useless if you can’t see it due to sun-glare.

For the same reason, I like to have an old-fashioned physical viewfinder on a digital camera. If it’s ruddy impossible to see what you’re taking a picture of on the digital screen, the digital screen is a liability.

2.       Loseability

It is fantastic that you can have the digital equivalent of 1,000 guidebooks on a smartphone, iPad or netbook computer. But it’s precisely this ability to store everything that makes these things too valuable for many travellers.

Personally, if everything was stored on one item, I’d be so terrified of losing it that I’d be constantly paranoid about it. I’d be simultaneously insistent on carrying it around absolutely everywhere with me and too scared to go anywhere with it.

If I misplace my guidebook, it’s annoying, but no great drama – I go to the shop and buy another copy. To have to do that with an iPad, then redownload everything, would be a serious problem.

That value also counts when it comes to theft as well as loss. If I’m in what looks like a seedy area of town, I’m usually a little reluctant to get a guidebook out of my bag. It makes me look like a tourist, and thus a potential target. But at least any potential mugger won’t want my guidebook. Whipping out an iPad is practically an invitation to knife-wielding ne’er-do-wells.

3.       Battery life

In 1800, one of the great unsung heroes of science came up with something that – try as we might – has not been significantly improved upon since. His name was Alessandro Volta, and his invention was the electric cell. To all intents and purposes, this was the modern day battery.

Improvements have been made to Volta’s design since, to the point where immensely powerful machines can run for a good few hours on one battery. But the fact remains that batteries still have a limited life – and once the battery goes, so does your precious information.

Frankly, I don’t want to be looking for power points every few hours. And having a book allows me the freedom to access the information whenever I want without being a slave to the socket.

For me, this is the key reason why printed books have got a lot of life in them yet – until there is a revolution on Volta’s 210-year-old design rather than a steady evolution, any electronic device is going to be hamstrung by its need for electricity.

As some of my regular readers may be aware, I recently spent two months travelling around Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Singapore. I was on a somewhat whistlestop round-the-world trip, and I primarily did it because I had a number of commissions for various clients in the UK and Australia.

Blogging gig

But I also managed to find myself with a regular blogging gig. Which, for someone who still sees himself as an old school print journalist with an online arm, was veering into uncharted territory.

This was particularly the case as I wasn’t writing for a traditional publication – be it paper, magazine or online travel site. I was writing for the website of a company that specialises in selling round the world flight tickets.

I’ll not go into the full financial arrangements or Roundtheworldflights.com’s reasons for wanting the blog content. Suffice to say, we both came to a deal that we were happy with and thought was beneficial to both parties.

Ethical grey line

However, this meant that my feet were rather close to an ethical grey line. Essentially, this was corporate work. Would I be veering too close to PR and compromising my independence and integrity? It was something I was a little uncomfortable with.

Compromise?

It was, therefore, a surprise to feel less compromised than I normally do. When I’m pitching and writing articles for my usual clients there are a number of hidden pressures. Negative stories are nigh on impossible to sell, so I am always looking for the positive spin. I’m rarely able to write freely about what I found most interesting, as there needs to be a strong focus on a certain angle or storyline. I write with the readers – many of whom won’t share my mindset or tastes – in mind.

In short, the level of constraint in writing a normal commissioned travel article is surprisingly high. This is not necessarily a bad thing – editors need to focus their content on their readership and give a reason to pick up rather than just letting writers blather on.

Corporate constraints

But surely writing blog posts for a company like I’ve just done is likely to have even more restrictions and limitations? Surprisingly, for me, this wasn’t the case. This is partly because Roundtheworldflights.com wanted me because my style and mindset fitted the company, rather than me having to adapt to fit the company tone.

We came to the arrangement because they liked my writing and voice; it wasn’t a case of me adapting it to the needs of their company. The guidance was also remarkably hands off – too. I was trusted to find the most interesting things to write about, and then write about them.

Freedom

To me, this was a thoroughly enjoyable, almost unprecedented level of freedom. Some posts were hardly about travel at all – one on Singapore veered into social comment, whilst others were slices of whimsy about sheep love and ridiculous fibreglass animals.

Other posts were on topics I could never get away with writing about for my usual clients. Which newspaper travel section is going to take a piece on running a gauntlet of heroin addicts in Vancouver, for example? Which web portal will eschew the usual top ten list for a rambling account of doing joyous nothing?

It was odd. I actually had more freedom and independence to write about what I liked, and arguably more integrity as I wasn’t leaving out the bits I’d usually have to discard. And from all the feedback I’ve had, most people reading the blog have enjoyed this factor.

Utilising content

In coming years, I can see more companies following this avenue of promotion. It makes sense in many ways – bringing in traffic, inspiring potential customers, unique identity, humanising a company and matching products to audience – to enhance a website with plenty of well-written content. The key is making sure that writer and company are a good match. And, from a writer’s perspective, feeling that you’re able to take the gig without compromising your integrity and reputation elsewhere.

Do you think writing for a corporate site compromises a journalist’s independence and integrity? Share your thoughts below.

Last November, I learned a valuable lesson. We were half-planning a Caribbean holiday, when we saw flights to the Seychelles for under £400. Figuring we’d never be able to get there as cheaply again, we snapped the tickets up and decided to take the opportunity to do a famous luxury destination on the cheap.

Island paradise?

We had been taken in by the long-standing island paradise reputation of the Seychelles; we saw it almost as a trophy holiday. And once we got there, we realised what a mistake we’d made.

Expensive places on the cheap

The islands of the Seychelles are undoubtedly very pretty indeed, and many of the high end hotels are fabulous places to stay. But we hadn’t got a high end budget, and as much as the journalist in me loves the mileage of doing expensive places on the cheap, it really is a fool’s mission at times.

Food and drink

The Seychelles is a very expensive place to visit. Rather shabby guesthouses will set you back over £90 a night – almost double what you’d pay for a similar standard in the UK. But it’s the food and drink that really mounts up. Finding a cheap meal is virtually impossible, while heavy import taxes mean that a bog standard bottle of wine can cost two or three times what it would do in a UK restaurant. Inter-island ferries are also outrageously pricey.

Saving money

Our wallets ended up hurting, and we ended up scrimping on what we wanted to do in order to save money. Holidays shouldn’t be about tight belts, should they?

Boredom sets in

But more importantly, there really isn’t all that much to do in the Seychelles. Yes, it’s pretty and there is the odd garden or tea factory worth seeing, but for people who are incapable of relaxing on a beach for more than a few hours, it all becomes a bit tedious.

Suitable destination?

We had been taken in by the name and the deal. We hadn’t considered whether the destination suited either our temperament or our wallets. We hadn’t done the research before we’d booked, and we essentially fell into a marketing trap.

Alternative holidays

In future, we’ll know better. There really is no point in going to a place almost entirely set up for luxury travel when you haven’t got that sort of money. You’ll just end up feeling Scroogeish and miserable. We could have gone to Thailand, Malaysia or large swathes of the Caribbean and spent a fraction of what we spent in the Seychelles.

Things to do in the Seychelles?

We also learned that if you’re the sort of person who likes to ‘do stuff’ while abroad, then you should look for a place where there’s lots to do. There’s no point in forcing yourself to be a relaxed person if you just don’t have the character attributes.

Similar destinations

We now know better. Similar destinations – such as Mauritius, the Maldives and the Turks and Caicos Islands – are well and truly off our wish list. We’re not resorty people; we need a holiday with a bit more to it than great service and infinity pools. We also need to be able to explore without feeling aggrieved at how much money we’re spending at every turn.

Picking the right holiday

As we learned in the Seychelles, there’s far more to picking the right holiday than just getting a great deal to an impressive-sounding exotic locale. You need to think about what you enjoy and what the on-the-ground costs are likely to be – otherwise that great deal can end up as a crushing disappointment.