Forget guidebooks – get on the Internet

How do you market your business effectively to a wide audience as well as ensuring cost-effectiveness? I've tried all kinds of methods and to date it has been hard to find the right medium.

It concerns me that most of my accommodation business is derived from guidebooks. The public invests a great deal of trust in this kind of publication, but I find that, especially out of season, I tend to get mainly weekend bookings from these editorially independent sources. I completely agree with this approach, but I also need to drive my business forward.

I am looking for the genuine tourist who is looking to stay for a full week.

It would appear that the high cost of joining the Johansens guide book, in which I will be free to write my own editorial, may be justified. But I think I am about to put on hold my expensive application because of the success I am gaining elsewhere.

My problem, with only 11 rooms to let, is that I am too small for most recognised hotel marketing consortia and the fees cannot be justified. Advertising in the Sunday papers and the likes of Daltons Weekly is expensive but may be useful for a last-minute attempt to fill empty rooms.

I believe the answer to my problem may lie with the Internet. The response I get from my own site is low-key at the moment, but I strongly believe this will change dramatically in the near future.

Any enquiry via the Internet is direct, with no middleman or booking agency fees. The return response is quick and can be very informative, interactive and, above all, very cost-effective. There is no need to send brochures, envelopes or stamps.

By responding to the enquiry, you are already communicating directly with the potential customer and your own style can be transmitted across the World Wide Web. If you wish, you can also send maps, details of places of interest and menus.

The first decision is where to place your Web page. It doesn't seem effective to just put up a Web page and expect people to find it, so it is a prerequisite to join a Web host site.

I am currently with, or signing up to, three of the fivemajor sites from which hoteliers can choose. The US site that I joined gets four million hits a month. It has built-in e-mail links and virtually has my printed brochure on it. Rates and descriptions can be changed at my own will.

So far, I have made use of a computer and modem which I had bought for running an accountancy package, paid British Telecom £120 for access to the Internet and spent a total of £400 on three Web sites - one in the US, one that links the first to a Microsoft site, and a UK site which I am due to join now. It costs me 0.4p once a week to collect enquiries off the mailboxsystem.

In the three months that we have been on-line, we have had a booking that netted us £500 - enough to pay for the total set-up costs. I have also had a large number of enquiries.

Last year I spent £2,500 on advertising and tourist guidesand failed to generate the interest already expressed via the Internet.

I believe small businesses need to harness the World Wide Web to enable them to compete with larger corporate concerns. You never know, it could blow some of the paid-for guidebooks out of the water. n

Kevan Draper is proprietor of the Royal Oak of Luxborough in Exmoor National Park