NEWS

Business Tourism and Hospitality Websites
(Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions)
Hospitality is one of the UK's largest and fastest growing industries with an annual turnover of over £50 billion in 2002. It includes hotels, restaurants, pubs, clubs, bars and contract caterers.

These businesses range from small family run restaurants to large hotels owned by major companies. They reach out from every city and town to rural areas. Restaurants account for the largest proportion of the industry, making up 44% of all hospitality establishments.

Is your business getting the net benefits of attracting customers in the business tourism and hospitality industries? Tourism Web Design can help you achieve this goal by promoting your business online to this important market. The Internet can boost customer service and allow your business to take bookings online 24/7, 365 days a year.

(Sources: Key facts and figures were supplied by the hospitality training foundation - Labour Market Review for the Hospitality Industry 2003 and the Annual Business Inquiry)

Getting Online - Where do I start?
To get on the Internet all you need is a computer, a telephone line, a modem, email and web browsing software and an Internet account with a Internet Service Provider (ISP) like BT, Wanadoo, Tiscali, etc. Nowadays, more and more people are signing up to Broadband rather than a slow dial-up connection.

13.8 million people in the UK are 'online savvy'
The Internet is without a doubt the most cost-effective marketing tool available to a small business and with almost 14 million 'net savvy' users in the UK, can you really afford to ignore the potential of the Web?

(Source: Continental Research (2004) reports 13.8 million people in the UK are 'online savvy' and have either make online purchases or have conducted some sort of transaction online.)

The Internet should be factored into any marketing plan for your business. But before you get embroiled in the intricacies of web design you should first make sure you have a marketing plan and budget in place. You should also make sure the look and feel of the web site reflects that of all your other promotional material.

Before you decide on calling in the Professionals to design your business website, you should be very clear on exactly what you want the website to do. Do you want an online brochure or do you want to provide online booking or shopping facilities? Prices at Tourism Web Design start from as little as £199 + VAT for simple website and can go up to hundreds even thousands of pounds for online reservation and booking systems.

I want a website please!
First thing you need to do is decide what domain name address you would like to register for your business. A bad example would be www.iamtradingwithaverylongname.co.uk. Try to keep the domain name as short as possible.

Once you have registered your domain name, you need to host your webpages somewhere. Tourism Web Design can provide your business with a very competive web hosting package to suit your needs. Using ultra fast and reliable web servers from Dove Internet, we can host your domain name within 24-72 hours.

Finally we can arrange an appointment or work over the telephone to obtain the details we need to design your business tourism website. Most basic websites can be designed within 7-14 days.

Offline and Online Web Promotion
Most businesses fall into the trap of building a website and thinking that the customers will come in their droves. You will need to promote your website using a mixture of online and offline (conventional methods of advertising and marketing) promotion. Online promotions can include linking with other websites and getting your site listed on search engines. Communicating with your customers via email is a hugely cost efficient way to get your marketing message across.