Not so common mistakes on ski property websites

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EssJayEff
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Not so common mistakes on ski property websites

Post by EssJayEff »

This is my first post here but I hope it might be useful to Alpine property owners. I have recently been populating a skiers search engine which has required me to extract information from hundreds of ski property websites. Sometimes it is very hard to find what I would consider 'core' information - just the same information that a potential customer would be looking for - and when that happened I'd write down comments. These are just my opinion, so they may all be wrong, but I hope they might be helpful in how things may look from a visitors viewpoint. Some of them may seem a bit brusque which probably reflects my frustration at the time.

The comments follow...

Its no coincidence that property listing sites, and experienced tour operators have a brief point summary about the property.

It is amazing the number of owners who say things like contact us for prices and availability. Maybe for a summer holiday accomodation is top priority so people are more likely to make the effort. For skiers, by definition this is not the case - if you make people put in extra effort when your competitors don't then many probably won't bother. Its like saying 'We can't be bothered updating our availability, or our prices, but we expect you to phone us up to ask us'.

A considerable number of owners have clearly gone to the trouble of putting facilities in their property and then fail to mention it anywhere in the text.

Don't make people look at floor plans to determine how many the property sleeps or how many bedrooms it has.

If your property is self catering say what cooking facilities it has. Does a 'fully equipped' kitchen mean a toaster and a coffee machine?

Get your priorities right - potential customers know nothing about your property but they might know a bit about the ski area and thats why they are looking at your site. Don't tell people where Chamonix is before you've told them about your apartment.

360 views- I don't know if people want these, but I'm fairly sure they don't want them forced on them every time they view a page.

Don't tell people about yourself before you tell them about the property. You might be wondeful but we want to know the property is suitable for the holiday we are planning before we want to know your previous job and what made you move to [insert resort name here]

Get your priorities right. The colour of shower curtains and who manufactured the sinks are less important to most of us than the location of the property.

Don't tell us what the the dialing code is for France but neglect to tell us about the property. Nothing at all about what facilities are in the kitchen, apart from a general 'everything you need'.

Accept that most English speaking snowsports enthusiasts will know that in France French is the official language.

If you have a a flat screen and DVD player or other entertainment features tell visitors - don't chance it by only having it on a thumbnail mouseover.

Please don't say the kitchen has 'everything you need' when you mean it has 'everything YOU need'. Peoples needs are different. An espresso coffee maker might be an unexpected luxury for many, but when you use one every day it becomes a necessity.

Say how far from the piste/town/lifts - if we don't know we might not take the chance.

"Right in the heart of " and "only 15 minutes drive to the lifts" shouldn't appear in the same paragraph on a skiing property.

Wonderful its a sub zero wine cooler - but how many bedrooms are there?

Telling us who makes the cutlery is very impressive, but not if its at a cost of forgetting to say how far away the slopes are.

Does stunning position mean stunning position for ski access or for views - or both.

If your property is in a country where the currency is not Sterling but your site is in English, then say what currency your prices are in.

Don't overdo it on PDF's. Especially not if they require downloading a 10.3 MB Japanese Font (no kidding).

One or two oversights is understandable, but to forget to say how many rooms, what travel/transfers there are (or not), where it is other than the resort really does not help sell it at all. In one case, considerable effort went into selling the resort, yet nothing about the chalet.

If you have a contact us page make sure it works - if it just has some photos but no email, phone or any way for people to contact you then you can be sure it won't bring you many bookings.

Don't design a contact form just around reservations. Many people may have enquiries.

Don't say you are on tripadvisor/another review site if you only have negative reviews. Its one thing having bad reviews - its another promoting them.

If you have any text on the Resort then at least mention the resort name. Most holidaymakers like to know where they are going on holiday. Yes, we know its obvious to you but is it obvious to someone looking at your website.

Yes, its great you moved from the UK in 200? to pursue your dream and its great all bedrooms are en-suite but how many bedrooms are there?

Is 5 minutes away a walk, or a drive.

The list ends.

Simon
Margaret
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Post by Margaret »

And.......

Don't call it a search engine when it is a listing site???? :D

Honestly, as an idiot when it comes to techy stuff, I'd love to know the difference.
EssJayEff
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Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:57 pm
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Post by EssJayEff »

Hi Margaret,

I'm sorry I offended you by calling it a search engine. I think of it a search engine rather than a listing site for the following reasons:

Just like a search engine it is in effect a searchable index to the web sites it links to. A search engine isn't very useful unless it links to the sites it searches whereas a listing site doesn't depend on any other sites at all. For a listing site, any linked property websites are optional and supporting information whereas for a search engine they are an absolute requirement.

There are no contact or booking forms on it. Ie. It is not the contact initiation point for a consumer looking for a skiing property whereas listing sites often are the contact point - they tend to have contact forms, email addresses and/or contact phone numbers etc.

It is meant to reflect the sites it links to. For example we would never knowingly allow a property feature to be 'listed' unless it was also listed on the linked web site. On a listing site there is no requirement for this - they are two different web pages which happen to refer to the same property.

Listing sites generally are populated by the people who want their property listed, whereas search engines tend to source their own data. In that respect we have more in common with search engines than listing sites.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I don't consider myself misleading anyone by referring to it a search engine - albeit one optimised for ski properties.

Simon
Margaret
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Post by Margaret »

Absolutely no offence taken!

I think I know what you are doing as a 'portal' although I have not heard anyone use that term for a long time so perhaps it is out of date.

Are the locations listed at the foot of the page the only ones you are covering? (i.e. can we be added - I think/hope we avoid a lot of your pitfalls!)
EssJayEff
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Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:57 pm
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Post by EssJayEff »

The locations at the bottom get automatically generated for the properties on there, so if you add your property I will create the resort and a link at the bottom should appear automatically within an hour or so. See the manager help pages on how to do add your property. I could add it for you but we have backlog of properties we are adding so it will be a long time before we get round to it ourselves

As regards the pitfalls, I did write privately to some of the owners where there was an obvious error, as oppose to a style decision, and everyone wrote back and thanked me, so I didn't see any harm in posting here. The pitfalls don't bother me but I often think its a shame when someone has clearly put a lot of effort into a website but forgotten some basic info.

Simon
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visitslovenija
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Post by visitslovenija »

Simon,

Just wanted to say thanks for the info on your initial post.

When you're intensely familiar with your own site, it's easy to miss something obvious! Might make some tweaks to now..

Regards,
Ralph



www.visitslovenija.eu
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