Vacation Soup

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
SusanMay
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Vacation Soup

Post by SusanMay »

After reading about it here, I, like several others, used Alan Egan's online free course to create a Wordpress website. Today he put an entry on Facebook about his latest venture, called Vacation Soup. It's about to launch. I thought some of you might be interested.

I've only looked at his website and watched the video so I'm hazy about it but it seems like his plan is to create a vacation owner collective site, pulling together and publishing people's destination focused content into a brand which he hopes will take on the OTAs. It says it will syndicate owners' content across social media and will make the site the place people go to when they want to research holidays, which in turn will drive them to the owner's sites. The goal is that owners get enough business this way to enable them to stop using the OTAs. There's going to be a Wordpress plugin which owners use somehow to promote our sites and connect with Vacation Soup, and there's going to be a membership fee.

If you are interested see this:

https://launch.vacationsoup.com/#vacation-soup

He mentions a new free Wordpress website giveaway coming soon. He says he's made it easier with drag and drop of pictures etc. into the template. Apparently you will be able to create your website in 3 hours!

Watching the video he uses a booking software engine called OwnerRez. I wondered if anyone has come across this one?
zebedee
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Post by zebedee »

And the cost will be........????????
Joanna
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Post by Joanna »

Looks like $29.99 per month if I'm reading it right. First thoughts are that it sounds expensive for a new, unproven platform. also, seems that it will only work with WordPress sites. I know WordPress is popular but plenty of owners use other systems (like Promote my Place) so will they have to create another website if they want to join?
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
SusanMay
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Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
Location: Dorset

Post by SusanMay »

Yup, the website says "Our current planned pricing model gives you Vacation Soup for as low as $29.95/mo. This is a small fraction of your overall marketing budget" It also says there is a top-line monthly fee of $59.90 but you get up to 50% of that back if you create posts for the 'soup'.

Well, having never got involved with the the OTAs and their costs it blows my "marketing budget" out of the water! I think you are right Joanna about the cost, people will balk at paying these sort of figures in the early days.

You definitely need a Wordpress website so that does limit the take up. That's where the offer of the free website comes in which it says you can create "in 3 hours for free with Vacation Soup Stock" Of course you surely need all the words and photos first before the 3 hours begins but I suppose if you already have a website that's not Wordpress you may have a lot of that ready.

Thinking positively, I did find Alan's website build course (pre- soup!) very good when i used it earlier this year and the intent, to drive a source of direct bookings, is a worthy one.
ManxRed1
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Post by ManxRed1 »

I wish him well, but with those fees, and the necessity to create a Wordpress site, I fear the majority of his potential client base will be in 'watch' mode for a significant period of time, which of course, won't help him to build up the business.

I think he needs more incentives to get his client base up.
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Alan Egan
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Post by Alan Egan »

Hello everyone,

Thanks for talking about Vacation Soup.

I just wanted to say that the Wordpress websites and the plugin are free.

The plugin has a content creator built in and when you create blog posts it automatically syndicates your posts to all of your social media accounts.

There is no obligation to sign up for the paid part of the soup.

Here is a video of the thinking behind the concept (this is a video version of my presentation at last weekends vacation rental world summit). I hope that you find it inspiring.

https://vimeo.com/234482163
SusanMay
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Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
Location: Dorset

Post by SusanMay »

Thanks for clarifying things Alan and good luck. I look forward to giving the plugin a go!
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Alan Egan
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Post by Alan Egan »

Thank you Susan,

If you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line
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