If you subscribe to our RSS Feed, emails or follow us on Facebook you may have noticed a recent flurry of accommodations being listed on the site…
For a long time selling or marketing accommodation through this site was not something of interest to us. It’s an area that is already extremely crowded, and one that is extremely difficult to be successful in, especially if you’re only seeking to promote the more ethically run establishments. Determining exactly how you benchmark those properties and what criteria you use to assess them creates all manner of problems, and then there’s the consideration that it might not actually have any influence on a consumer’s decision to purchase.
We were introduced to WHL Group last year
We were fortunate to be introduced to the WHL Group early last year, who have spent a great deal time working with the International Centre for Responsible Tourism trying to crack some of these issues, and in a nutshell the challenges have been significant. Generating widespread understanding amongst accommodation owners of exactly what is interesting and relevant to potential customers in this space has been one of the biggest ones. There’s a common belief amongst accommodation owners that allowing guests to reuse bath towels shows a sustainability commitment worthy of note. Vicky Baker’s recent article ‘Hotels just wash the towels and spare us the green rinse‘ explains quite nicely how this is not the case.
Enabling small accommodations gain access to the online world
So for listing businesses on Make Travel Fair we’ve taken a slightly different tact and teamed up with Project: Exposure. A social enterprise that works in conjunction with whl.travel and is designed to enable small accommodation owners to gain greater access to consumers by equipping them with everything they need to get online and start selling to guests through the internet.
The barrier to entry for the little guys is often cost. Cost to get digital photos taken, marketing copy created, a website designed and then most importantly get all this distributed and understand how it works. Project: Exposure works in the destinations and enables even the smallest accommodation businesses to purchase all of these necessities using their empty room nights instead of cash. The initiative also retains a long term relationship with the businesses to continue offering support, training and further services where required.
Project: Exposure has also teamed up with the fantastic 360Cities to bring all these great properties into the world of fully spherical panoramic photography, which we’re also able to utilise on Make Travel Fair. Another point of note is that both our Managing Editor, Michelle Rodrigues and myself have been involved on recent excursions to see how Project: Exposure works in the field.
Substantial discounts on all accommodations
It’s for all these reasons that we are very excited about how and why we are listing the properties that we are. We hope to install some booking functionality in the future because for all of the properties that you see on here we can offer substantial discounts (of up to 25%) for booking through Make Travel Fair. In the mean time if anything takes your fancy drop us a line, or try entering our competition The Backdoor and win 7-nights at either Chestnut Country Lodge or Seaforth Country Lodge in South Africa.
"The barrier to entry for the little guys is often cost. Cost to get digital photos taken, marketing copy created, a website designed and then most importantly get all this distributed and understand how it works.”
Glad you touched on this issue Stephen. I would like to take this a little further as this is a core function of whl.travel franchisee called MPOs (Market Place Operators), it is the one that I find the most gratifying as an MPO… and the main reason I joined whl.travel in the first place. After 30 odd years in 3 to 5 star hospitality, whl was the only organisation that offered a supplier-win, a consumer-win, and a distributor-win formula.
As the saying goes, they had me at “hello”.
The majority of the indigenous accommodation providers we assist in my destination of Vanuatu (dare say many other MPO destinations) have for the most part the following challenges in developing their businesses:
1. No electricity (means no communication, no refrigeration, lighting, or music)
2. No drinkable water (this introduces health & duty of care issues)
3. No communication (naturally without power; hence cannot respond to, or take a forward booking)
4. No reliable transport (airport transfers & tours are sourced out & much more expensive)
5. No start up capital, and naturally no working capital (no real assets, hence no loans provided by main stream lenders)
6. No understanding off, or business skills (especialy essentials such as: administrative, accounting, marketing)
7. No potential to produce sufficient profit to pay commissions to agents (hence no market visibility,…stuck in oblivion)
8. No sufficient language skills (oral or written) to operate a business
My wife and I provide services or find solutions to most of the above inhibitors, and in 80% of cases it’s a revenue loss exercise but with whl.travel behind us we have had successes and more will make it through.
We used to believe that working with the public sector (government) was the way, but regrettably found this was sucking up time, knowledge and energy with no results, hence now we work direct with the operators and have found that the indigenous operators have discovered for themselves the first lesson of private practice: if you’re not prepared to do it yourself, don’t ask for help. We have a long way to go, but we will get there, as there is no better organisation to spread tourism equity in the world than whl. So thank you Stephen for identifying whl.travel and all those that support whl.travel.
With your help whl.travel is capturing a greater mindshare, and will become legendary through the growing kinship it has towards its suppliers, customers, and franchisees. Great organisations don’t just appear out of thin air, they are created and developed by great people such as Len Cordiner the visionary founder and CEO of whl.travel.
My dream is that WHL's emotional resonance, and connection with the travelling public will over time inspire enormous global loyalty, and that this people power will further influence responsible travel around the globe, benefiting the destinations and encourage more “devotees” to the cause by becoming MPOs or working with MPOs in the destination. The small tourism operators (or independent travelers) cannot do this by themselves, there needs to be a grass root facilitator working closely with a global player for it to work. That’s the beauty of whl.
Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) operators have little say in the direction of tourism for their destination. Destinational marketing falls under the domain of the destination’s tourism office and being a public sector office it is often heavily influenced by hotel chains (they have high capital investments in small destinations and not surprisingly look after their shareholders funds, hence use their power willingly). In this scenario things are not going to improve much for SMEs.
Tropical regards from Port Vila, Vanuatu,
John
John,
Thank you for your knowledgeable comment. It is with the help of MPOs and hospitality professionals like you that we are able to create, manage and implement what we've done with Project:Exposure and continue the success of whl.travel.
I'd love to hear some of the ways you have combated the inhibitors you mentioned above.
Cheers,
Michelle