The tourism industry has been flipped on its head over the last 10 years. You can now easily review many different places and accommodation establishments, preview them via photography and virtual tours, reserve your accommodation and book your travel arrangements all over world via the Internet. Click.Click. and you’re literally there.

When people are browsing the Internet or brochures, they are generally scanning images, only when something catches their interest do they click and move in for a closer, more detailed look. It is critical that your lead-in images are excellent and eye catching; otherwise you have lost before you have begun. Once you have their interest be sure to provide more visual information in your detailed area (e.g. a gallery of photographs/images and virtual tours), people trust their own eyes over anything else.

Do not mistake Internet traffic (hits, page impressions, etc) for anything else but consumers, human beings, browsing for products and services of their interest. I have had direct experience over the last seven years with tourism establishments that have great visual information, a pleasingly designed and well coded website being extremely successful and the very unsuccessful opposite with establishments that are often very pleasant, but have unprofessional photographs, weak web design and very little Internet marketing. I have seen it maybe twice when a weak website still produces satisfying results but it’s rare if not non existent these days. It is definitely not worth it to even try and have your photographs, virtual tours and website completed by a friend or even yourself.

Use professional people or companies’ that have been in business for years and have a past record of producing successful images and websites, by which I mean the results of the work are generating income for the website owner(s). There is far more to the process than you might first assume.

Creating a professional website with great photography and virtual tours that acts as your point of departure for advertising and marketing is the most efficient way to communicate and advertise to your current and potential guests globally. All this comes at a fraction of the costs of conventional advertising. If you spend the time and money on doing it right, it can be the most amazing experience that really puts the successful marketing and advertising of an establishment directly under the appointed person’s control.