Transcript Our experience in Spain and Europe François Derbaix Founder and CEO Toprural.com Twitter: @fderbaix - @toprural E-mail: [email protected] - [email protected] Riga, June 9th 2010

Our experience in Spain and Europe
François Derbaix
Founder and CEO Toprural.com
Twitter: @fderbaix - @toprural
E-mail: [email protected] - [email protected]
Riga, June 9th 2010
Agenda
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Spain
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Europe
• Collaboration with rural tourism associations
• Bonus: 7 recommendations for online promotion
http://en.toprural.com
2
Toprural birth in Spain (2000)
50 national rural tourism websites already existing in Spain
Local and national rural tourism associations already with
website
Toprural strategy and strengths:
• Contents: 5.000 accommodations the 1st day online
• Travellers reviews: 1st web publishing opinions in 2000
• Search engine: easy to use, many search options
• ¡Web usability, web usability, web usability!
• Our client (the owner) is not the king, it’s the traveller
http://blog.toprural.com/...
3
Rural tourism in Spain today
• 14,000 rural accommodation
• 2.7M rural travellers made 7.9M overnight stays
• Demand grew 0.3% in 2009 (the only touristical segment
with positive growth in Spain)
• 90% national travellers (Spaniards)
• Offer grew 5.8% en 2009
• More competitive market,
decrease in occupancy rate
Source: National Spanish Statistical Institute
http://blog.toprural.com/...
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Rural traveller profile in 2009
• 50% looked for a cheaper accommodation
or reduced the expenses
• 30% travelled less time
• They mostly reduced the expenses in
activities, food & transport, maintaining
the budget for the lodging
• Price was the 2nd most important key
decision factor
• Booking time was delayed (average: 20 days
before)
• 92% sought accommodation online
Source: Toprural survey (October 2009)
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Rural tourism and the
Internet
• Internet is the main promotion channel for the rural
tourism in Spain
• 88% of the accommodation has its own webpage
and 83% pays for online promotion
• For accommodation owners, a key to succes is to benefit
from online promotion channels and Social Media
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Agenda
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Spain
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Europe
• Collaboration with rural tourism associations
• Bonus: 7 recommendations for online promotion
http://en.toprural.com
7
Toprural: from Spain to 10
European countries
International expansion since 2003, to grow the company
spreading out our potential market (Portugal 2003, France 2005,
Italy and Belgium 2007, Germany, Austria and Netherlands 2009, …)
Positive experience: capacity to grow the international rural
tourism / cross-border rural tourism
Key difficulties:
• No rural tourism legislation and no official rural
tourism listings in some countries (ex. France, Germany
or Austria)
• Complicated local Search Engine Optimization: after 5
years in france we still do not have a good positionning in
google.fr – 80% of Toprural's traffic comes from Spain (we
are working on that)
http://blog.toprural.com/...
8
Toprural today: illustration
http://blog.toprural.com/...
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Toprural today: key figures
• Private company promoting 70k rural accommodation in
10 countries
• Freemium model: 55k free promotion & 15k paying
promotion
• 48 full time employees, from 10 countries, based in
Madrid
• 4.5 M€ turnover in 2009 and >1M€ net profit
• 18M visits / y. (Nº 1 rural tourism website in Europe)
• Richest content in rural tourism in Europe: 800k photos,
165k travelers reviews, 3k videos
http://blog.toprural.com/...
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Agenda
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Spain
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Europe
• Collaboration with rural tourism associations
• Bonus: 7 recommendations for online promotion
http://en.toprural.com
11
Association & commercial
websites' strengths
Associations' strengths:
• Close to the owner
• Knowledge of the sector
• Lobby: Preferencial contact with authorities
• Information and training of the newcoming owners
Commercial websites' strenghts:
• Close to the traveller (eg. users reviews)
• Knowledge of the Internet (usability, SEO, marketing)
• Flexibility in website development
• Get traffic and booking volume
http://blog.toprural.com/...
12
Traffic comparison between
Toprural and associations
Toprural.com (blue), Gites-de-france.com (red), Agriturist.it,
Gitesdewallonie.be and Plattelandstoerisme.be
Source: Alexa.com (May 2010)
http://blog.toprural.com/...
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Synergies associations –
commercial websites
Freemium model: associations can publish all their
members accommodation for free. Eg.: Gîtes de Wallonie (BE), Accueil
Champêtre (BE), Gîtes de France Champagne-Ardennes (FR), and many others.
Volume discount: associations can negociate a discount if
many members are interested in a paid promotion. Eg.: Hiruak
Bat (ES), Casas Açorianas (PT), etc.
Communication: associations can provide us relevant
information for our blog, newsletter, Twitter or Facebook
Advertising: associations can advertise their destinations or
websites (eg. French Britain announced on Toprural's French homepage in Spanish)
We have the same objective: promoting rural tourism.
Let's work together!, with our own strengths.
http://blog.toprural.com/...
14
Agenda
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Spain
• Toprural.com and the rural tourism in Europe
• Collaboration with rural tourism associations
• Bonus: 7 recommendations for online promotion
http://en.toprural.com
15
7 recommendations for online
promotion
1. Get your own simple and standard webpage
2. Be where the traffic is
3. Participate on Facebook
4. Participate on Twitter
5. Put your accommodation on Google Maps
6. Many pictures and amateur vídeos
7. Travellers’ reviews are welcome
It’s all about participating!
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1. Get your own simple and
standard webpage
A few recommendations:
• Run away from: web designers & developers
• Use a CMS platform: to build it on a place where you can
update it yourself (eg. Wordpress)
• Ask for profesional advice: not to design it, but to use
standard tools to create it
• Use your own domain name: eg. you.lv in place of
yourname.wordpress.com
• Use a local domain: eg. yourname.lv
• Link to your webpage: do it everytime you can, it's your
business card
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2. Be where the traffic is
A few recommendations:
• Be at the right place: It’s not about “having” a webpage,
it's about being & participating at the right places. Be
where the users are.
• Users are not on associations websites: they usually
have very poor websites, with very little traffic (visitors)
• Let´s try it: ask for a trial promotion (Homeaway,
Toprural, Rentalia, ...)
• Measure the profitability of these promotions
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3. Participate on Facebook
A few recommendations:
• Create a personal profile:
for you as a person, not as a
rural accommodation
• Create a fb page: for your
business
• Promote your fb page: the
travelers will be able to
“like” it and recommend it
• Interact: with the
community, personaly (as a
person) and in your
business page
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4. Participate on Twitter
A few recommendations:
• Use personal Twitter account for
your person or a corporate Twitter
account for your accommodation
• Use Search Twitter for the
keywords you’re interested in
• Reply to messages of potential
customers
• Promote your Twitter account to
gain followers
• Listen, and participate in the
conversation
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5. Put your accommodation
on Google Maps
A few recommendations:
• Put your business on
Google Maps:
http://www.google.com/lo
cal/add/businessCenter
• Specify your Geo position
on every Internet site
where you promote your
accommodation
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6. Many pictures and amateur
videos
A few recommendations:
• Publish on the Internet as many (nice) pictures of your
accommodation as you can (unlimited pictures on
Toprural, Flickr, G Maps, …)
• Make an amateur video of yourself presenting your
accommodation (it is important that you appear and talk
on the video)
• Publish your video on several websites (unlimited videos
on Toprural, Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, ...)
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6. Many pictures and amateur
videos (illustration)
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7. Travellers reviews are welcome
• Most popular travel website include travellers reviews,
with no censorship
• Travellers reviews, comments and recommendations are
what make your business credible
• Publish your reply
• Invite your customers to review your business online
• Censorship = spread the bad review accross the Internet
Ex. reviews on: Booking.com, Tripadvisor.com, Hotels.com,
Venere.com, Toprural.com
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7. Travellers reviews are welcome
(illustration)
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