But in my experience working with small hotels, tourism experiences, and business owners across Donegal, the barriers to growth are rarely what they first appear to be. Here’s what I actually find — and what I do about it.

1. Your technology is working against you

One of my recent clients, a small Donegal hotel, came to us convinced they had an awareness problem. After an initial audit it was clear the real issue was far more fundamental — guests who wanted to book simply couldn’t. Their booking system had quietly stopped working, and no one had noticed.

Dig a little deeper and the root cause became clear: four separate systems — a website, booking engine, PMS, and channel manager — that didn’t talk to each other. Every update required logging into each one individually. For a small team without a dedicated marketing person, it was unmanageable.

The fix wasn’t more marketing. It was simplifying the technology to something the team could actually maintain. Within three months of switching to an integrated all-in-one system, direct bookings started coming in, OTA reliance dropped, and staff confidence visibly improved.

The lesson: Before you invest in marketing, make sure the foundations are in place. If customers can’t find you, reach you, or book you easily — no amount of social media will fix that.

2. You’re on social media, but you don’t have a strategy

Most small business owners I work with aren’t absent from social media — they’re just posting without a plan. Inconsistent content, no clear message, and no understanding of what each platform is actually for. It feels like effort with no return.

Across my 6-week Social Media Course, participants arrive feeling overwhelmed and leave with a clear strategy: what to post, when to post it, what form it should take, and how to measure whether it’s working. One participant reported a 528% increase in their social media stats after completing the course. Another described going from complete beginner to confidently running their own paid ad campaigns.

The difference isn’t talent or budget — it’s having a framework to work from.

The lesson: Social media without a strategy is just noise. A clear plan — even a simple one — changes everything.

3. You’re marketing to everyone and reaching no one

A common thread I see across tourism businesses (and most other industries) is content that tries to appeal to everybody. Generic captions, stock-looking imagery, no clear sense of who the ideal customer is or what they actually care about.

The businesses that see real growth are the ones who get specific. A dedicated page for school groups lands differently than a general “visit us” message. A behind-the-scenes reel of your product or experience builds trust in a way a promotional graphic never will. Knowing your audience — and speaking directly to them — is what turns browsers into bookers.

The lesson: Niche content outperforms broad content every time. Know who you’re talking to, and talk to them directly.

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re running a hotel, a tourism experience, or a small business trying to grow online, the path forward usually isn’t as complicated as it feels. Fix the foundations, build a strategy, and get specific about your audience — and the results follow.

If any of this sounds familiar, I can help. From one-to-one mentoring and website builds to my 6-week Social Media Course, Marketing for Tourism works with small businesses across Ireland to turn confusion into confidence and clicks into bookings.

Get in touch to find out where to start.

The post 3 Things Holding Donegal Businesses Back from Growing Online (And How to Fix Them) appeared first on Marketing For Tourism.

The post Prepare your Tourism/ Hospitality Business for Black Friday today appeared first on Marketing For Tourism.

Doing so is not just something to consider, it is something you need to change and implement in your business for continued growth and to thrive. No business owner needs the stress of whether customers are going to all turn up, only to have projected revenue for the day reduced by 25-30% or higher through no shows.

From my own experience. the hospitality trade sees cancellations on third party sites as high as up to 30%. On their own website it is not nearly as high as direct bookings are more reliable. On 3rd parties, the constant advertising of cheaper deals can sway a booker to change for something cheaper. This highlights the importance of ensuring your business has a unique selling point to ensure they are booking with you for more reasons than price alone. Such as a solid reputation for excellent customer service, unique facilities or amazing food.

For tourism businesses that are operating without a bookable system in place, maybe they take bookings by Messenger on social media or by email/ calls, they are putting themselves at risk as these customers are not committed. If they don’t show up, you are at a loss of income for that day.

So how can a Tourism Business work to improve their no show rate?

Ensure you have a cancellation or no show policy in place and have it included as part of the booking process. By simply highlighting your cancellation policy you will educate your new customers on what’s expected and most will adhere to it out of politeness. Decide how strict you want to be with this policy or how flexible and communicate it to staff and state a cut of time.
Send out reminders to guests the week of the tour or day before to simply remind them. This is becoming expected of a lot of businesses and it should be a simple process for staff to implement such as taking 1 hour on a monday and calling, emailing or sending a text or whatsup.
Overbook – this is not something to take on lightly but many hotels do this to ensure all rooms are sold and will outbook the overflow (average % to overbook is up to 5% of room capacity). If you can overbook by 2-3 customers for in demand dates then it will allow for the drop down of numbers on the day if you know people will just not show up.
Set up a bookable website that allows customers to plan ahead and book with you and pay in advance. You can decide to take full payment or a deposit to secure their booking. If you do not have a website this is easy to set up and install a bookable system that also manages your bookings into a calendar and easy to use app for staff to access.
While we cannot always control every customers actions, it is important for a tourism business to prepare for the future and set up systems and procedures that protect it long term. Since 2020 the expectation of having to pay when booking, even a deposit to secure, has increased. Our economy is changing and you should be benefiting from this change to customer behavior. People expect to have to at least pay a deposit to secure their plans, avail of this.

Think of it this way. How many no shows are you having per day? Let’s say its 10% of bookings that don’t show. For every 30 bookings that’s 3 that are not showing up. 3 per day at €20 is €60 lost per day and every day of the week that’s €420. Over 26 weeks that’s €11k in lost revenue. Now compare that against the cost of setting up your own bookable website. Within your first year you will have recouped the cost of the website to set up and also reduced your no shows so overall its a win win. This comparison is done against my fees, other website developers may be much higher.

For any tourism business looking to create a bookable website AND have their social media managed whilst we build and promote your website, get in touch with me for a quotation.

Until next time x

Joleene

The post Are no shows killing your Tourism Business? Why you need a bookable Website appeared first on Marketing For Tourism.

Christmas can be a stressful time for businesses. You look at your competitors and think they are organised and selling offers with ease. But it doesn’t have to be stressful.

It can be smooth sailing allowing you to focus on offering the best experience rather than worrying about sales.

Here is how you can be in control of your sales rather than panicking and making rash decisions (such as slashing prices).

1.Decide what offers/products you are going to promote. This does not mean all your offers, be specific. A Christmas party night, Christmas Break, Santa experience can go together but not also your B&B rate or Golden year rates. Set your price but first research competitors prices. Do not lead with being the cheapest, lead with being the best. People expect to pay decent money for a Christmas offer and being the cheapest might make customers question why and look elsewhere. They will pay for the best experience.

2.Decide who it is you are selling to (your target customer). Is this aimed at parents, couples on a romantic break, adventurous single looking for a unique experience, staff party organiser. Please remember here that products made to appeal to anyone or everyone, will appeal to no one. Know who it is you are targeting.

3.Add this package to your website as a bookable offer. Don’t assume people will call direct, they won’t always. Make it easy for them to see your offer and book it in a few simple steps. If you don’t have a bookable website, look up Fareharbour as a booking solution. They can turn your website into a bookable site in a matter of days, they are free to you as the business owner to work with and put your bookings into a calender for easy access.

4.Create specific trackable links to your offer. This is important, especially if only running organic posts, not paid ads. You will need to know how many people clicked on your offer to find out more (called intent to buy). Use the website bit.ly.com to create free, trackable links that will tell you where the traffic is coming from. If you don’t track links you can’t improve as you won’t know what worked.

5.Set up a landing page to gather interest in your offer. Before you launch anything or post about your offer to social media, set up a landing page with a specific call to action (CTA) where people have to enter their email address to get the offer when you launch. Make this link trackable also to measure interest. Use the free email service provider Kit.com (if you don’t have on set up) to set up a free landing page and gather emails that will be filtered into a Tag that identifies them. Gathering emails is always a priority in your business as you own the list you generate. This is a great way to gather interest in your Black Friday offer

6.Run a 3-5 day campaign on socials to tell people what’s coming, to generate interest and spark curiosity. Lead people to your landing page. Include the trackable link in your posts and tell them to click on it to sign up and be the first to know or to receive a discount. Ensure the links are in your bio and posts depending on where you are promoting. Interest can be sparked by speaking to your target audiences pain points such as ‘Looking for a unique Christmas party location that your team will love’, ‘want to give your kids special christmas memories this year, that doesnt cost the earth’ – lead with what they would want to experience and speak to their desires. Its not about your business, its about their wants and problems.

7.Launch your offer

Post it everywhere, Facebook, Groups on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin, Email lists etc. Create 14 days of content around your offer, your customers pain points, different formats such as posts, reels, carousels and stories. Post everywhere. Do not be shy about getting your offer out there. If you hold back out of fear of being everywhere, your competitors will be ahead. You dont know what platform will engage the most (which is why we track the links)

8.If you can Boost your post, but only boost the one that is getting the best traction. Which post got the most link CLICKS not likes or comments or shares. How many people actually clicked on the link and where. This is looking at what is working with real data, not guessing. You only need to put a small amount behind any ads you might run such as on Facebook. Boost the best performing and limit your target area if you have a small budget to avoid spend being diluted across too many locations. Ensure and target the ad to your demographics.

9. Now use the Data you have to make more informed decisions. Are you getting no clicks, change the title of the package and repeat.

Change the features if its not getting traction, look at what is working and repeat. Tip: You can look up competitor reviews from last christmas period to see what complaints they got and ensure you improve on these with your offer to make sure you offer the best experience. The point after all this effort to see what your followers or audience want more off. They will tell you if you listen closely.

If it does not work then rework it. I can only guide you and give you tools, you know what offers your customers like best so make one that you know will appeal to them and then tweek it. Change it. Respond to the level of interest they are showing and repeat the process.

By talking these steps this year, you are better prepared for next year to repeat. And again for Easter, Summer or Halloween.

Until next time x

The post How to prepare your Hotel Christmas Marketing Plan in 9 steps appeared first on Marketing For Tourism.

Are your posts getting you bookings? Some…none…a few. I bet you you are not getting enough for the time you are spending on Social Media.

Here are a few truths I have learned in my 20 year Hotel Marketing Career that will help you out when it comes to using Social Media as your only Marketing Tool:

• Social Media is a learned skill. Just because you see everyone else posting with ease does not mean posting as a business looking to bring in revenue will also be easy. If you are struggling to convert posts into bookings it is because it is hard to do. You are simply looking at Social Media the wrong way. Kids using it to be social is very different from you using it to make money so stop comparing your posts to others.
• You need to build momentum when you use Social Media. The platforms know when you post randomly and will not reward you with pushing your content to more people (only 3% of your followers see your content on average), if you only post here and there. You need to be consistent, post Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 90 days and you will see much better results.
• The longer people spend consuming your content on the platforms (like Facebook or Instagram) the more you will be rewarded with your content being pushed to more people. How do you make content that people want to consume, you make content you know they will like and engage with. Not every post should be a sales post. Time on app = more ads served to followers = more money these apps make. Make content that holds peoples attention. Make your content about them, not you.
• If Social Media is your only Marketing Tool, as in you are not spending money on ads anywhere else, then you need to spend more time creating quality content. No business grows from an investment of 20 minutes per day. You need to strategically make content you know your guests want to see and consume and this takes time. If other people are making content faster and spending less time and its working for them, its because they learned how to get better and faster by going through this same process. At the start it takes time.
• You need to take responsibility for what you do not know yet. It takes time to learn how to use the various features inside each platform, and they are all there for a reason, to help you make better content. Not one social media platform makes enough content themselves or at all. They need you to create great content people love to consume so they give you the tools to help you do so. If you do not know about the various platforms tools, you need to take time and learn them. Take responsibility for your business. It is work and it is hard at the start but it will get easier as you grow.
• People who hand over their accounts to someone else such as a friend, family member etc are doing themselves a massive injustice as every time you need to post content you now have a massive block between your need to act and taking action as someone has to do it for you. Do Not Do This. Own your own accounts and have the logins yourself.

If this is all too much for you or you need a little help in getting started, I have put together a 30 day content plan aimed at accommodation providers. All you need to do is download it here. It covers Marketing Strategies to implement in your business and also a 30 day FREE Air bnb, guesthouse and small hotel content marketing plan.

If you still need help, reach out. It is why I am here!

The post Do you use Social Media as your only Marketing Tool for your B&B, guesthouse, Airbnb and small hotel? appeared first on Marketing For Tourism.

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