Windermere Estate - marketing small hotels

Stuart Henshall writes a very effective piece on his blog about marketing small properties using a blog and all the benefits of such an approach after staying at Windermere Estate in Munnar, Kerala.

I am not sure I agree with everything but I do agree with the central tenet of the argument: love and look after your website and maintain it like a pet not as a brochure.

Why a pet?
Pets need feeding everyday, they need love and attention, they need thought and they need visits the vet and brushing down. Your website needs all the same: a daily dose of content, thoughtful consideration and a brush down every so often.

Why Not a Blog?
Blogs are stochastic and free-form. Who knows where they lead. Businesses are not, they have goals. Your website needs some structure and you need to keep with it. Your website has some work to do.

Call it a working pet. You love it and enjoy it, but also you need it to do its job like a carthorse. In the case of the site: does it show off the property, does it bring in visitors, does it illustrate your difference and distinctiveness.

As Stuart Henshall points out to the Windermere owner, there are constant narratives and changing subjects to fill the pages of a website and over.

Responsible Tourism Project in Kerala

Kerala Tourism is continuing to investigate the impact of tourism on ecology and social structure. We all know that tourism can have a major impact in terms of economic development as well as impacting upon local social structures.

Many visitors to India are keen that they should not leave a damaging footprint on Kerala and that the places they stay and activities they engage in have some form of ecological audit.

The project is focused on a number of high impact zones such as Kovalam, Kumarakom, Thekkady and Wayanad which either have high tourism numbers or are delicate structures that may be eroded quickly by tourism.

Does Kovalam suffer from too many planes

As often as you read about Kovalam Beach, in the same line you read of the planeloads of tourists descending on the Kovalam area from Europe. For Europeans it brings to mind images of Magaluf in Spain with airports handling 40 planes a day, so it might come as a bit of a shock to discover that a solitary charter plane arrives in Trivandrum airport each week flying the My Travel logo. The rest of the week the airport serves scheduled flights and some sleepy local airlines.

Kerala package holidays are available from Manos and a few from First Choice, otherwise holiday makers need to make their own choices and fly in via Chennai or Mumbai or directly via Sri Lanka or Emirates.

Kovalam being cleared up

In preparation for the tourist rush starting in November, school children and cadets were out in force over the past week clearing Kovalam Beach of marine litter and other detritus which is washed up every year during the heavy weather of the monsoon storms of the summer.

Kovalam beaches is one of the most popular areas of Kerala for visitors who arrive on package holidays and for beach holidays on the famous beaches of the area.

Shilpa Shetty in Kerala

Everybody seems to love Kerala for a spot of filming. Most recent convert is big brother hero Shilpa Shetty who has decided to broaden her commercial plans with a new production company that plans to shoot a Yoga DVD in either Kovalam Beach or the Kerala backwaters.
The team are searching for exotic locations in Kerala at the moment which should not be hard and then a musical is planned. More on the story here

Le Colonial in Fort Cochin

New part hotel, part homestay and part art gallery opens in Fort Cochin.

Le Colonial is owned by a french art collector is one of the oldest inhabited buildings in Fort Cochin (possibly most of Kerala). Although it only just opening September 2007, it is a welcome addition to the crowded boutique hotel market in Fort Cochin that already features luminaries such as Malabar House, Koder House and Brunton Boatyard. It is only a little different, but the homestay quality as though you are in Ian Fleming's house goes down well.

Selling The Monsoon

Chasing the Monsoon, India's theme at the four day Arabian Travel Market convention, is part of its strategy to make the country a year long tourist destination. Now it plans to sell Ayurveda (its ancient system of medicine) and the monsoons to the Arab world.Taking advantage of the Arab penchant for the monsoon rains and Ayurvedic treatment, May to September is slated to become the season for monsoon and medical tourism. The newly introduced Medical Visa is one step further in this direction. Under this visa a patient along with an attendant can come to India for a period of one year, which can be extended further up to three years.
This innovative idea of selling the monsoon is a good marketing gimmick ; monsoon season being Ayurveda season especially in Kerala, which can boast of the best Ayurveda hospitals in the country.

Kovalam - one of the world's great beaches

according to the London Daily Telegraph who state...

Kerala provides a gentle introduction to India and Kovalam, on the Malabar coast, is one of the most popular beach hangouts in the sub-continent. Its bays of white sand and coconut palms are a great place for families, with safe swimming and a good variety of beach activities, including kayaking, surfing and water skiing. Small shops selling handicrafts, jewellery and clothes line the waterfront as well as a number of excellent restaurants, which lure diners in by displaying the day's catch - from lobster to swordfish - outside. In the evening, Kovalam comes to life with performances of Kathakali, the classical dance-drama of Kerala. www.kovalam.com

For a newspaper article this sounds like tourist board talk. Its not quite like that, the swimming can be dangerous, but it is fun and way nicer than Goa.