19th May 2005 MEMBERS BULLETIN No. 6; May 2005.....BREAKING NEWS! Staying in Wales Limited took the tourism industry in Wales by surprise today by announcing its acquisition of the top-level domain name Wales.info. Staying in Wales Limited took the tourism industry in Wales by surprise today by announcing its acquisition of the top-level domain name Wales.info. This means that for the first time since the Internet was created, Wales will have an international online presence on par with Britain.com, Ireland.com and London.com - far removed from anything.co.uk that does little to identify Wales in major Internet search engines. For just £2.99 a month including VAT, each Staying in Wales Members will be able to register a Wales.info domain name and up to five email addresses using their property name, entitling them to use the "Wales" brand in all online communications. Cyffdy Farm Cottages, for example, will become CyffdyFarmCottages.Wales.info and may choose bookings@cyffdyfarmcottages.wales.info as one of the five Wales.info email addresses at their disposal. A new Wales.info Directory will be launched on the Internet mid June, listing the Wales.info domain names of all Members under Main Classification/Category headings, e.g. Accommodation/Farmhouses. This new Wales Directory will be marketed worldwide via major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Network to create good quality enquiries for Members as well as the right quantity. Please click here for more details. The full significance of these new developments will be immediately clear to Members who have been following our articles on Internet Search Engines and how they work: in the article entitled 'Converting Enquiries into Bookings' in last month's bulletin we spoke of 1.2m searches made each year that relate to Wales. The monthly figures vary, of course, and in March this year - a busy month ahead of the main holiday season - the number of Wales-related searches surged to 168,000, nearly twice the monthly average. It follows that domain names and email addresses with "Wales" in them as a separate word are going to capture more of this Internet traffic than any others, and that targeted campaigns for Wales that use these are likely to achieve more bookings. So please join us as we embark on this exciting new chapter in Staying in Wales' development: Please click on the index items below to read the full articles in this Bulletin. Click here to print out the full Bulletin. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Brand New Option! Bullet-Point Benefits Converting Enquiries into Bookings; Part 2 New Search by Category for Attractions Welsh Spoken-Siaradur Gymraeg Visit Wales; Correction! The Staying in Wales-Aros yng Nghymru Team Helpline Opening Hours Archive Next Bulletin 1. Brand New Option! Full Members are offered an exclusive Wales.info Domain Name and 5 x Email Addresses package for just £2.99 monthly including VAT with a 20% discount available covering the period June-December. To secure their names and addresses, Full Members - accommodation members only at this stage - should go direct to http://www.stayinginwales.com/walesinfo/welcome.asp?unique_id={unique_id} where their details are waiting. Alternatively, please email wales.info@stayinginwales.com with "Registration" in the subject window and your property name in the body of the email. Associate Members signing up to become Full Members during May can obtain the same package combined with Full Membership for just £8.99 monthly including VAT as follows: Staying in Wales Full Membership Wales.info domain name Wales.info email addresses x 5 FREE Wales.info directory entry FREE Wales.info interactive location mapping (entry level>>zoom) 20% discount covering June-December available until 2nd June 2005. To secure their names and addresses and become Full Members at the same time, Associate Members - accommodation members only at this stage - should go to http://www.stayinginwales.com/walesinfo/welcome_am.asp?unique_id={unique_id} where their details are also waiting. Alternatively, please email wales.info@stayinginwales.com with "Membership" in the subject window and your property name in the body of the email. Please email info@stayinginWales.com or contact the Staying in Wales Helpline on 01766 543011 if you have any queries. 2. Bullet-Point Benefits We continue to be asked by Associate Members about the benefits of becoming a Full Member of Staying in Wales so here they are again including today's breaking news : Searches by Region and Marketing Area Searches by County, Village and Town Searches by Category and Keyphrase Interactive location mapping Interactive online calendar Twelve information channels Booking enquiries Own website clickthroughs Performance measurement Wales.info options (see 'Brand New Options!' above) Visitor newsletters Market research Online focus groups Telephone helpline support* Members bulletin* Newsflash services* *These items are available to all Members. 3. Converting Enquiries into Bookings; Part 2 In the "Breaking News" introduction at the beginning ot this Bulletin we spoke of 168,000 Wales-related searches made on the Internet in March, and in last month's Bulletin we said we would be looking at simple new ways of boosting online conversion rates and avoiding time wasters. So there's no better place to start than by looking more closely at the 168,000 searches to see how much weeding out can be done. In fact, only 31% of these searches (52,132 in total) can be said to relate directly or indirectly to overnight accommodation and even then there's some doubt. We cannot say, for example, that every b) Regional search made is with a view to visiting Wales: a) Accommodation related: 18% (29,764) b) Regional searches: 8% (13,890) c) Other related: 5% (8,478) So what have we got? Pretty well the same rule that can be applied universally to any form of targeting, which is known as Pareto's principle. It simply says that 20% of the effort gives 80% of the reward. It was the same principle that was used by This Week® Wales in the 1990s, which earnt it so many accolades from visitors and trade. Every newspaper distributed found its mark with startling accuracy; each one filled with information that visitors thirsted after. So nothing changes, just a new medium to be mastered - but an even more dynamic one this time - and instead of setting out to prevent a waste of newspapers and money we've set out this time to prevent a waste of time, which IS money. The last thing our Members want is to have their email boxes crammed with unproductive enquiries. In next month's bulletin we'll be looking in detail at Staying in Wales' new and radical approach to this issue. 4. New Search for Attractions by Category    We're delighted to announce that the new search for Attraction by Category is now functioning at http://www.stayinginwales.com/attract_category_search.asp and that we shall be adding new categories on a continuous basis. All subscribing Attractions will be marketed in conjunction with Wales.info under the heading Attractions.Wales.info and individual campaigns will be launched covering individual categories such as Castles.Wales.info. Through the unique GIS InterHub™ system powering the Staying in Wales network, visitors will then be able in singular clicks to locate overnight accommodation, restaurants and events etc in the neighbourhood of each Attraction found. All Attractions approved under the Wales Tourist Board's Visitor Attractions Quality Assurance Scheme are depicted with the VAQAS logo to make them stand out as deserved. 5. Welsh Spoken-Siaradir Gymraeg    We''ll be including a new "Welsh Spoken-Siaradir Gymraeg" category in all our searches soon and all such Members will be marked in search result Listing pages with the Welsh Language Board's new badge shown on the left. Please email info@stayinginwales.com with Welsh Spoken in the subject window and your property name in the body of the mail if you wish to be included in these Listings. At the same time you'll be able to order up a stock of the new badges, free, for you and your Welsh-speaking staff to be recognised. 6. Visit Wales; Correction! A large number of you have joined us from MyBusiness.VisitWales.com where we spotted a warning message recently on their Notice Board that came as something of a shock. It helped solve a mystery that cropped up earlier this year when no less a person than the Secretary of WASCO seriously berated us for bad practice. We were accused, quite falsely, of issuing invoices to anyone that clicked innocently on the Staying in Wales distribution button at MyBusiness. We explained in great detail and to everyone's satisfaction at the time that this was not the case, nor had it ever been, and that on the contrary we provide free listings to all Associate Members with options to subscribe to Full Members benefits only if they wish to do so. We've no idea who committed the calumny in the first place and we're not really interested. What we do know though is that the message has now been removed and replaced by the following correct message at the point of selection: Staying in Wales is a network of websites designed to help visitors find accommodation fast and plan days out before arriving. If you select this distribution channel you become an Associate Member with your information listed free in appropriate Category Searches (http://StayingInWales.com/category_search.asp) and you will be emailed the Members Bulletin each month. There are options to become a Full Member of Staying in Wales for a monthly or annual subscription but this is not obligatory. For more details please visit their website: http://www.StayingInWales.com/MyAccount. So all's well that ends well and everyone can go safely back into the water. 7. The Staying in Wales/Aros yng Nghymru Team The Staying in Wales/Aros yng Nghymru Team is totally dedicated to the interests of Wales' visitors and consequent advancement of Members' businesses. The team works year round with Members to provide fast, accurate information to visitors, drawing on expertise second to none in the UK: Sion Thomas, Helpline Manager Dorothy Williams, Helpline Assistant Llinos Griffin, Helpline Assistant Elena Roberts, Helpline Assistant Terry Jackson, Project Co-ordinator Arvind Nehru, Network Manager Roger Thomas, Content Manager William Worship, Image Management Alison Davies, Mapping Tony Davies, Mapping John Harrington, Cartography Harish Nehru, Software Aamer Sardar, Software Richard Edwards, Software Design Consultant Tom Pollock, Graphic Design Consultant Phil Evans, Interactive Digital Television Consultant With special thanks to Kim Colebrook, Head of Information and New Media at VisitWales and Steven Potter, Marketing Director, London Marketing at LondonTown.com in Llundain. 8. Helpline Opening Hours NB A Welsh and English language voicemail service operates outside all opening times shown below. Simply leave your name and telephone number and your call will be returned without fail. Staying in Wales 01766 543011* Open Weekdays: 9am-8pm Closed Weekends *Local call rates: 4.2p/min 8am-6pm; 4p all other times. (35 miles.) *National call rates: 6.7p/min 8am-6pm; 4p all other times. (35 miles+.) Visit Wales 08708 300 301** Open Weekdays: 9am-8pm Open Weekends: 9am-6pm **National call rates: 6.7p/min at all times. 9. Archive Please click here for archive copies of previous Members Bulletins and Market Research information. 10. Next Bulletin - Update on Merger Proposals. - Traveline Cymru News. - Email Enquiry Management. - Three Cs of Internet Marketing; Community, Culture, Commerce © This Week® Wales 2005 This bulletin is sent to you as a Full Member or Associate Member of StayingInWales.com. A downloadable PDF version is available at http://www.StayingInWales.com/partners/membersbulletin5.pdf (40Kb, 30sec). We value any comments you may have regarding its content and will publish those we feel could prove beneficial to all Members, unless asked not to. Please address you comments to bulletin@stayinginwales.com. Full Information & Conditions © Copyright Staying in Wales Limited 2005. This site is powered by This Week GIS InterHub. This Week is a UK Registered Trade Mark(No. 2173032UK) licensed in Wales to Staying in Wales Limited, Parc Penamser, Porthmadog LL49 9GB.