Backpack Network - Official Newsletter
Business, February 2004
Volume 1, Edition 1

Dear Business Associates,
We are pleased to welcome you to our first edition of the Business Backpackglobe.com newsletter. We apologise for the delay sending this out, as we were actually travelling ourselves and waiting for more interest which has just blossomed! We hope you will help us cater this newsletter in future for all your interests and help fill content in the bulletin. So feel free to write in and tell us what you would like to hear.

In this edition we detail:
- working with us (BGlobal)
- hostel and hotel industry news: bulletin board
- marketing your hostel/guesthouse/travel agency: tips and tricks
- benefits and development of a website
- useful inks


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WORKING WITH US (BGLOBAL)
We are actually independent travellers and developed our network under the mother site http://www.backpackglobe.com for other independent minded people who want something different out of their travel. For more information you can read about_us

Our network of country specific sites are:
Backpack Italy - http://www.backpackitaly.com
Backpack France - http://www.backpackfrance.com
Backpack Spain - http://www.backpackspain.com

In the immediate future we will publish these sites online:
Backpack Oceania - http://www.backpackoceania.com
Backpack Great Britain - http://www.backpackgreatbritain.com
To see the other sites we plan to develop go to: http://www.backpackglobe.com/BP_Countries/index.asp
We hope you can understand some of our vision and may desire to be involved. Here are some things you can consider:

Free Signup for Tour Groups
You can add your tours online to our booking engine. Simply click here

Free Signup for Accomodation Owners
To add your accomodation online to our booking engine go to this url: http://www.backpackglobe.com/join_bp/form_01.asp
If you are already a member of the engine there is no need to sign up again.

Advertising
Our sites have registered almost 100 visitors per day on average during this winter season. We expect this to double by spring time and continue to improve throughout the summer. Advertising can be a very good way to promote your business and target our readers. We have some specials on advertising in winter so please contact us at advertising@backpackglobe.com for more details. Some of the more specific pages to advertise on include the specific city guide of the service you offer. They are also some of the most popular pages on the sites.
Eg. if you are a hotel or hostel in Rome you may wish to advertise on the Rome City Guide
If you run a travel agency in Barcelona you may choose to advertise on the Barcelona City Guide

Link Exchange
We will consider link exchanges with established sites of good SEO activity.
Please contact us for details at editor@backpackglobe.com
Please consider exchanging links with all of our sites pertinent to yours.

Partnership
If you have any ideas to propose that we have not covered here please email
us at partnership@backpackglobe.com

Other Business
Please contact francesco@backpackglobe.com


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HOSTEL AND HOTEL NEWS: BULLETIN BOARD

Guesthouse for Sale - Sri Lanka
Mrs Laleeni Jayawardane in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka, is searching for a partner
to help her share the renovation costs and profits of running her guesthouse
by the sea. Hikkaduwa is famous for it's coral and beach side location and
offers guests great snorkelling and diving opportunities. The guesthouse
"Dharshana" fronts onto the beach in a prime location in Hikkaduwa. It is a
relaxed bed and breakfast style accommodation and enjoys a regular patronage
of international travellers mainly from England and France. The site editor,
Jo Lane, recently visited Hikkaduwa and met with Mrs Jayawardane. For
details about the guesthouse online try the following url's:
To contact Mrs Laleeni Jayawardane directly email dhushy@sltnet.lk

Backpackers for Sale - South Africa
Nad from Crosspackers in South Africa is keen to sell his backpackers.
Please refer all questions to Nad but the asking price is R-550,000 all
included. To contact Nad email bomsi@crosswaysbeach.co.za
You can get more information from the site http://www.crosswaysbeach.co.za
Crossways Beach Backpackers, 61 Regent Avenue, Durban. Bluff. Tel. +27 31
4666459 (office) and +27 72 1124413 (cell)

If you would like to add your news to this bulletin board we are happy to consider all requests. Email editor@backpackglobe.com


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MARKETING YOUR HOSTEL/GUESTHOUSE
Our tips and tricks come from experience. We actually started these websites from a hostel in Tuscany, Italy that our family ran so we are able to offer you tips from our own experience. If you actually want some professional help we would be happy to assist you for a small fee. If you have the time to put in the time and leg work yourself then it's actually a very low cost procedure (the major investment is time and patience!) Here are some ideas:

Network with other guesthouses/hotels in nearby areas
Establish a repoir with other managers and owners so you can recommend each others guesthouses to travellers moving in that direction. Consider an exchange of leaflets, cards and brochures for display in your reception. You can also recommend or book for your own visitors at the reciprocal hotel.

Add your accomodation free online
It's free to add your accomodation to our online database. You can then enjoy the benefit of a free listing plus receive bookings from travellers from around the world. Simply go to this link http://www.backpackglobe.com/join_bp/form_01.asp and fill out the form. Please register your beds online within 28 days.

Travellers Reviews and Recommendations
Get visitors who enjoyed your guesthouse to write in to the major guidebooks (eg. Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommer's, Fodors, Special Places to Stay, Footprint, Passport). Also get them to paste reveiws online to major websites about their stay. We recommend our website as a starting point. Reviews can be added online at the following urls but we do not accept them from accomodation owners (traveller's only):
Worldwide
France
Italy
Spain

Some other places to post reviews include:
Bug Europe - European, South Pacific and Asian locations - http://www.bugeurope.com
Eurotrip - European Locations - http://www.eurotrip.com
BackpackEurope - European locations - http://www.backpackeurope.com
Backpacking Europe - European locations - http://www.backpackingeurope.com
Hostelz - Worldwide locations - http://www.hostelz.com

Exchange links
Swap links with other hostels/guesthouses, especially those with a website presence in your country. This helps increase your presence on the internet.

Update your website
Keep your website up to date with prices and information and make sure you answer email promptly! If you don't have a website read our ideas about this below.

Exchange flyers
Give out business cards and flyers to travel agents, guesthouses, put them up at the local train or bus station, travel information bureaus. Find your local hotel guide and take out a listing.

Word of Mouth
By far the best promotional method is the word of mouth of other traveller's. Make a good impression on your guests and they won't hesitate to tell others about your services.


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BENEFITS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A WEBSITE
A web presence is one of the best marketing tools you can use to promote your business. With the new technology age travellers are searching for information more and more online as it not only cheaper than buying a guidebook but they don't have to cart heavy books around with them as they move. The process of designing a website does not have to be difficult. Here are some guidelines:

Take a look around
First take a look at what other guesthouses have on their websites. Our guesthouse website is a good place to start - http://www.bassettoguesthouse.com
Site design is like a tree with branches coming from the root (home page) and intersecting with each other. Usually guesthouse web pages are dedicated to the following areas:
- an introduction and basic services offered
- costs of staying, room descriptions, food offered
- getting there
- activities offered
- photographs of the rooms and premises
- contact details - perhaps a reservation page

Register a domain
You can easily do this yourself online with a credit card. It usually costs about USD $50 per year to register a domain but there are cheaper options. Go to http://www.buydomains.com as one option or http://www.lunarpages.com The more specific the direction of the domain the better. There are also free sites available at places like http://www.geocities.com If you want someone to purchase the domain for you it may cost a little more.

Develop text
Keep the text and information clear and concise and up to date. The pages should also be user friendly with easy to use links within the site.

Website design
This is the area that may cost you a bit of money. If you have some idea about basic page design then try and do it yourself. Keep it simple, web pages do not have to look fancy, they just need to be easy to use with clear information. If you need help designing a website we would be happy to assist you, but we would charge a small fee. Alternatively use microsoft front page which is a package that comes on most computers to develop the site pages yourself. To upload the pages to the internet you will need an ftp program like Cute FTP which is available for a sample download trial here - http://www.cuteftp.com

Website maintenance
Again if you don't know much about the internet you will need someone to help maintain your site. Usually the person that designed the site and uploads it to the internet will be able to do this but you may need an ongoing fee.

Search engine optimisation
Once your site is online you need to make sure it is registered with the major search engines like Yahoo, Google, AltaVista, Search the Web etc. Click here for links to add your site to free engines. If you are entering them yourself you need to add meta tags and keywords and a description to your site pages so the web crawlers use the right information when scrolling your site. Sometimes the search engine submit site will ask you to include the description. Make sure you use the same as is used on your site.

We are able to help with website design. Please email us your requirements to editor@backpackglobe.com


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USEFUL LINKS
Links for web maintenance and SEO tips
Site Pro News
Information about optimising your website for search engines, regular newsletters and lots of industry contacts
http://www.sitepronews.com

Internetseer
Website monitoring services, both free and payable. One service includes a robot that checks your site every day and reports when it is down.
http://www.internetseer.com

Aardvark Travel
Worldwide search engine for business, sport and travel. They also send you an email when someone has accessed your site from there's. Free and payable listings available.
http://www.aardvarktravel.net

Business Bulletin Boards
We regularly list new information on our business bulletin boards. Check out the link below for details or to add your own bulletin:
Worldwide
Italy
France
Spain

Suggest a link
If you have a useful link for this section email to editor@backpackglobe.com


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We hope you found our newsletter interesting and helpful. If you would like to make any comments or see something different in the newsletter email us at editor@backpackglobe.com

If you would like to unsubscribe from this newsletter go to this url:
http://www.backpackglobe.com/join_bp/newsletter.asp

For more information on travelling around the globe check out our sites:
http://www.backpackitaly.com
http://www.backpackfrance.com
http://www.backpackspain.com
http://www.backpackglobe.com
http://www.backpackoceania.com - coming soon!

Disclaimer
This newsletter is a free service based on subscribtion.
If you have received this message in error or you received duplicates,
you may easily unsubscribe from our newsletter by clicking on the link below:
http://www.backpackglobe.com/join_bp/newsletter.asp