Gower Holidays

‘Let me advertise your holiday business on the internet – choose “Gower Holidays”
for a friendly, honest and reliable service.’

Statistics show that there are now more people booking their holiday from information that they have gathered from the internet then ever before. They want to know exactly where they are going to and they want to be able to explore the area and to find out what it has to offer them before they arrive. Perhaps most importantly, they want to be able to preview the accommodation to ensure that it will suit their needs.

Gower Holidays is a web portal and aims to bring all this information together within one site. If someone is looking to stay in Gower, they can search either by their preferred destination, via the interactive map or village page, or by their choice of accommodation from the menu (see the left hand side of the screen).

In 2008 a database and search facility was added to the site. Anyone trying to find accommodation can narrow down their options to the accommodation that best suits their needs in terms of type, location, facilities and maybe more importantly, by date. A search takes seconds to perform and saves the user literally hours.

There is no charge to Gower Holidays clients for their property to be part of the search facility, but if a client chooses to display their bookings, they must ensure that they are always kept up to date.

The main part of the site follows a consistent “look and feel” throughout. If a customer chose ‘self-catering’ from the menu, the self-catering page would be displayed. The accommodation is grouped by village and shows basic information and contact details. E.g. phone number, e-mail address.

The small (thumbnail) photographs expand into a larger photograph when it is clicked on.

More detailed information about a particular property can be attained by clicking on the hyperlinks (the text underlined in blue) to its web page. The hyperlinks are either the name of the property or the 'more' button.
e.g. Riverside Cottage, Middleton, Rhossili:

The property is given a list of points that can be viewed ‘at a glance’.  Then each room can be visited in turn, in a virtual tour of the property and its features highlighted. 

Optional seasonal/weekly price lists can be added, as well as a booking form, additional photos and a Google map that gives potential customers an accurate, visual representation as to the location of your property.

You could further invest in a web address.  This could then be quoted in any other forms of advertising and would direct potential customers straight to your advert.  It simply makes even better use of your advert.

Virtually Here
A new, additional stage of advertising called “Virtually Here” is now available.  This consists of short video clips of the rooms of your property. 
An example can be seen by following this link:

http://www.the-gower.com/self-catering/littlehillend/tour/tour.html

Pricing and stages of advertising

There are a number of different stages that may be of interest.

Stage 1 – Landscape orientation, exterior thumbnail photograph and up to 270 characters (including spaces and punctuation) of text and a link to your website, if you have one.

Please note that if you own multiple properties there are surcharges which may apply. These are detailed in the Terms and Conditions of advertising.

Stage 2 – A full web page. Up to three photographs and as much plain text as you wish.

Optional extras include:

• Extra photographs
• Booking form
• Price list (albeit the ability to add a price list is free on the search facility)
• Your property on a Google map

Stage 3 – Web address registration and re-direction.

e.g. www.the-gower.com/self-catering/Riverside/Riverside_cottage.htm becomes www.riversidegower.co.uk
This shortened web address can be used in correspondence, in adverts, on business cards and given to phone enquirers, as a place where they can find more information.

Stage 4  “Virtually Here” - Short video clips of the rooms of your property. 

Stage 5 – Standalone website. Please contact me with your requirements for further information.

Please note that this information should be read in conjunction with the Gower Holidays Terms and Conditions of Advertising which can be found here and the privacy policy which can be found here.

Please get in touch for price information, 01792 390339 or email

Frequently asked questions

• How do people know where to find your website, if they have never heard of it?
Most people would not enter the address of a website when searching for something on the internet. They would be more likely to use a ‘search engine’. Search engines trawl all the websites in the world and categorise them by the information that they present. Whoever is looking for that information, enters a few words relevant to their search. Imagine that you were looking for a holiday in Gower. What words would you enter into a search engine in order for it to find what you were looking for? Gower? Holidays? Gower Peninsula? Gower holiday accommodation? Gower cottages? Gower B&B?
The world’s largest search engine is Google. It services more than two-thirds of the people who use the internet. Gower Holidays is recognised by Google and many relevant searches will place us on the first page of results. Gower Holidays is also recognised by Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AskJeeves, Altavista, Hotbot, BBC, Tiscali, Ntlworld, Aol, Ukplus and many more.

• What exactly is a web portal?
A portal is a website that groups many individual, but related pieces of information together.
e.g. self-catering accommodation within Gower.
Some businesses already have their own websites, but if a potential customer accesses the internet and enters a non-specific search into the search engine, they could be bombarded with thousands of results that potentially answer their question. They are then faced with the tedious task of visiting every site in turn, to eliminate the irrelevant ones. Gower Holidays makes it easier for the end-user to disseminate the information. It acts like an index in a book. The user can see a brief overview of their area of interest before they choose to delve deeper. Gower Holidays also includes many photographs of the breathtaking scenery around Gower, hopefully encouraging more people to visit the area.

• How many people are visiting your site and how do you know?
In 2004, an average of 140 people a day visited the site, this rose to 290 in 2005, to 500 in 2006 and increased to over 700 during 2007. Tracking software is running on the website that provides information as to where each visitor comes from and how they reached us, as well as lots of other useful technical information.

• Where do your visitors come from?
Most of the visitors to the website come from the UK, but I have had enquiries from Oman, Australia, America and from other countries in Europe.

• Can I quote a web address in any correspondence that I have with my customers?
Yes. There are two options, each web page that is created for an individual has its own URL. To take the previous example of The Gables, the address (URL) is
www.the-gower.com/self-catering/Riverside/Riverside_cottage.htm
However, that is rather long winded. For a modest sum that amounts to £25 for two years, I can register your own web address and point it to the relevant page, hence the URL for Riverside Cottage becomes
www.riversidegower.co.uk
This is also an economic way of effectively having your own web presence.

• I already advertise elsewhere. If I advertise with you, should I continue with them?
Most companies these days have the facility to incorporate a web address within the business details of an advert. If you don’t have a website, why not get your own web page and compete with those who already do?
Do many potential customers ask you if you have a website that they can look at? It could save you time since the number of brochures that you send out could be reduced significantly if you redirect your potential guests to your website instead.

• Do I have to be registered with any organisation e.g. Welsh Tourist Board in order to advertise with you?
No. Each advertisement is run on its own merits. If you are graded it can be included, but Gower Holidays does not give you a grading.

• I already have my own website to advertise my business. What more can you offer me?
As mentioned above, Gower Holidays is a portal of information and the more businesses I can advertise on the site, the more useful the site becomes to the end user. I have also encountered a number of ‘invisible’ web sites since I started the business. Those websites are those that the general public are not visiting as a matter of course, but being linked by Gower Holidays is a good way for traffic to be directed to your website. I can add a photo of your property, contact details and link to your website for a nominal yearly fee.

• What is your Customer Sharing Scheme?
The Gower Holidays free “customer sharing scheme” works in two ways:

1. Firstly, to people who are looking to come to the area and are having difficulty finding suitable accommodation, either because they do not have a computer, are computer illiterate or simply don’t have time to ring around, Gower Holidays offers to undertake a free search on their behalf.
2. Secondly, Gower Holidays encourages all those who advertise on the website, to pass back to the website any enquiries that they cannot satisfy themselves.  The potential customer can then try to secure accommodation through the website or contact Gower Holidays for help (as above)

This has worked well to date and it is hoped that with clients’ continued co-operation, it will become even more successful. 

• Should I have a website, or advertise on a website if I don’t own a computer?
You don’t need a computer to advertise on a website. The fact is that more and more households do have a computer and searching the internet for things like holidays is becoming increasingly popular.

• If I advertise with you and I need to change some of my information, when can I do that?
Information can be updated quickly and easily at any time of year.   Up to three minor updates e.g. price range, a line of text, change of photo are included in the yearly renewal price.

• I think that having my own website would be beneficial. Can you help me?
Of course. If you would prefer to have the independence of your own website, then please get in touch and I will gladly answer any questions that you may have. You can preview my portfolio of websites by visiting www.selinataylor.co.uk