Ask The Local Eye

2010 Soccer tournament is closing in on us. What is all the hype about 450 000 soccer fans? Well, if we wait for FIFA they will take all the profits. I suggest you start taking serious action. For example…. I get alerts (see 5) any online news where the phrases related to guest houses and  [...]

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I have been thinking about and researching how small local business in South Africa market their businesses for the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup. I specifically looked at guest house marketing strategies for 2010 Soccer World Cup. But I could not find any unique ways. For example; when I searched Twitter for the phrase 2010 [...]

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Expedia and other business may be slow to adopt the tweeting language. Not you. And, even if your business clients are not yet using social media find away to create an online spoor for the day they want to find you.  Johan Horak Online Marketing Tips Newsletter Using Social Media Like Twitter. Holiday Home Management [...]

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I read about Expedia's blunder, that they sorted out, eventually….. The couple's drama began Tuesday, Nov. 3, when they arrived in Frankfurt and couldn't board their St. Petersburg flight without visas, despite being told by an Expedia agent that they weren't required. Their bad luck escalated: Expedia told them they had no record of the [...]

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There are actually several different factors to consider when you are trying to figure out how often to clean your home. First of all, consider the number of people in your home. If there are only a couple people in the home, you can wait longer between cleaners. However, a home that has four or [...]

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As you know we provide holiday home management services in the False Bay area; including Simon's Town, Fish Hoek, Noord Hoek, St James, Kalk Bay, Kommetjie, and Scarborough. Some of these services can be provided to holiday home owners who are not within our travelling range. For example, online marketing of holiday homes is a [...]

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Online listing is one of the most effective methods of advertising your holiday home rental property. Nowadays, there are several holiday rental websites to choose from and you have the option to either choose one or many. The latter, however, will prove to be the most efficient choice. Listing your holiday home rental to several [...]

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I want to thank WhaleCottage, a really active Twitter Guest House pioneer, for the opportunity to discuss practical marketing issues regarding social media. As I alluded to, it's not easy to get guests to socially connect, if they are not on any social media site. And this is true for many South Africans, as we [...]

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Yesterday, I read a tweet by WhaleCottage and it reminded me of the difficulty we have in using social media effectively. Let's have a look at the following example where the owner of this guest house published a guest's testimonial.    Even though, you know it's more credible when your guest or clients, rather than [...]

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HomeGain regularly conducts a home improvement survey. Although the survey was done, to advice sellers when preparing their home for sale, the same ideas is applicable to holiday home owners who want to make their home generate an income from their home. Cleaning and de-cluttering (the holiday home owner tend to get store blind and [...]

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