Fiji Hotel Chain Provides an Alternative to Packaged Tourism – Travel
Fiji Hotel Chain Provides an Alternative to Packaged Tourism
Elain Barrett-Power
The owners of Fijis largest budget accommodation chain have decided to counter the burgeoning bus and package tour trade by refocusing on the independent traveler.
With more and more visitors being booked onto pre-arranged itineraries straight off the plane in Nadi, Cathay Hotels Fiji Limited has made a conscious choice to do things a lot differently. Theyre betting on the market niche of those who prefer to make their own decisions about where to go and what to do.
Guests at their flagship property, Tubakula Beach Bungalows on the Coral Coast, an hour south of the international airport, have cooking facilities built into their units, relieving them of the need to purchase pricy resort meals. In keeping with the laid-back atmosphere, there are no TVs, telephones, or mini-bars in the rooms, although these are readily available in the main building, where theres also an inexpensive restaurant serving tasty local-style food.
The lagoon in front of Tubakula has been identified as a suitable nursery site for corals, and re-planting has begun. According to Cathay Hotels Fiji general manager Elain Barrett-Power, "Tubakula Beach Bungalows has long had a policy of minimal interference with the natural marine and coastal environment and does not offer tourist-oriented watersports in the lagoon; this means that the corals will be able to re-generate undisturbed."
At the Saweni Beach Apartment Hotel, north of Nadi Airport, the 12 one-bedroom apartments have been fully renovated with new beds and modern kitchens. This quiet property will appeal to mature travelers or couples and families in search of a peaceful retreat. As at Tubakula, starting prices are in the US$50 range, and theres a 10 percent discount on stays of a week or more.
Close to Saweni, the Cathay Hotel in Fijis second city Lautoka is a good alternative to the tourist ghettos of nearby Nadi. Lautokas bustling market is wonderfully picturesque, and there are countless eating and drinking options around town. Rugby players from all over Fiji come to compete at Churchill Park behind the hotel, and to prepare themselves for careers in international sports. Hotel guests can watch the action from the hotels lounge bar, and maybe meet a few of the future superstars, many of whom will be staying at the hotel. Rooms at the Cathay are budget priced.
In Fijis capital, Suva, Cathay Hotels Fiji operates the venerable South Seas Private Hotel near Albert Park. The floors of this backpacker institution have recently been sanded and polished to reveal the original Oregon pine timber flooring imported in the 1930s. Colorful canvas awnings are being fitted across the front of the building to provide additional shade and add ambience of this historic property. According to Barrett-Power, "South Seas has long catered to independent travellers looking for the real South Pacific, and we continue to resist the trend towards the package and coach tour circuit." As usual, South Seas guests have access to full cooking facilities, and the gamut of accommodations ranges from low budget dorms to simple but spotless rooms with fan.
About The Author
Cathay Hotels Fiji is a locally-owned company which operates the Cathay Hotel, Saweni Beach Apartment Hotel, Tubakula Beach Bungalows, Travel Inn, and South Seas Private Hotel. Their rates are non-commissionable and sold direct to the travelling public. They offer you clean, comfortable, and unpretentious accommodation, friendly staff, terrific locations, and excellent value-for-money rates. Visitors preferring more upmarket or full-service hotels will not find their properties suitable. Detailed information on all properties, including discounts and special offers, is available on their website http://www.fiji4less.com and in Moon Handbooks Fiji http://www.southpacific.org/fiji.html
cathay@connect.com.fj
An Ethical Alternative to "Doorway Pages" – Affiliate Programs
An Ethical Alternative to "Doorway Pages"
Scott Smigler
Definition: A doorway page is content created specifically for the purpose of garnering high placements in the search engines.
Issue: Google makes the following specific recommendation: Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content http://www.google.com/intl/az/webmasters/guidelines.html.
This article addresses the issue of doorway pages, proposes an acceptable alternative and offers some insights into the basic principles of search engine optimization.
To frame the issue of doorway pages it is important to understand why content is so critical to search engine optimization. In order to do this we need to step back and take a look at the search engines themselves:
Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all other search engines want to provide the same thing: A prioritized list of links that point to most relevant web sites satisfying the users search criteria.
Relevance is defined as the
Affiliate Alternative; Google Adsense – Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Alternative; Google Adsense
Sharon Housley
The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort. However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs. Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engines clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue. An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.
A Healthy Alternative or Supplement
Googles Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Googles pay-per-click Adword results. This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Googles spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the websites content. While the Googles Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.
The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage. If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral.
The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity. A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the websites color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.
The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically dont fit well into the overall website design.
sample modified to match sites color scheme:
http://www.hospital-software.com scroll to the bottom
Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors.
sample of poorly targeted ads:
http://www.real-estate-supply.com
Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless.
sample of effective Adsense program:
http://www.police-supplies.com scroll to the bottom
http://www.small-business-software.net scroll to the bottom
Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems.as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has not implemented any way to track multiple sites that serve ads; they simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day. Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click. Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.
With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser.
Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domains ads from being served on the website. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website.
Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs dont exist that target the sites content.
Give it a Try
Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters. Consider supplementing content and see what happens.
About The Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.small-business-software.net