Hello to all of our Wine Road Lodging Members –
We held a brainstorming meeting today at the Best Western Dry Creek Inn.
The purpose was to discuss ways in which Wine Road could drive more traffic to our lodging members, and slow down the trail of visitors heading to VRBO and Airbnb or even hotels and B & B’s that are out of our geographic area.
These are the topics we covered today:
How can lodgings be included & promoted during our Wine & Food Affair event in November 2-3.
1. Create lodging packages that include event tickets. Have exclusive offers for their guests only during the event.
Wine Road to showcase links to those packages via a callout on our home page, then again on our ticket page.
Wine Road can begin to tease those offers this summer, via social media, once we have firm details.
2. Lodgings to partner with wineries to offer a dinner with a winemaker, or a cooking class or breakfast with a winemaker on the Thursday or Friday prior to the event weekend. Thus promoting a longer stay. Also Sunday and Monday offers to extend the weekend.
3. Allow lodgings with Wine & Food Affair packages to check-in their guests for the weekend event. Lodgings to arrange for picking up supplies.
Airbnb and Vacation Rentals
1. The lodgings present, even those that offer a room or two via Airbnb do not want to see Wine Road promote that as option to our visitors.
2. The same goes for Vacation Rentals, the lodgings present do not want to see Wine Road add vacation rentals as members or promote them.
“Book It Now” or Reservation Button on WineRoad.com
1. It was suggested that we DO include a “Book It Now” button on our website, even if it just leads to a lodging reservation page. Our members use a variety of booking/reservations systems, so there is no one solution that would allow a website visitor to book a room with a click.
Additional Topics
1. Can Wine Road create a calendar of social media posts that are directed specifically toward promoting our lodging members? Yes, we’ll get that into a format we can share with you.
2. Can we invite a lodging representative to be a guest on our WineRoadPodcast to talk about “booking directly” and how much it costs a property when guests go through Expedia, Travelocity etc. They could also address itineraries, for guests to come to Wine Road mid week, when they would have more time and attention in the wineries, and better room rates, then go to SF on the weekends, when those rates are lower. Have a lodging member give their “insider” advice. To that end, promote the hashtag #bookdirect Beth will look at our podcast schedule and then invite a lodging to be a guest. We can work that into a quarterly topic. Sort of a “did you know” section for visitors.
Finally…
We talked about the Member Meet & Greet scheduled for May 15th from 11:0-1:00 at the Kendall-Jackson Estate & Gardens.
This is a “mini trade show” for our lodging members. This is an opportunity for lodgings to show off their property to wineries that may not be familiar with their property. Lodgings can arrange for winemakers to pour for their guests, possibly arrange for some wine club specials for partner wineries…the sky is the limit! Please plan to attend and set up a small display table to show off your flyers, rack cards, photos etc.
RSVP to Beth@wineroad.com by May 8th.
Lunch and wine provided by Kendall-Jackson.
What we need from YOU now…
1. RSVP for May 15th HERE (details are attached).
2. Let Beth know if YOU are thinking about offering a Wine & Food Affair package.
AND let Beth know if you’d like to connect with a winery for part of that package, by offering a winemaker dinner, a wine tasting, cooking with the winemaker, private winery tour for your guests etc…again, the sky is the limit.
Once we hear from you, will create a list of lodgings looking to partner with a winery, and vise versa.
3. “Book it now”, button should we connect with; Jack Rabbit, Think Reservations, Reservation Key, or should it just say “book it now” and simply link to your reservation page? Let me know your preference, we’ll see what the majority has to say and what is the easiest to manage on our end to implement.
DEADLINE for any type of Wine & Food Affair package is June 30th.
I tried to hit the highlights, if I left anything out, please shoot me a note and I’ll update the recap in our next Weekly Member Memo.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to attend today.
Regards,
Beth