Register for free at http://VisualBookingsTechnology. com for the latest news on visual marketing. The visual web is hear and moving forward to encompass all we search for and do on the internet. This report looks at the phenomena of Pinterest and other Visual services and shows how it can be applied to travel and tourism marketing. The real life case study of http://VisualBookingsTechnology.com is examined. Check out how one destination portal increased engagement by 500% and got 3 times the rate of leads to its members sites! CREDITS. We have adapted the sales funnel from Smartinsights.com - check them out and see their slideshare on the sales funnel. Our sales funnel is oriented to the visual marketing and proprietary strategies that we use. ready the text its different but the steps are the same.

1. Visual Marketing Technology
Rich content
builds brand rank
& AUTHORITY
Proprietary
marketing systems
get MORE LEADS
Interactive visual
content ENGAGES
more travellers
Personalized visual
response doubles
CONVERTION
Visual Bookings Technology is an interactive travel planning and
tourism marketing machine that doubles engagement of your
website visitors. Using advanced tracking and matchmaking
technology, it transforms a destination website into a state-of-the-
art, personalized visual experience where travellers stay longer, do
more and convert: No matter what booking engine is used.
IntroducingVisual Planning, Marketing & Bookings for Tourism
Double Engagement & Conversion

2. give value to members with more engaged travellers
Visual Communications
the future of tourism
Hotels Benefit
Table Of Contents
get more qualified leads
Travellers Benefit
a fun and effective way to plan and book travel
Visual Marketing
Destinations Benefit
Visual Travel
build authority and get more traffic

3. The Future of Tourism Marketing is Visual
2012 and 2013 have been the years of image. No matter if they are pins, vanity photos, info-graphics,
videos, travel shares or commerce, social sites that feature visuals over text - like Pinterest, Instagram and
Tumblr - have set the trend in user growth and in the billion-dollar valuations.Our team has always been
aware of the power of visual communication in video, image and all forms of graphics. But we were
compelled to act by our own experience in using the new ‘visual first’ sites. It began by seeing the
tremendous growth of Pinterest in 2012 which is based on visually organizing information. http://
www.pinterest.com/pin/52284045645718826/
Not only was Pinterest attracting a huge following, its click through rates in delivering traffic to merchants/
publishers is significantly higher than other social channels such as Twitter and Google+
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/52284045647506355/.
Building our own pages on Pinterest and analyzing what worked and what did not gave us insight into what
we might do on all of our portals. We were aware that our traditional property lists, search, travel planning
and bookings process, although being useful, could be revamped to engage users with more visual
communications.
We set about applying the concept on one of our flagship sites www.Barbados.org. This required
programming and design work, testing, and helping hotels identify their unique selling points and
understand what travelers needed and how to present it. In the process we optimized and changed things
a lot to get the fastest and most effective solution with the highest engagement and participation. We are
still tweaking it based on feedback and analysis from our users and clients.
Our goals were to increase time spent on our hotel listing pages and increase the click through rate to
advertising hotels. A few weeks after launch, we did the analysis and you can see the results in our charts!
The results have sustained well over time with a significant and lasting improvement for our members and
visitors. Excited by the success of the hotel experiment for our own destination portal, we rolled out similar
upgrades for our guesthouses and self-catering properties.
We are now building more links to social sites so that guests can share and participate with the greatest of
ease using their preferred social media. We are adding more intelligence to the process and much more
personalization. For now our service is designed for tourism destinations, hotels and tourism associations
and anyone who is offering a central reservations solution for accommodation. In the future we plan to
bring visual bookings concepts to hotels, to tourism activities and to all suppliers of the travel and tourism
experience.
http://VisualBookingsTechnology.com
Visual Travel Marketing
Visual Bookings Technology
personal visual systems & marketing for destinations

4. Travellers Get More
Visual Bookings Technology is a visual, interactive, direct travel planning and booking system that is
intuitive, interactive, highly responsive and visual.
Kathy-Llnn Ward, COO of AXSES, says, "We are excited by this new travel marketing technology for hotels
and tourism; it has dramatically improved our service to travellers who are responding by staying longer,
interacting more with our hotel members and coming back.”
We know that guests search for different features and attributes of hotels... and in this case it’s very easy
and quick to pick features and see visual results. Here as they select facilities, they are immediately
presented with a visual summary of their choices. Each hotel provides a photo and a brand tag line that
best describes their experience. The system displays this along with related information.
Guests can click on a quote button to get more info, see all rooms, check rates, availability and get
detailed information. They can request a reservation or book now. In addition to visual branding,
travellers can also review directory listings and get advice!
They can also make comments, offer suggestions and reviews.And at any time order the list by location,
size, name, and rates. Notice how quickly it changes between options. This makes it very easy for users
to instantly see alternatives, helping them make instinctive decisions based on visual cues and detailed
information at a click of a button.

5. Optimized for every device and available everywhere
VisualBookingsTechnology used the latest in Responsive Web Design, meaning that the single installation
will display well on all devices from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets.
“Traditional booking systems
are iterative and slow. They
don’t engage visually &
intuitively”
Compared to the Traditional Booking Process
With the traditional booking systems, from Online Travel Agents (OTA) to Central Reservation
Systems (CRS), travelers usually have to enter dates and number of travellers etc, before they get
any useful information. They can usually filter out properties by selecting options, like being on the
beach and having air-conditioning etc. The traditional systems are relatively static by comparison.
Guests have to select one feature or option at a time; they have to inspect and decipher the text,
which in many cases does not show details of their needs. Like what size is it, where is it located,
does it have disability access .. this information is hard to find.
And there is always a trade off. Like, it is not on the beach but looks fabulous, has great rates. Most
of the features I like and I instinctively know I want it! Well you can’t really make that decision when
You are looking at things iteratively as opposed to interactively.. and visually.
With the new interactive visual travel bookings,
travellers have rich and relevant information at their
finger tips. They see their preferences and alternatives
instantly. It’s direct and immediate, and that is what
shoppers are looking for.

6. Above is the traditional directory listing which is still popular with travellers. VBT manages all directories
and lists as well as the image matrix and personalized advice. All are just a click away.
Behind VBT is a full analytics engine which contains information and relations organized so that it can be
displayed instantly in multiple ways, on multiple devices and tailored to individual preferences. Many
traditional travel reservation systems do filter information and display results according to users’ choices.
However, the VBT matrix display is far superior in giving travel shoppers an overview of personally
relevant information at one time, in one place, in a way that comparison and evaluation are quick, easy
and intuitive.
It is blistering fast based on advanced caching and optimized display systems!
It goes beyond categories using techniques developed for RealHolidays that characterizes travelers and
hotels according to human characteristics and personality types. RealHolidays learns from users’
interaction and builds an individual personality profile for each traveller. This is then matched with
properties’ character profiles to find the best match.
Each hotel provides a photo and a brand tag line that best describes their unique selling point. Much
care is taken on getting this right. Rates by season must be current and for best results offer a best rate
guarantee. With VBT we take care to get this right as it makes a world of difference. It’s important to
get the unique selling position properly presented for each hotel. That includes using a high impact
image, having the right tag line and short description.
Hotels Convert More

7. It turns the hotel booking process into a fun
interactive travel planning activity that is
intuitive, personal and accessible from any
digital device; tablet, smartphone or TV.
Hotels benefit by getting more and better
qualified leads in the process.
“High impact, instant visual
cues get immediate response
from travelers and more
quality leads for hotels”
Social Engagement
Guests can also make comments and offer suggestions and reviews. VBT is integrated with the most
widely used commenting platforms on the Internet, making it very easy for users to participate and
share. At any time a guest may order the list by location, size, name, and rates. The changes are
immediate. This makes it very easy for users to instantly see alternatives, helping them make
instinctive decisions based on visual cues and detailed information at a click of a button.
Super Charge your Booking Engine
VBT is an extension to any booking engine. Hotels can use the embedded VBT engine to capture
realtime transactions and payments on the destination portal, it can also work with any booking
system. It extends any central reservation bookings service, adding additional functionality and
benefits to both travelers and the hotelier.
RealTime Booking & Request Systems
VBT can be a realtime booking system with inventory management or a simple request system that
gathers the credit card information, the dates and the total costs. For many small properties this is
the preferred solution as no guest is turned away. If rooms are not available guests can be upgraded
or passed onto to partner hotels.
VBT gives travellers the tools to really drill down and select just the hotels that match
their needs. The RealHolidays personality matching further qualifies the prospect
resulting in a highly qualified lead for the hotel.

8. DESTINATIONS
On average 95% of the visitors to a vacation bookings website like Booking.com or Expedia do
not book. They often don't see the most suitable properties and don't engage with booking
engines which are iterative, slow and impersonal. Well that has changed substantially with VBT.
Guests Stay Longer & Do More
For destinations it transforms the booking process into an interactive travel planning sales
system, where guests stay longer, engage more and click off to member properties at 3 times
the rate. In our tests we measured time spent on the site and the click through rate before and
after installing Visual Bookings.
This means that VBT enhanced destination websites, get better results for their
members, helping them fulfill their mandate and making them a winner in the eyes
of their members.
The rate at which travellers link to member sites is a measure of the effectiveness of a
destination portal to generate interest and leads for its hotel product. In our test travellers
clicked through to hotel sites at 3 times the rate that they had previously (0.924 in 2012
and 2.968 in 2013).
Time spent on the site is an important indicator of engagement and in that measure VBT
increased time spent and engagement by a factor of 6 (from 0.53 to 3.44 ).
In 2014 the percentages are the same.
0.53 3.44

9. VBT gives your visitors a better experience
and your members more bookings. It
upgrades your booking process into an
effect travel planning system that engages
and converts.
“Transforms a tourism
portal into an interactive
sales funnel to convert
more bookings”
With guests staying longer on the tourism site and linking out to hotels at twice the rate, member
hotels get more business. The portal itself may do bookings, in which case its rate of conversion is
also up as travel shoppers use its own booking systems.
Add-on and Turnkey Solution
VBT is a vital extension to a booking system. It sits on top of it and acts like a graphical interface
that makes the booking process more dynamic, personal and immediate. It enhances travel planning
and helps travelers find suitable properties and book them. The VBT interface is highly optimized to
deliver personalized results in seconds. The matrix display is an important advantage as travelers
can make instant comparisons and see the trade-offs.
VBT can also be supplied as a Turn Key solution using its own booking engine. Bookings can be
configured for any inventory module and payment option. It can handle individual property terms
and rules or the portal’s terms and conditions.

10. MARKETING
When you upgrade your destination portal to A Visual Travel Planning and Bookings Channel with
VBT you will see more engagement and your members will get more qualified leads and bookings.
In our test engagement increased 500% and clicks to member sites doubled. Without additional
marketing, your site performance should double. But that is just the start.
WorldWide Visual Travel Planning and Bookings Site
We also build out a separate Visual Travel Planning and Bookings portal for all of our VBT clients.
This gives you more exposure in the market. In addition we market both your site and the new VBT
Travel Planning Mega site with a full multimedia, multi-platform campaign. It starts with building
out your social network, which we use extensively to help publish your unique destination product.
Social Index Engine Marketing Campaign
Social Index Engine is the term we use for the many components we combine together to publish
and promote business on the internet. It is how we have made the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia
the most popular destination site on Barbados in the world.
It also works for small properties, getting them listed on the first page of search results against all
types of sites, even out-ranking the Online Travel Agents, which have now moved to the top of
search, displacing local hotels and tourism in the process.
Authority Sites Prevail
Search engines like Google now prefer to list authority sites at the top of their organic search
results. When you search for hotels, apartments, villas in a destination, chances are you will see
the larger sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Booking.com etc on the first page. Small local properties
are seldom there, tourism authority sites are pushed out by OTAs like Expedia, Priceline and
Booking.com. Our marketing addresses this imbalance by building out authority with vide and
creating a balanced linking campaign with authority.

11. Every destination has a unique and
different product. We build campaigns
geared to your uniqueness and publish it
to the world with our proprietary Social
Index Engine tools and visual marketing
strategies.
“Social Index Visual Marketing
is a unique solution that builds
authority and rank for your
destination”
SOCIAL INDEX MARKETING
We will do a full Social Index &
Multimedia Marketing Campaign including the following key components
BuildYour Social Network
Create and Publish Articles & Blogs for Content Marketing
Create and PublishVideos for theVideo Campaign
Build SEO/Backlinks
Complete a Multi-Point International Press Campaign
How a Small Property Got Ranked with Authority
Try searching for St. Lucia Apartments. Just a while ago you would have seen Howe Away, Owners
Direct and some of the well known international directories and Online Travel Agents.
A while back all these sites dominated results and pushed local properties off the list. The exception
was Poinsettia Apartments, our client, who ranked at the top of the page and on several pages for
similar searches.
We did this with our Visual Marketing Campaign and our Social Index Engine. It involves
building a social network and using it in our multimedia cross-channel visual marketing. This is
exactly what we will use to market all destination clients in the VBT pre-launch campaign.
The elements of the campaign are summarized below. We provide a brief description of what is
entailed in each of the phases in the following pages. This is not a cookie cutter solution. All
campaigns are unique and tailored to the individual destination and their unique product and needs.

12. We are all publishers in the digital age of
participation. With so many tools and
platforms available, destinations should and
must take control of the media and tell their
story, everywhere and on every platform.
“Your Social Network is
key to SIE Marketing”
Video Marketing
Video is a high authority medium that has great influence with search engines like Google. Often a
video that has moderate traction will be working behind the scenes to help get your content and
website ranked with authority. We will create appropriate video blogs which will be published out to
your social network and included in the content marketing and press campaign.
Publishing
Build Out Your Social Network
We will create and populate key social accounts for you. If you don't have Pinterest, Tumblr,
StumbleUpon and many others, we build them for you and use them strategically in the SIE marketing
campaign. We will integrate your existing accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter into the
marketing system to build authentic, authoritative information content and links across the Internet.
Blog and Article, Content Marketing
We write blogs and articles for your site and for internet distribution relevant networks including
private blog networks, article sites and web 2.0 properties.
We will produce one high quality brochure which will be published on authority magazine and
document sites like Slideshare.

13. “Links are like social
signals, they need to be
diversified to get impact”
Linking Strategies - Real Case Example - Part of the
VBT Marketing Campaign
The SEO Linking Campaign
You absolutely have to have your own site optimized for the current Search Engine Systems.
In the case of Google this means optimized for Panda (no duplicate content), Penguin (not over
optimized anchor text and linking) and Hummingbird (using proper language and semantic text).
We will review your site and give you some pointers, but we do not do this work for you. We are
going to build links back to your site with our Social Media network and content marketing.
In addition we will use forums, comment boxes and directories to create diversified links (anchor
text) from a diversified array of sites that create a rich array of social signals to you site and to
strategic sites that we link to your VBT pages.
We often see campaigns that are very
skewed to one component, it might be
video or social bookmarks. This is not good
SEO as search engines measure how varied
the links and sites are. It is vital not to over
use keywords in links back to your site.
In this example there are too many links
using the domain URL - We need to
moderate this by adding more alternative
text links.
Here we see proportionally too many forums,
bookmarks and video links. We need to
balance this by adding more web 2.0 and
directory links etc.
Link building is a crucial part of SEO. You can't have a highly-ranked site without inbound links. But it
is important to build links that are both varied and trustworthy. We work with a team of SEO experts
that have proven themselves over time. There are many who do this work with no credentials - don’t
use them. Spam links can get your site banned!
Over optimization of keywords will get your site ignored by Google.

14. “Distributed to top media
with SIE promotion, our
PRs get exceptional
ranking and visibility”
The Press Campaign
A Press Release (PR) can literally expose your destination to thousands and even hundreds of thousands.
Our SocialIndexEngine (SIE) press releases have one of the highest rate of media pickup and the reason
for this is that we optimize the release both on page and off page.
Using our SIE tactics and tools we promote the release across the internet and will also promote key media
that pick them up. The SIE PR action gives our release prominence and makes them visible, popular and
effective.
For the VBT marketing campaign we plan to do three major international Press Releases for the core
destinations who are part of the VBT pre-launch invitational marketing. The proposed releases are noted
below. However, we custom build the campaign and it may vary depending on the circumstance.
The Press Program
1 - Announce your participation
2 - An important feature of your destination
3 - Your success with VBT
The actual content and staging will be tailored to give you the best exposure and impact.
Where practical our PRs are multi-media articles with video, images and rich collateral. The release
may be joint PR containing both the VBT contact and the Destination Brand contact. We use top
distribution services. We do not use free PR or low cost distribution for our media announcements.
Be seen in top broadcast media
Our releases have been picked up by the NY
Times, Fox News, the Boston Globe and
many brand named media companies,
reaching over one hundred thousand
viewers at any one time.

15. “The Sales Funnel
combines all steps of
marketing from traffic
getting strategies to
bookings and advocacy”
The Marketing Sales Funnel
In business marketing, the world looks like an upside down pyramid: At the top is the entire universe of people
who might have a faint interest in your product. The job then is to filter out those who are not interested and
start to process the rest through a series of filters. The filters are offers and systems that weed out the
uncommitted and nurture those who are most likely to buy.
It’s like you are mining, starting off with rocks and rubble, looking for gold. As you go down the pyramid you
shake out the rocks, then the ruble then earth and finally you are left with gold.
Well not exactly but you get the idea. See the graph below for an overview on how Sales, Marketing and
Technology interact to create an effective sales funnel for tourism.
Visual Booking Marketing extends your
reach and authority getting you more
qualified traffic. It then processes and filters
travel shoppers, giving them unprecedented
tools to explore, be engaged, decide,
purchase and become advocates.
It’s not enough to get traffic, one must convert that into bookings and repeat
business!
Graphics derived from SmartInsights.com. Strategies ad explanation are proprietary to VisualBookingsTechnology.com

16. BY INVITATION ONLY
This document was created for the pre-launch of Visual Bookings Technology.
Only a handful of destinations are being invited to this launch - These few
destinations will get added value and bonuses. In exchange we will feature them
as reference sites. All participants are free to provide any reference they choose
- we will of course be sure to make it a resounding success so that the
references are excellent.
ABOUT The Company
VBT is a product of AXSES Tourism Development & Publishing. Originally
developed by AXSES for the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia, it is now being
developed as a product for tourism destinations, hotel & tourism associations
and central reservation services for accommodation suppliers.
AXSES has been a pioneer in tourism development, creating several firsts in
marketing for hotels and tourism. Included are the first Facebook Booking
Engine for smaller independent hotels and commendation by Google for
Bookable-maps, an application based on Google Maps.
The AXSES team includes several computer science graduates who have
pioneered in development of innovative applications for marketing travel.
The company also publishes the Travelers Insights magazine and several blogs
and websites dedicated to helping travellers and tourism suppliers make their
difference in the world.
more > Join.VisualBookingsTechnology.com
Visual Bookings Technology
VisualBookingsTechnology.com
personal visual systems & marketing for destinations

17. BONUS TITLE HERE
VISUAL MARKETING TECHNOLOGY
AXSES VISUAL MARKETING &
PUBLISHING
P. O. Box 16B, Brittons Hill, St. Michael,
BB11090 Barbados, West Indies
Tel 246 429 2653
mail: ianrclayton (at) axses.com
AXSES INC.
211 Kennedy Rd
Boutiliers Point
Nova Scotia
Canada, B3Z 1V5
Proprietary Marketing
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Personalized & Intelligent
Visual Information
Technology
AXSES Visual Marketing & Publishing
VisualMarketingTechnology.com
Visual Bookings | Visual Travel Planning |
Visual Sales Funnel | Visual Information Systems
Find out more about Visual Systems for
Destination Marketing at the website above