"Elm Grove Country House has been in my family for 65 years, and I’m the 3rd generation of the family to have the pleasure of welcoming guests to our lovely part of Pembrokeshire. Marketing and booking have changed beyond recognition over those decades, and even since we took over in 2008, as have commission charges, which now account for a significant overhead especially in our main season. We decided 4 yrs ago to start using High Level Software as a booking system (site minder is the channel manager) which made it far easier to deal with the various Online Travel Agents (OTAs) we use. This year we were made aware of TXGB, and agreed to take part in a test group for Visit Pembrokeshire, the county’s destination management organisation. It integrates with our channel manager and even better – has a low commission % compared to some of the Online Travel Agents (OTAs). It also gives us the opportunity to access new, smaller channels which are destination specific. Initial registration was straight forward and the guide we were sent by the onboarding team was very helpful, as was their support during the process. The bigger you are the longer the process will take – so please allow yourself enough time to upload all your rooms, photos, amenities etc ready for them to either be mapped to your existing channel manager or as a stand-alone booking page. It probably took me 5 hours to get everything in place with enough details and photos for each room type (we have multiple listings for different rooms i.e non-refundable and refundable). Payments are taken by Stripe and setting that up took no more than 5 minutes. It’s early days and we’re currently only linked to one or two additional channels, but over time as new options come on line we hope to see additional bookings come through TXGB." Pictured: Elm Grove Country House, Pembrokeshire.
Via TXGB, this accommodation is now bookable on Show me Wales More information about TXGB for businesses can be found here.
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Context: About Visit Monmouthshire Monmouthshire - the Food Capital of Wales - is a rural county on the border with England, located at the crossroads between the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park and the low-lying cultural landscape of the Gwent Levels. Visit Monmouthshire is the official destination marketing organization for the county with a purpose to increase the competitiveness of the area as a year-round sustainable tourism destination for the benefit of its people, environment and communities. They work with approximately 500 businesses to promote a wide range of food and other types of experience to UK and overseas leisure, business events, travel trade and group travel markets. "Our website has been integrated with TXGB since its launch in January 2022 and we are very pleased that Visit Wales have procured the license for Welsh businesses to use it," Nicola said. Nicola, how easy was it to connect TXGB with www.visitmonmouthshire.com? "TXGB integration was included as standard with our Simpleview website but we have since paid for some minor ticketing visibility and styling development work." How have you / are you encouraging businesses in Monmouthshire to sign up to TXGB? "We’ve communicated the opportunities of TXGB to businesses primarily by email, but we’ve also taken the opportunity to ask businesses about the booking platforms they use and whether they are interested in TXGB when they’ve contacted us about other things. There's been a mixed response so far, dependent on the specific booking platform used and its connectivity with TXGB. Now that we can see bookings starting to come in for businesses via TXGB on our website, we can be more confident about promoting the opportunities of TXGB to others. Any future national campaigns which use TXGB and the Visit Britain shop as the fulfilment mechanism will also encourage more businesses to engage with TXGB. We’re not currently charging businesses a commission for bookings via Visit Monmouthshire”. [A list of connected booking systems can be found on the TXGB website, here] Inspire2Adventure (experience provider) and Cromwell's Hideaway (glamping) are two examples of businesses with online bookability via TXGB on Visit Monmouthshire. How straightforward is the process of connecting businesses signed up to TXGB with Visit Monmouthshire? "For businesses already signed up to TXGB (or to platforms connected to TXGB) the process is simple." [Businesses that are not connected can use TXLoad; this provides a simple booking management system enabling them to connect to sales channels, even if their booking system is not yet connected.] We understand you are using TXLoad for event ticketing; can you please explain how this is working and the benefits of this? "We have used TXLoad for online booking of outdoor theatre performances and art history courses at council operated attractions. TXLoad connects well to our website and is relatively easy to navigate for users." What advice would you share with DMOs/Local Authorities that are considering changing / developing their web platform to integrate with TXGB? "My advice would be to survey your destination businesses first to find out how many are already using TXGB (or any of the connected booking platforms), and how many are interested in signing up. You can then encourage those on connected booking platforms to opt in to TXGB, and those interested in signing up to do so before TXGB integration goes live on your destination website." MWT Cymru has designed a survey for Local Authorities/DMOs to send to businesses in your areas, if you wish to ascertain whether they already offer bookable content, what booking systems they currently use, and so on. Please contact us if you would like us to tailor this survey for your area.
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