Case study - Orroland Holiday Cottages

Orroland.com aims to give visitors insight into the 'Orroland experience'. The website offers secure online booking The owners have access to various features to help them analyse their bookings

Website: www.orroland.com
Web Forum member: SuperWebs Ltd

Background

The owners of Orroland Holiday Cottages have been running their business for a number of years, providing self-catering holiday accommodation in three properties set in unspoilt farmland bordering the beautiful Solway Firth.

Before SuperWebs came on the scene, the three properties – Orroland Lodge, sleeping 14 people, and two smaller cottages – were let through an agent. The agent not only took the bookings, but also handled all customer liaison and marketing for the properties. Their marketing and advertising campaigns stopped over the lean winter months, so the letting season was restricted to April to October.

Solutions

SuperWebs were brought in to develop a web site that would give Orroland Holiday Cottages the edge in the fiercely competitive holiday accommodation market place on the Internet. By the time that www.orroland.com was launched at the end of 1999, it had all the features that would single out the holiday business as a market leader.

The web site has been tailor-made to give a detailed insight into the ‘Orroland experience’. SuperWebs commissioned professional photography, and as soon as virtual visitors see the idyllic setting of their holiday home in rural Galloway, with breathtaking sea views over the Solway, they are hooked.

SuperWebs have developed a number of features for the business, including:

• on-line availability details that the clients themselves can update
• secure on-line bookings
• automatic late availability discounts
• comprehensive photo gallery – again, the clients can update this themselves
• stunning 360o panoramic photographs
• brochure request form

The owners also have access to a fully-featured control panel that allows them to:

• update prices and availability
• review bookings
• compose and send email mail-shots or download the customer database for offline marketing
• update various areas of the website, including the photo gallery
• review various statistics, for example the screenshot above shows a system for analysing the distribution of their customers in the UK

Results

Since the website was launched the business has been transformed.

• all the bookings are taken direct with the owners, saving agent's fees
• booking levels are well above the national and regional average, with the two cottages let for 50 weeks in 2005
• targeted email marketing along with late availability discounts helps to fill off-season weeks
• the booking and customer statistics that the website produces are invaluable marketing tools