Audio Travel Guides MP3 Podcasts

CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION ?

DO YOU GO HOME AT NIGHT SWITCH ON THE TELEVISION AND TURN THE SOUND RIGHT DOWN ?

Tim Richards will record anywhere!

Tim Richards will record anywhere! No – so why have a website in this fast internet age that has no sound ? You’re missing a trick without good, interesting audio.

Online audio will give your website extra character and personality. See the list of some websites using HeartBeatGuides work below – including the official England tourism website, the US city of Minneapolis and Britain’s first National Park to use podcasts to enrich its website.

People will be hearing from YOU – the owner or marketing chief of a tourism venture, or people who make your attraction or hotel or area tick ! It’ll be a much compelling, individual website where visitors also stay longer listening to interesting features or interviews.

In the context of hotel industry - websites with warm, welcoming, individual audio get global bookings from people who say 'we feel we already know what friendly people you are'.

Click image to hear the humming bird	Click image to hear head hunters	Click image to hear the geyser discussion

Tell would-be clients about your unique selling points – the brilliant food, the fabulous views, the high standards of accommodation or the warm welcome. Your global website visitors will still HEAR the real you 24/7 even when there’s no one to answer their questions in person.

Whether it’s downloadable for people to keep on their i.Pod or “click-and-play” there and then on your website pages you can give them a much warmer welcome than just text pages with photos.

Website audio – now generically called “podcasting” – generates more than 199,000,000 pages on Google. Five years ago the word and concept did NOT exist!

Internet technology has moved on… broadband delivers large files almost instantly; MP3 compression of music and speech also helps with that.

By the end of 2007 there will be more than ONE THOUSAND MILLION mobile phones globally equipped with MP3 playability. i.pod alone have sold more than 100 million of their MP3 players.

More than FOUR HUNDRED MILLION homes globally now have broadband (August 2007).

And unlike newspaper or magazine coverage … high-quality audio for your website is there PERMANENTLY. YOU control it and YOU can monitor it.

Neither click-and-play audio, nor MP3 downloads interfere with bookings or other cashflow functions. It can be minimised to page bottom.

Exact CONTENT is flexible and it’s what YOU want to highlight.

URLs where tourism PODCASTS from Tim Richards can be heard…

www.enjoyengland.com/ideas/city-breaks/podcasts/ five city guide podcasts for the official England tourism website. London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bath and Oxford.

www.minneapolis.org/podcast/ a series of twenty, themed podcasts covering history, shopping, pro sports, the theatre scene etc for a major, forward-thinking, US conurbation.

www.englishriviera.co.uk/site/media/ England’s most web-savvy regional tourist organisation around Torquay has a wide selection of my podcasts made in July 2007.

www.vfbholidays.co.uk The long-established and multi-award winning VFB Holidays who are into villa, gites and escorted tours in Europe.

www.penheligarms.com a classy, small hotel which has picked up a substantial increase in bookings by revealing its “character” through website audio.

www.visit-exmoor.co.uk first UK national park to podcast

www.leisurefarm.co.uk/shirehorses.htm simple website design but some very effective, homely audio …children feeding the calves and the satisfied visitors.

www.visitquadcities.com/for_visitors/ipodcastbbc.html twelve themed tourism podcasts around this interesting area of the USA

www.villarsgryon.ch/en/navpage-PressVG.html this is a series of pieces for the Swiss ski resort of Villars. It will shortly be moved to the multimedia page.

www.thecarregrestaurant.co.uk/podcasts ... The Carreg in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, leads the way for this foodie town twinned with foodie-heaven – Ludlow…

www.reallywelsh.com/what_we_do_interviews.htm this is an off-beat use of podcasts by a FOOD PRODUCER. Really Welsh have realised they can develop a funky website which may even become a “cult ” in its own right.

BUT – and it’s a huge BUT – very few of these wonderfully clients have made very much visually of the podcast links page. May I commend the Carreg for at least designing a decent page for the audio to sit on. The Penhelig too incorporates audio rather more artistically than most ! So the presence of podcasts does NOT have to be utterly ugly and dreary !