I recently received a copy of an e-book from Doug Motel called “101 Marketing Tips for Tourism”.  As someone who is always trying to find ways to help tour and activity operators make their businesses better, I was intrigued to see whether Doug’s recommendations fall in line with the recommendations I have made in the past.  I was really happy to see that many of the tips in Doug’s book are ones that, as I read them, made me nod in agreement.  This is a book I think every tour or activity operator or even hotel or motel operator could benefit from reading. The ten chapters are separated based on general themes such as planning events, using press releases, Facebook, local marketing, and user reviews.  Each one of the chapters comprises of about ten tips that go into further detail.  Each tip is an actionable item that can be implemented relatively easily.  The book is 85 pages long, so it is a fairly easy read and focuses more on practicality rather than theory. One of my favorite chapters is Chapter 8 which is all about user reviews.  Doug provides some excellent advice on how to track what customers are saying on-line, how to prevent or mitigate negative reviews, and how to act on reviews (both good and bad) when you find them on-line.  Here a quote from page 64 about dealing with a negative review: Fix the problem: If the complaint is legitimate don’t ignore it.  Address it with your staff and those who may have been responsible (ie. if the review was of horrible dinner service and the waiter was named, if a gate attendant was rude or a bathroom was dirty, etc.) Though we know that the customer is not always right, you should at least bring the issue up with the staff.  The employee might genuinely be in need of more training. That’s just part of Tip #75 Don’t Shy Away from Bad Reviews.  To read the rest of the 101 Marketing Tips for Tourism, you can buy the book on Amazon.com in either paperback or ebook formats.  Doug is offering a 10% discount for readers of the T4 blog if you use promo code “022012“.  If you’ve read the book and have any comments, let me know.