Peter and Xiaoli Tours

I am a frustrated marketer!

I have tried very hard to see if I can get business from social media and my blogs I place in various places. There is no question I am getting the readers. 4 different statistics for different sites I use say readers are increasing significantly all the time so what am I doing wrong?

Yes I am a frustrated marketer. I know I am very good at marketing and I know I have become a great tour guide. So how am I failing to combine the 2 for a magic success. Grrrr!!!!

Advertising is my profession. I rose to the top of my profession and retired to go fishing aged 54. Have I lost my creative genius? The things I used to be repeatedly head hunted for in my younger days.

That old brain of mine, its just not firing like it used to or maybe I am just targeting all the wrong people? Frustrated, yes I am.

8 years ago with Xiaoli at my side I launched into tourism running. Haha. Our homestay rapidly grew well past that. Our 4wd tours up Ninety Mile Beach were regular, in fact we were turning business away. By 2011 we were probably the fastest growing tourism business in the far north of New Zealand. Then my stupid body misbehaved and all that great work went out the door as I became incapable of doing anything at all active and Xiaoli needed pull back to care for me.

We got through that, not over night but over a couple of years. Started pushing everything again. The homestay is well gone as we now utilise the whole house for holiday accommodation and it does well.

4wd tours up the beach never recovered from shutting the door for a lengthy period but then we have not pushed them either. Now we push the multi day tours down the country and 2016 broke all records for us. 2017 has started very well. But now we have added our own vehicle rather than rent and to do that we need guaranteed business. Hard to do in our line of business.

So yes its frustrating me. I have spent a considerable amount of time and energy since completing my last tour, developing tour packages that people can buy into. We know our packages are financially attractive. Past tours say on tour we are highly respected. So how do we convert what we have developed into business?

I feel like I am knocking against a brick wall right now trying to make a crack in it.

If you have read this far, then make a comment? How do we turn all our hard work into business. And please don’t say advertise. We do not wish to compete with the big boys. Determined to stay the small boutique end of tourism where we can give that one on one attention to every customer.