Welcome to 2018! By now you have started that back to work routine, and if you are like me, a more sensible eating plan! To get your creative juices flowing this year, I thought I would help by sharing my top blog posts for 2017.
(There are affiliate links in the blog posts and I do receive a small commission for any purchases.)
1.Top Trends for 2018
This post is my most recent so many of you have already seen it. I combined two posts into one PDF, so you can share it with partners if you are a DMO, or your supervisor if you are one of my attraction, hotel or retail readers. Let me know if you are seeing other trends!
2.Goal setting for Tourism pros
I am a big believer in setting goals in order to improve myself every year. Rarely do I achieve all of them, but it helps keep me focused. I hope the reason that this post was popular was because I wrote about specific goals to aim for, with additional information and resources on how to achieve them. In 2017 I did a good job of taking all my vacation and have a lot of great memories as a result.
3.The 80/20 Rule
Anyone who spends time with me will eventually hear me talk ( with passion!) about the 80/20 rule. I spoke to a group at the Pennsylvania Bus Association Summer meeting on the topic, and participants had all kinds of questions and comments. One of the tour operators even told me she went back to her room and did one of the exercises I suggested and was going to go home and rework her marketing plan for the year! This post has links to the classic 80/20 Principle book by Richard Koch, as well as some homework I developed.
4.Using Upwork and Fiverr to increase your efficiency
Upwork and Fiverr are two of the largest online sites to find workers. This post gives a real-life example of how I use Upwork to help me grow my business. With continued staff cutbacks, and more people starting a ‘side hustle’, I can see these sites becoming more important. I would love to know if you tried them out in 2017!
5.WeChat is where it’s at!
I was an early adopter of Wechat and found myself helping others learn how to use the most popular Chinese social media app. I do in-person training which I love. They are interactive and the attendees can see how WeChat can help them increase sales and build relationships. I did a session this fall and one of the attendees went on sales calls to Chinese operators in L.A. the following week. She reported back that being able to use WeChat immediately made it easier to connect and the operators were impressed! I am already scheduling WeChat 101 trainings for 2018, but in case you missed this popular post in 2017, here are the basics of WeChat 1o1.
Bonus: 7 Things attractions should do in the slow season
This post was written in early February 2017. It did not make my top 10 list of my most popular blogs, but I think that’s because I didn’t have that many readers at the time. I do think the information in this post will give you some concrete ideas of activities that you can do that will pay you back multiple times in your busy season.
Final words
Sharing my thoughts, ideas, and information I gather when I research has made writing this blog a labor of love. What topics would you like to learn more about? What challenges are you facing in 2018 that I can help with? After all, my goal is to help you get more visitors through your door. Let’s all work towards that success this year!
P.S.-
I am trying to grow my reader base to 1000 this year. Can you share this post with anyone you know who would enjoy reading my top blog posts for 2017? Thanks!