Open mic: help travelers enrich their time, and they’ll be willing to give you more of it

Travel marketing is so much more than selling rooms–it’s selling time. When you help a traveler enrich their time, they’ll be willing to give you more of it.

And with deep roots in the community, independent hotels are uniquely positioned as hosts to help travelers maximize their time. And more time leads to better profitability.

That’s why Ed St. Onge and Hal Fickett from our team recently joined Trevor Stuart-Hill and Catherine Smagala of Revenue Matters as part of our open mic jam session.

Take a peek at a few top highlights from our conversation. 🎙️


Video 1: Building traveler relationships + the why

“…the reason you want to sell the experience is to ultimately sell more time.”

Elevate destination experiences with the community

To help you showcase your property’s destination and its experiences, put to work relationships with past guests, your team, local businesses, and if you have one, your destination marketing organization.

These resources can help you crowdsource the experiences that ultimately help win over new audiences of travelers.


Video 2: Elevate destination experiences with the community

“If you want to stick out amongst your competitive set, be the best source of knowing your community.”

Maximize your role as host, online and off

Once armed with the experiences around your community, use them to win over planners on your site in the consideration phase.

Showcase stories from guests not only enjoying their time at your property, but also encountering these community gems.


Video 3: Maximize your role as a host, online and off

“If you can give [the traveler] the information that they need about your destination, things to see and do…you’re setting yourself up for success.”

Have more personal, meaningful traveler conversations

Once travelers are educated and excited about your destination, it’s time to engage them in meaningful conversations on your site. These digital conversations should reflect real-life conversations that aim to be helpful.

By doing so, you’re building stronger relationships and trust among your audience—gains that ultimately help and increase direct, incremental revenue.


Video 4: Making digital journeys reflect real-life conversations

“Your website and booking engine should be as good of an experience as if they called you… We should be narrating these digital journeys as a conversation.”

Align marketing + revenue management

Collaborating on an integrated strategy where marketing, revenue management, and distribution are all aligned ultimately means we all can get better, together.


Video 5: Align your marketing and revenue management teams

“[The bottom line]—if we don’t all row in the same direction, then we’re not going to have optimal performance.”

Being a better host leads to better profitability

Selling more time leads to greater profitability. When independent hotels shepherd the story of their destination well, that leads to a highly engaged audience that costs less to acquire and opens properties up for extended stays since travelers know how to maximize their time.

Blending that with your revenue management strategy amplifies your impact even more.


Video 6: How does this lead to being more profitable?

“If you’re taking that incremental approach to having better conversations [and] information on your site, you will see… lower costs of acquisition [down to] transaction.”


To hear more from the minds at Revenue Matters, give them a follow here. And if you’re ready to reach, inspire and win over more travelers, say hello to Hal here at Flip.to—we’re ready to kick off the conversation on topping your goals!

Woodloch Resort’s Rory O’Fee teams up with Flip.to to have better conversations with travelers

Since 2015 Woodloch Resort has been a power-user of the Flip.to platform, led by Director of Marketing, Rory O’Fee. He and his team have always felt that personal stories and authentic conversations are what resonate with travelers.

Recently, Woodloch implemented Discovery, and after only a short time, O’Fee and his team have been astounded by the results.

Infographic: A look at Impact, 45 days on Discovery for Woodloch Resort. 14K website visitors unveiled and shared their intent; 300+ room nights booked, attributed to returning planners; $300K direct incremental revenue, tracked in real-time

How did they end up with such a big bump in revenue and conversion? Let’s look further.

Family First

At Woodloch Resort, everyone is family. “We’re a family business that employs families that cater to families vacationing,” explains O’Fee. With thirty plus activities scheduled daily and inclusive meal plans, it’s easy to see why families are the number one draw to the 225-key resort. The property’s shores along Lake Teedyuskung, in the picturesque Pocono Mountains, are a wonderful place to make memories.

Photo submission from Xuefei T. showing a small child with mom warming themselves in front of a fire pit.

Marketing on Authenticity + Trust

Woodloch’s homegrown property management system has evolved over time, but is still limited for O’Fee’s marketing needs. When he first heard about Discovery, he knew it was a solve for many of his pain points.

“It’s the feeling you get when you come to Woodloch that leaves a lasting impression. That’s how we bring a family aspect into our marketing. We extrapolate those stories, and let people share their best moments,” says O’Fee.

Advocacy has been supporting that strategy for some time now in the dreaming phase. But O’Fee wanted to bring those tenets into focus on the planning phase.

“The Discovery platform has given us a new set of tools that I haven’t had access to previously. And that’s looking at traveler intent and interest—their timing interest, and their lead time to booking.

And being able to craft a message to talk to them, and help guide them through the booking process at the right time. That has been a wonderful tool for me, because I get to see when people are interested and looking. Then I can really shift my strategy accordingly.”

Intent: A Crystal Ball

That’s important for Woodloch, since its activities shift from season to season, maximizing fun in each. Winter’s snow tubing and “Winter Olympics” activities give way to spring and summer’s boating on private Lake Teedyuskung, nature walks through the mountains, and outdoor concerts.

Knowing a traveler group’s season of interest and mix of ages helps Woodloch continue the conversation further. It helps to connect them with the experience that helped win them over.

Photo submission from Joan G., showing a dad and daughters doing a workout at the Woodloch gym

The Discovery Difference: Unveil + Re-engage

With Discovery, travelers unveil far earlier in the funnel than a traditional booking path. Once a planner unveils, Woodloch tapped the platform to nurture around the experiences for their age mix, save their plans until they’re ready to book, and most importantly, re-engage at the most appropriate point in the traveler’s planning stages.

It’s no secret that understanding more about their travelers drives Woodloch’s impressive increase in conversion.

The Future: Better Marketing

Overall, Rory is seeing a strong desire for families to reconnect post-COVID. Like any marketing effort, reconnecting with and growing audiences also means navigating challenges around privacy and compliance that will continue to be important to travelers in the future, often strained by fragmented policies at varying levels.

“To be in compliance with one thing, you’re out of compliance with another. It’s very complicated.”

Photo submission from Melody Y., showing 2 girls holding hands standing on a pier looking out at sailboats out on the lake

But he’s optimistic about working through those challenges with Flip.to and people like Customer Success Team Lead, Michael Mathews.

“I know you’re going to grow, and come up with new solutions that will enhance the travelers’ experience. In doing so, you’re going to enhance the supplier’s experience in getting people booked,” said O’Fee.

“You’re working to change an element of the travel experience, and I’m excited to be a part of that.”


If you’d like to stay in touch with Rory to hear more of his ideas on where travel marketing needs to be headed, give him a follow, here.

If you think Flip.to can help you have better conversations with your travelers, and in doing so, increase your conversion at the same time, we’d love to hear from you.

How NCBound is helping vacation rentals unlock marketing that’s built on trust

By teaming up, we believe we can drive a more profitable VR community.

That’s why Ed St. Onge and Hal Fickett from our team recently joined Paul Hanak and Diamond Frandsen of InterCoastal Net Designs (ICND) to chat reimagined marketing for vacation rentals. And thanks to the first-of-its-kind Destination Collaborative sponsored by Visit North Carolina, the VR community can put these ideas into action.

Take a peek at a few top highlights from our conversation. 🎙️

Why collaboration?

Visit North Carolina and Flip.to are teaming up on NorthCarolinaBound to deliver direct impact to lodging partners and help the whole state accelerate.

That means by joining, industry partners like vacation rentals get access to the Flip.to marketing platform thanks to a full sponsorship by the state—so there’s no out-of-pocket costs to take part.

And that’s a big win. With Flip.to, vacation rental marketers reach, inspire and win over travelers in the dreaming and planning phases to grow their direct channel in a way that’s good for everyone—travel brand and traveler alike.


Video 1: NorthCarolinaBound: Let's inspire and win over more travelers, together.

“Visit NC… have sponsored the platform for any lodging provider in the state of North Carolina to be able to use the platform for their own goals and purposes… at no cost to them.”

Reach & inspire an audience of dreamers

Travel brands start by winning over travelers in the dreaming phase, reaching and inspiring a right-fit audience with the help of past guests. Earn warm introductions to their friends and family help you reach a high-quality, right-fit demographic and build your top of funnel with warm leads.


Video 2: Flip.to for Vacation Rentals-A Snapshot of Advocacy

“When we talk about the dreaming phase, we think this is a big opportunity for the vacation rental industry to position themselves to win the hearts and minds of travelers before they’ve even decided they want to travel.

Win over planners considering North Carolina

In the planning phase, brands spark conversations with travelers deciding where to go next to increase conversion, with the revenue impact tracked in real-time. On average, we’re seeing a double-digit increase in conversion.


Video 3: Discovery: Unveil and re-engage planners on your site

“The primary goal of Discovery is to get you into a meaningful conversation with as many people who come to your website as possible. And when you understand what they’re interested in and they tell you who they are…the second goal of Discovery is to drive more people into booking.”

Amplify other marketing efforts

When Flip.to introduced Discovery to Paul Hanak and Diamond Frandsen at ICND, they immediately understood its game-changing capabilities.


Video 4: Launch Highly Targeted Marketing Campaigns with First-Party Data from Discovery

“Being able to access first-party data from Discovery for your campaigns “will make your marketing team very happy”.

Discovery allows partners like ICND to understand shopping windows and launch other highly-targeted marketing campaigns that are based on a traveler’s intent.


Video 5: Why Discovery Opens Up an Entirely New Paradigm on How to Market

“Discovery “opens up an entirely new paradigm on how to market. In the hands of someone who knows what to do with that, it can really change things. This is why we like partnering with ICND…they immediately understood what this would mean to them.”


Join the hundreds of lodging partners in regions across the state already on NorthCarolinaBound. As a fully sponsored initiative backed by the NC and Flip.to teams—all of the cost and heavy lifting is done.

Logos of various North Carolina destinations (Asheville, Visit Raleigh, The Outer Banks of North Carolina, Visit Winston Salem, and Wilmington)

Start winning over travelers at a massive scale and drive increased revenue for your accommodations with Flip.to.