• As an introduction- what exactly is WETU?

Most boutique property owners I’ve met invest a lot of money in quality content – professional photos, videos and descriptive text. Their challenge is getting their content out to the people who make bookings.

That’s where Wetu comes in. We make it really easy to share your content with DMCs, operators and travel agents around the world, and gives them great tools to turn that content into the sales collateral they need. Our service is entirely online, so all you need is an Internet connection to use it.

In a nutshell, we distribute your content so you can focus on sales and service.

• How has WETU’s service model changed since inception?

Wetu exists because content sells. I set out to create a central bank where properties could manage their content and distribute it free of charge to the wholesalers and retailers who use it to sell to travellers planning their holidays.

This is still Wetu’s central model today, although we continually improve our system and keep innovating as the travel trade evolves. We still don’t charge a cent for travel professionals to access the content in our database, which means we distribute it as widely as possible.

• What are your customers’ biggest needs? How are these met with WETU?

The common pain point I hear about from our customers who sell travel, whether they are DMCs, operators or retailers, is that they want to improve their enquiry to booking ratio. Likewise, property owners want to run at the best possible occupancy rates, so I’d say that growing revenue is the number one need in our industry.

Wetu meets this need for property owners by making it easy to distribute the kind of content that sells to DMCs, operators and agents quickly and efficiently – you can share loads of images and your updates are instantly available. Best of all, no more sending a gazillion files via DropBox and hoping your client makes updates on their side.

Wetu makes your great quality content available to DMCs, operators and agents, and gives them the tools they need to build rich media itineraries and publish these to their customers in any way they need. Our tools are so easy to use that consultants can build an itinerary in 15 minutes or less.

• What advice do you have for small, boutique properties with smaller marketing budgets looking to up their digital presence?

The most important advice I can give any property owner is to invest in creating great content. If you can, work with professionals – photographers, videographers and copywriters – to make sure you give your clients the best possible sales tools. It’s a fact that properties with plenty of quality photos outsell those who only have a handful of images, or poor quality ones.

The second most important advice is to distribute your content as efficiently as possible across trade channels that can really deliver bookings. This is where Wetu can help you – you invest in the content, we’ll deliver it to DMCs, operators and agents.

• With content as king, what is your top tip for streamlining how a property presents itself?

If content is king, then quality is queen.

Property owners need to present their content as a story – show the experience of staying there from a guest’s point of view. You know this story best, so help consultants selling your property to tell it well.

People look at images first, read captions second, and only if they are keen, will they make the effort to read the details.

For properties using Wetu, I’d encourage them to load their images in an order that tells a story. Don’t use the caption to state the obvious – rather say what’s interesting about the image – how does it add to your story. Lastly, make sure that your text descriptions support the images.