Aruba benefits from positive PR with Bucuti’s leadership in electronic marketing
May 12, 2006 – The Virtual world of the Bucuti Beach Resort, Eagle Beach - - Aruba Bucuti Beach Resort visitor, Mr. John Hammersmith was able to meet Bucuti hotel manager Ms. Deborah Dintelman and hear her describe the recent resort remodeling project. While listening to Deborah, he learned that she brings valuable experience to the resort as a long time hotel professional, having started with Westin Hotels in the USA, 35 years ago.
Deborah’s friendly, welcoming voice and detailed and candid information convinced him to actually travel to Aruba, reserve the Bucuti resort and meet Deborah in person.
Mr. Hammersmith’ first meeting with Deborah was in the comfort of his living room, on his computer…via a Podcast audio interview on the Aruba Bucuti Beach Resort’s web site: http://www.bucuti.com/en/about_us/podcast.php
Visitors to Bucuti’s web site have the opportunity to meet and enjoy the warm personalities of seven of Aruba’s managers in a very casual conversational atmosphere. The Podcasts consist of interviews with IT Manager Eric Davelaar, explaining the challenges of working for owners who are electronically obsessive, Front Office Manager Mr. Ray van Gulick who explains Bucuti’s philosophy of customer service, Personnel Manager and Green Team Coordinator Doris Drieschor who explains Bucuti’s leadership in Environmental preservation in Aruba, Assistant Manager Marin Bijl who talks about the new, more refined look at the Pirates Nest Restaurant, Chef Bas de Boer who describes his new menu, and Reservations Manager Olga Grimberg who explains her implementation of Bucuti’s new real time reservations system on the web site.
While initially introducing aspects of their professional lives at Bucuti, each audio session with Bucuti’s managers leaves behind a sense of their personality in a casual way, yet revealing their spirit of hospitality. The Audio offers more a personal alternative to the often cold and sterile environment of text on a page.
“The Podcast technology allows us to establish familiarity between our associates and our guests in advance of their arrival, with the hopes of strengthening our customer relationships by communicating all we have to offer at Bucuti in the most personal way.” states Susan Biemans. Susan and her husband Ewald own and manage the Bucuti Beach Resort and the new and popular Tara Beach Suites. They are known in Aruba’s tourism industry as tech savvy and the first to offer creative and innovative technological tools which have been successful in attracting business with a 90%+ average occupancy since opening in 1987.
“The internet has given our small boutique resort a level playing field in the marketplace with our larger competitors” says Susan. “In the not so distant past, when we were all at the mercy of distributing via large wholesale travel companies, our small resort could not provide the inventory or low rates that these companies could lucratively promote when distributing their product via expensive printed catalogs. Therefore we had the option of paying high advertising prices to be offered in their product line or suffer from lack of exposure. Now we have the equal and more direct opportunity on the internet to attract customers because Internet distribution is done at a fraction of the cost. Business is trending towards direct bookings made on hotel website booking engines and we believe we are in a good position to capture it.
Why Podcasts? Susan explains: “I am a big fan of the IPOD digital music players and discovered Podcasts via the Apple.com website while downloading music. As a marketing person I could see the potential promotional value of the growing trend of Podcasting...it was irresistible and I couldn’t wait to use the technology on our website. I soon learned that colleagues Mark & Daphne Cesareo of VisitAruba.com were interested to provide Podcasts to their customers. We signed up immediately! Mark partnered with local audio experts Arubacast Martin Buitenweg and Erik Eman to deliver the finished product. They did a fantastic job and with much fun and enthusiasm. Our Bucuti team enjoyed the project immensely.”
Among the many technological ‘firsts’ for Aruba, Bucuti Beach Resort was the first to introduce a live WebCam in Aruba of beautiful Eagle Beach six years ago and conducted the first WebCam wedding for guests from Colorado early last year. “At 9am each morning, we zoom in our webcam to a spot on the beach where guests gather from all over the island to wave and say hello to friends and family back home” explains Susan.“We knew immediately when the webzoom stopped functioning last month, because we received dozens of emails by 9:05am to inform us we had not ‘zoomed’. It was a topic of all the Aruba bulletin boards…it was a virtual tragedy that our zoom did not function. We were nervously amused and learned that hundreds of people from all over the world tune in to the webzoom each morning. It’s been a tremendous draw to our site.”
We hope our new Podcasts enjoy similar popularity and when this is the case we will update the recordings regularly.
Resources:
- Webcam link: http://www.bucuti.com/en/about_us/tour_bucuticam.php
