I shouldn’t have to remind anyone how important images are to almost all marketing programs, especially when marketing travel accommodations & tours. But I think some pointers and suggestions may help you get more inquiries and bookings.

As travelers are planning their vacation, they play out the different options in their mind — they take a virtual vacation. In some ways, they experience the entire trip anticipating the excitement and potential problems long before they pack their bags.

While planning their upcoming vacation, they start dreaming about the adventure, romance and relaxation. In their mind, they are imaging themselves and their families happily enjoying the perfect dream vacation.

To fulfill their dream, they scan lots of sites, read the carefully written descriptions, but the most important factor is the images they see — especially images where they can see themselves in that shot.

Images of a beautiful sunset are more appealing than a picture of a condo building. Even better, an image of a couple riding bicycles together is more appealing than a picture of a bicycle leaning on the wall.

Examples Of Great Listings
There are some listings on RealAdventures that are simply gorgeous and so appealing, they get tons of inquiries.

Take a look at the text & images for these listings. Can you see yourself taking one of these trips or staying at the accommodations. Would that be a great vacation? Would your family be happy?

Then take a look at your listing. Are the images exciting, high quality — do they sell your services?

• California Rafting From Mild To Wild

• Oceanfront Cocoa Beach Condo

• Creekside Luxury Log Cabins In The Smokies

Images vs. Inquiries
I just ran some internal reports looking at just our basic listings ($129.95/year) which on average:

With 0 images received 1.5 inquiries/year
With 1 image received 9.3 inquiries/year
With 12 images received 25 inquiries/year

The point being that adding just 1 image increased the # of inquiries 9 times. Adding a few more images increased the number of inquiries 25 times.

I can’t stress how important it is to have high quality, interesting and exciting images for your listing. If you don’t have any, take some. If you can’t take pictures, ask a friend. Be very selective about the images you upload. Make the most appealing image the very first image.

Add Or Update Your Images
Unfortunately, we cannot take images from your website or your emails and add them to your listing for you.

BUT it is really easy for you to add images to your listing. Below are some instructions and a screen shot of the “Add/Update Images” form.

1. When you login to your account, edit your listing and then click on “Images” in the left column. That screen will display any images that you currently have for your listing.
2. Scroll down a bit on the page and you will see the “Add/Update Images” form — it looks a bit like a television screen.
3. Click the round green button with the plus sign. It is in the lower left of the ‘television screen’.
4. Here you can select images from your computer that you want to add to your listing. Click “Open” or “Okay” to add those images to the files that will be uploaded.
5. Now click the “Upload” button on the ‘television screen’. This will upload the selected image to your listing. It might take a few minutes depending on the size of the image and then number of images.
6. When the images have been uploaded, the screen will automatically refresh and your images will be displayed.

Add some images and start getting more inquiries.