How a Virtual Tour of Your Property Will Increase Your Bookings with Tony Carter S7E17

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Welcome to the Boostly Podcast. We're in season seven, this is episode 17 and this topic is going to be all about how a virtual tour for your property will help you increase your direct bookings. I've got a special guest on with us today to someone who we can really delve into this topic with. But before that I just wanted to say thank you to our sponsors of the Boosted podcast which is hostfully. So hostfully.com h o s t f u l l y.com what they are currently running is a competition and this is an exclusive competition with Hostfully and Boostly where they want you to share your guidebooks with them. Now what we're going to do is we're going to run a competition, it start on the 14th of February, it's going to run all the way till March 27th and all you have to do to enter is to share your guidebook with Hostfully via a special link that I'm going to give you at the end of this podcast. For everybody that does, you're going to get entered into a competition. They're going to have some special judges that are going to give you some special prizes for the special winners. They've got hoodies, they've got T shirts, they've got swag, they've got guidebooks, they've got premium listings and you can also win a Boostly marketing review as well as part of it. So, so keep on at the end because I will give you the special link on how you can enter if you are not on Hostfully. Well, the good news is that you can get started today and you can build your first guidebook for free. So you can build your first guidebook for free and then you can submit it and you've got until March 27th, hostfully.com, they help you design digital guidebooks that you can share with your guests before they arrive to get them excited and get them basically from the whole check in process. It'll make it as simple as possible. So moving on to today, so I've invited on Tony Carter and what we're going to do is we're going to talk about virtual tours. Okay, so what is a virtual tour? We're going to delve into that, we're going to delve into all the other topics as well about why a virtual tour is key, what it does for a potential guest and how you can get over so many hurdles that you can't do with photography. So Tony, just going to unmute you here and bring you into the show. Thank you very much for joining us. If you could just take a couple of minutes please. Just introduce a little bit more about yourself how you got into doing virtual tours us. And again just introduce yourself and let us know where you are, please. Hi Mark.

Thank you very much. Thanks for pleasure being here. Thank you very much for inviting us. I'm Tony Carter. We run a company called Converts and basically offering all manner of immersive media virtual tours being a particular. Particular popular service that we offer at the moment. My background is I was. I've always been quite a techie sort of sound light design and. And whatnot. Worked in theater and then got into photography and then when vir reality sort of became. Came on sort of across my radar it was. It was. Yeah, it was just. It seemed it's too good to an opportunity to pass up. So I kind of got into it as a bit of a sideline really. I mean a bit of a hobbyist and you know people sort of had friends in who worked in museums who once they saw what we could do realized it was a great opportunity. So yeah, we kind of became a business from there really.

So what year is this then? So when you're sort of going from a little side project into a business, what sort of year are we talking here? Week.

Started becoming a proper business about two years ago. Prior to that it was. It was just, you know we'd kind of occasionally somebody see what. What we'd done. Like we did say we'd be brad like a museum that we did. One of the first things we did, we did Bradford Museum and then somebody in I think Wakefield. So it was kind of. We started very much in West Yorkshire funnily enough and then built from there. But it was just completely word of mouth.

And where were you based?

I'm based in Liverpool.

Do you do a lot of the work in the north or is it all UK wide?

It's UK wide because we do a lot of student accommodation for the. For big student accommodation providers and that's all over the country. So yeah, so we'll go all over. You know it's nice, it's nice to keep it north but you know we.

Just go wherever, go wherever, go wherever. The workers and from what I gather at the moment, and it's a lot more of hospitality businesses are now starting to realize the power of virtual tours and are actually coming to you for work. Are you getting just hotels or are you finding that it's like rentals as well?

The rental. The rental things just. Yeah, absolutely. Kicking off at the moment, to be honest. It's taken a while, it's, it's taken a while for people to kind of realize the benefits. It's obvious for museums and art galleries because they, they had some, a lot of the, a lot of their kind of business. It was, it was opening, opening that up to a wider, a wider audience. But for the serviced accommodation, we're seeing that it's a huge value. It allows people to walk around your property before seeing it. You can also, whilst people are actually in the property, you could, we can we put tags in, so sort of instruction manuals on how to work the dishwasher or whatever. You, it kind of, rather than you leaving a book of instructions for people to follow, we can put little videos in of how to do things. So it kind of the whole. It's good for your marketing. It's also good to reduce those phone calls in the middle of the night. Asking how do I tend this? He said this boiler off.

I like how you mentioned about those guidebooks because this is like I say, the one thing that I really wanted to do this episode and touch upon this topic is when it comes to people that are arriving in your property, making that check in process as smooth as possible, making that, that guest experience as good as possible. So you're going to get a superb review and hopefully, you know, repeat booking specifically in rentals is in the past, people would just leave paper documents lying around, maybe in the kitchen or pinned up on the fridge. But with what you're doing, it couples nicely with hostfully. So hostfully is like the digital guidebook. So what they can do is, what you can do is you can actually bring what you're doing as business files as the virtual tours. You can grab that link, put it into the guidebook and like you're saying with a virtual tour, what you can do, the possibilities are endless. A tag like you mentioned, there is, you can, you know, in the virtual tour you could have on the fridge there'll be a nice big like clickable button. Or it could be on the microwave, on the oven, it could be on the alarm, it could be on the wifi router, it could be on anything. And you can, they can click on it and then you can give them a bit more information. So yeah, really, really, really good. So 2018, you sort of start to turn it into a business. Obviously museums were first and now sort of hospitality are coming in. So why do you see this and what, why do you believe from just chatting to your clients and customers and friends. Why do you think there's like the sudden shift into virtual tours at the present time? Why do you think people are getting into this specifically in hospitality?

I think there's a huge trust thing on the. I'm saying my background, I've got a bit, you know, I did quite a bit of photography and we kind of all know that, you know, photography, you can, as a photographer, you can lie about how something looks, you know, you can take from a, you know, estate agent point of view, you can take, considering you consider the angles of a room. And you can make a room look much bigger. You can, you can kind of hide areas. And I think with the, you know, people more doing more and more shopping online, booking more and more bookings online, I think it's, I think it allows allowing people to actually walk around your, Your, Your space, walk around your, your, Your accommodation. It gives them a sense of trust, it gives them a sense of belonging. They're kind of more invested in that place. You know, they've had a little look in the toilet, they've in the bathroom, you know, they've kind of wandered around the kitchen. They've kind of looked in all the nooks and crannies. And also it gives a sense of perspective, a sense of space. So one of the first ones we did actually was a, a property in the Anglesey, Isle of Anglesey, just in North Wales. And it was a property for 12 people. And he said the amount of times he had phone calls, are you sure we can sleep 12? There's a big group of us. It took us, loads of us, you know, and he said the photograph and the video, he said, just didn't give the sense of perspective. It didn't show how big the property was. So. But once you allow people to actually physically, you know, walk around in a 3D environment in a, In a virtual space, it really does, it kind of shows it off. And also, as I say, you can't hide. People kind of realize, okay, if I want to look around there, it's install. Instill a sense of trust, which I think is largely missing online before virtual.

Tours is even possible. Back in the day, what you would find is that you would have to go to the property and prearrange to meet with the person. I'd find this loads like, and I'm talking from personal experience with our family business, the Granary in Scarborough. We've got the cottages and what we would find is that we would have people come up to Scarborough and come and visit us just because they wanted to have a look around before committing to booking because we've got those similar, bigger properties. And they were also wondering the. As well as you try and lay out your photography. And we had, in the last episode of the Boosted podcast, we had Ty and Marsnik talking about photography and it was some fantastic tips. But you're right with virtual tour, you literally have to, you know, it's watts and all and which is the key. And I think now the beauty of it is instead of you having to take time out of your day, having to take the guests, having to then have to venture all the way out to see the property before making that booking, they can literally do it in the pants, on the sofa, on the phone, you know, on the laptop and have a good, like look around and they can get a good scale of it. And the thing that I love most about these, these virtual tours is that you get a floor plan as well included.

Yes. Yeah.

Which is again, we talked about this in the last episode of the Boosted podcast, is that when you have got property, whether it's rental, hotel, guest house, doesn't matter, what it is, is that if you have a floor plan, it goes a long way in clearing any doubt. You can get the guests to jump over all the hurdles before making that decision to get him from the side to booking. And that process is key going, getting them to go, this is a place looks good to get them to make the actual booking. There's so many questions that they've got to answer and if you can just eradicate them with a floor plan with a virtual reality tour, then you'll do really well. And the beauty of doing it now, like Tony's mentioned, is that so many people are just starting to be aware of it. People still think that a virtual reality tour is just one of those video walkthroughs, which it isn't. It's so much more of that. So say, for example, somebody wanted to hire somebody if they wanted to do it themselves. It's, you know, very, very, very hard because the kit and the equipment is still very, very, very expensive as you. So when you, you have to really hire somebody on this, it's not like photography. You can go pick up a decent camera and do it, you know, do it yourself. You have to hire. So when it comes to hiring someone to potentially do your virtual tour, what would be some of the key questions that the host should be asking and what, and what do you find? As like a side note on this, what do you find are some of the main questions that you get asked by host.

From my point of view there's I kind of go on you know that's because sort of a bit of a geek like before I got into this I looked into all the different types of 360 tours. Virtual tour, what's the 3D tour, what's. And so you can. There's a myriad of different options out there from basically you're like your kind of group Google street view type thing which is Basically it's a360 image which can kind of look all around but it's quite. It's. That's actually a static image and you put an arrow which takes you to the next static image. With something like that that can be of great value. However it's how. How easy for me really. There's two really important points of. Of a virtual tour. One is the quality of the imagery. It does it look look very good and also is it usable user friendly. The two things you want. You want to just. You want it to look good and you want people to want to use it. You want it to be as easy to use as possible. Otherwise people are just going to click off and go elsewhere. So they're the two things that I kind of always look for because we find an incredible amount of people that I speak to when I'm sort of selling tours or discuss talking to venues. They've had a virtual tour of what they've got what they cite as a virtual tour on their website. And you go on and it's. You feel sick trying to use it because you're spinning it upside down and it's just. It's. It's. You might as well not have anything there. You might just have a nice static image because it's. People would you know it'd be much, much better for your marketing. So I think yeah being user friendly and if once it's user friendly the benefits of of keeping someone on your website for a period of time is your SEO. It's just those untold glorious things to your SEO because you probably discussed like bounce rates and what have you and things podcast before. But the more people spend time actually on your site your all the search engine robots see that as having valuable content. So you're ranking so it does it helps untold with your rankings.

I think that I think that's a real nice point just to sort of double down on is that you're right and we will go on to chat about in a second about where you can actually put these virtual reality tours. But One of the main things that Google or Bing or these search engines look for is time that people spend on your website. When you have got a virtual reality tour, people can't help but spend a good few minutes on. Now I encourage everybody to go onto your Google Analytics, go into time spent on website and find out how much it is. I can pretty much guarantee it'll be between the 1, 2, 3 minute mark. If you have a virtual reality tour, you'll have people that will be browsing around your property, easy for three to five minute average. So that what that will do is that you will automatically increase the amount of time that people are on your website. So what that then will in turn and do is Google will start to notice your website more. And if you combine that with good writing, if you combine that with good blogs and you know, think talking about things in your local area, then it'll have more of an impact on your direct bookings, which is what we all do this for, to get more bookings, to get more direct bookings. So Tony, if you could just basically lay out. So when you get a virtual reality tour and you've done the tour, you give it to your client, where then can they then submit and put those to us?

Our tours are quite unique in that. But that's another thing that I should have mentioned, mentioned before about when you look for a kind of what you look for in a virtual tour. So I'm really bad at this. But one thing that's worth looking at is have you got any ongoing fees? Where's your tour being hosted? What are you actually getting for your money? I say there's a variety of options out there, but a lot of them you don't actually, once you've created your tour, somebody comes around, they scan your building, they tell, they take 360 photographs, however we want to do it. And then the deliverable at the end, the thing you get for your money, what is it you're actually getting? A lot of people use different systems and a lot of systems you basically just get a link to, to a hosted website, to a host that's your tour hosted on a website that's, you know, you never actually have any control over that tour. You can by all means put it on your website. Yes, you can put on your Google business page, you can share it on social media. However, that third party is always going to own your tour and you're kind of just renting it off them so that data doesn't belong to you. Now that was really important to me. As a business. Sort of. As a business decision really is that seemed like a really uncomfortable decision.

The key thing, which is. Yeah. Which is why you went with what you went for. So. Okay, that's good. So the main things to look out for, make sure that you've got control of it. Make sure that it's not on somebody else's land, which is again, something that we talk about all the time. You make sure you build your house on your own land. Don't. Don't have an important bit of kit like this sitting somewhere else. And make sure you're in control. So you've got control of it. And so then you can put it on your website, which is obviously something that we spoke to about. And does it automatically then go into Google Business Listing, or is that something that you have?

No, we just add that to your. Add that to Google Business. You can obviously. We can add that also. Obviously links to links on social media are great. Also what we, what we do is include little, little video walkthroughs. Because social media people tend to just want, you know, you can, if you have like a short walkthrough, but with the link underneath. So if people want to invest more time, then they can kind of go and do the video to be sure. It kind of just. It adds as a little draw for people to.

You get the best of both worlds.

Yeah, yeah.

And of course, you get your floor plans as well. So you can take the floor plans, take screenshots of that.

Absolutely, yes. Yeah, yeah.

And then. And then you can take those floor plans and you can upload to the listing sites like booking.com and Airbnb and any localized listing sites that you've got. There is a rumor as well, and I don't know it when this is coming in, but what I noticed last time I logged into booking.com is that you had the ability to upload a virtual tour. I tried to do it. It didn't work on the platform that I had, so it wasn't supporting the one that I had. So it was interesting to see what their plans on doing with that. And that will be coming up on a future podcast episode interview, special interview with one of the CTOs of booking.com that we managed to track down. So that will be super interesting if that's one of the focuses of the big OTAs moving forward. Because then again, if you're an early adopter and you got a virtual tour and you upload it to one of these sites and again, your visibility is going to go through the roof. So it's a really good time to start to think about investing in a virtual tour. So what we're doing at Boostly is that we're working with Tony's company converts and what we're going to be doing is you're able to go onto the Boostly website now. If you're thinking about getting one and you want to have a chat with Tony and his team about seeing if we can do it for you, then go to boostly.co.uk VR. There's samples, there's a lot of things that are in there that you'll be able to look as well as examples of virtual reality tour that Tony and his company have done. There's a faq. It gives you a full included. It tells you everything that you need to know about a virtual reality tour. So please go and check out boostly.co.ukv Victor R for Romeo and you can go into there. So thank you for that Tony. As we always like to finish our Boostly podcast on we've got some quick fire questions so I have sent you these prior so you can some prep. So what we're going to do is we're going to uncover a little bit more about you and just try and see if there's any tactics and tips that we can take away. So number one, your favorite business book.

Favorite business. Well this, this. I actually took this on holiday last year and sat by the pool reading this and it was just, it's, it's mind blowing and I'm sure, I'm sure everybody's read it and I'm the last person to read it. But the E Myth by Michael Geber.

E Myth.

The E Myth. It's just, it's if it would just immediately you want to come back and restructure your business the way it's it's brilliant. Very, very easy to read and yeah and I would recommend it to anybody who's. It's fantastic.

Lovely. Thank you very much for that. Next one. Favorite podcast or YouTube channel like your go to. Like when you're driving in the car you must be doing a lot of driving for all the tours that you do around the uk. What's your what's your favorite go to?

My my go to Pod. Well podcast wise YouTube is I tend to only watch it with my son and it's Genevieve's Playhouse. That's Cookie Monster is his favorite. So that's where we spend spend a lot of time. But my but personally when I'm driving. Yeah. Also or podcasts all the way the Bugle. I don't know if anyone read that, but it's, it's a kind of a satirical political podcast and a bit of a bit, you know, true crime and what have you. Truth and justice, a wide variety of things.

Is it John Oliver? Is that John Oliver? Is that right?

It was, yeah, it used to be John. John Oliver.

Yeah.

Before he went over to the States it was John Oliver and Andy Saltzman and it's just Andy Saltzman now. Yeah, it's fancy. It's brilliant. Brilliant.

Lovely, lovely. Nice Bugle. So, okay, next one and favorite. Your favorite purchase in the last year that is under a hundred pounds.

Just under 100 coming in just under a hundred pounds. The DJI DJI Osmo Mobile 3. It's a gimbal for, for your phone for making video. I had the DJI OSMO plus which, which had a camera and everything but mobile, mobile cameras on mobile phones and I was so ridiculous that I got rid of a lot of me camera kit and I would just use, use a phone for a lot of. And photography.

Nice. I like. And yeah, they keep the video. So smooth. I do like that. Okay, so right now then, what would you say the biggest pain point in your business is right now?

It's still educated. It always has been. It still is educating potential clients because it's a new technology and it's educating people about the benefits. Is it? Rather than selling? I don't do any selling. I just, it's just all education.

Yeah, which is why we get you on this podcast.

Yeah, thank you very much.

So in the future when you got somebody that wants to find out more, you can just send them this link and they can have a listen in the car, which will help. Okay, so finally then, what would you say? Because like you said, there's so many companies, there's so many softwares out there that now are doing virtual tours. But what would you say is that your company's superpower, what sets you out from the rest?

To be honest? Well, we're the only company in the UK that. Well, you know, I'm obviously going to say this. We are talking are the highest quality of anybody out there. Quality wise image quality wise. And usability also you can download, you can actually download our tours and run them on your desktop. You can actually host them yourself that nobody else offers that. So it's, it's, it's. It doesn't seem like a lot but for, for me again keeping the ability, the ability to actually own it yourself, I think is invaluable.

Which is why I wanted to partner up you guys and work with you because I really am a big fan of that. And like you say, well, hopefully that there's people listening now that will be a bit more educated in it and they will want to get to the front of the queue and be able to find out more. So go to boostly.co.ukvs so Tony, again, thank you very much for that. And again, please, please, please, please do get in touch and just have a chat and see if you can make it possible. All right, so I promised you at the start of this podcast episode, but at the end I would give you the link on where to go and submit your guidebook to win loads of free goodies and potential compet hostfully.com contest c o n T E S T Hostfully is H O S T F u l l y dot com. You've got until the 27th of March 2020. So if you're listening to this after the 27th of March 2020, sorry, you cannot enter. But for everybody else, please do go and submit your link. If you do not yet have a Hostfully guidebook, you can go and create one for free. Go to hostfully.com and go navigate to the guidebooks and you can literally get started because your first one is free. This has been series seven, episode 17 of the boosted Podcast. We'll be back again very soon. In the meantime, please rate, review and subscribe to this podcast. We have officially had the most ever downloads that we have ever had. We've passed the 10,000 mark, which is phenomenal. Thank you so much to everybody that has listened, subscribed and download my now the new goal is to get the 20,000. So if you rate it, if you review, view it, if you subscribe, it just helps more people get visible. Okay, we'll see you again. Thank you very much for tuning in. As always. If you've got any further feedback, if you want to reach out at Boostly UK on all of the social medias and we'll see you again very soon.