Field notes
Notes on lodge and hotel marketing.
Practical articles from the team running the campaigns.
9 October 2026Celebrating Molori’s Success in the 2026 Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards
Discover the African safari properties recognised in the 2026 Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards, including Molori Safari Lodge, Molori Mashuma and Samara Karoo. Explore the destinations and the websites bringing their unique experiences to life, designed by Focus Online Travel.
26 August 2026AI Overviews in Google Search: What It Means for Your Bookings
Google's AI Overviews are changing how travellers search. Here's what boutique hotels need to know, and what still works. Read more here.
31 March 2026Manyoni Ridge | A Contemporary Safari Website
The Manyoni Ridge website is a strong example of thoughtful design, strong visual storytelling, and strategic UX working together to elevate a brand. Take a look.
3 March 2026Sustainable Travel Marketing
Learn how to communicate sustainability in travel marketing authentically, without greenwashing. Build trust, credibility, and bookings.
6 November 2025Leveraging Social Proof Through Reviews
Reviews are more than nice words. They are a strategic asset that builds trust, improves discoverability, and converts interest into bookings. For safari brands, where the experience is everything, a thoughtful review strategy can be the difference between a missed lead and a confirmed reservation.
20 October 2025Our Favourite Website Redesigns of 2025
Discover the best website redesigns of 2025 by Focus Online, featuring Perry’s Bridge Hollow, Zambezi Queen Collection and Sirikoi. See how we’ve combined storytelling, design, and performance to create seamless, high-impact digital experiences for luxury travel brands.
30 June 2025AI Tools You Should Be Using
Our team has tested and compiled a list of the top AI tools that are boosting productivity and innovation across our industry. Take a look.
17 March 2025UTM Tracking: A Basic How-To
Whether you’re running email campaigns, social media ads, or referral marketing, UTM parameters provide the insights you need to optimise your efforts.
12 February 2025Optimising Your Facebook Ads
If you’re spending money on Meta Ads, it’s important to critically evaluate these strategies rather than blindly following all recommendations. Here’s the scoop.
15 November 20242024 Web Design & Development Projects
Our dev team has been hard at work crafting high-impact, visually stunning websites that elevate our clients’ brands. Here’s a look at our most recent builds and how they bring these exceptional destinations to life.
1 October 2024AI Updates From Canva Create 2024
Earlier this year, Canva hosted its most significant event yet: Canva Create, live from the YouTube Theatre in Los Angeles. With 3,500 in-person attendees and over 2.5 million tuning in online, the event showcased groundbreaking updates that are reshaping the future of visual communication, including AI enhancements designed to streamline workflows and boost creativity.
4 September 2024SEO Checklist for Hoteliers
A practical SEO checklist for hoteliers: the on-page, technical and content fixes that move organic bookings for lodges and boutique hotels.
17 July 2024Maximising International Sales with Meta Marketing
How lodges and hotels can use Meta Advantage and AI targeting to reach travellers and lift direct bookings from Facebook and Instagram.
28 June 2024Unlocking the Power of Google Ads Performance Max for Travel Goals
What Performance Max does for hotel and travel advertisers, when to use it, and how to feed it the right assets, goals and audience signals.
23 October 2023The Travel Buying Cycle
Understanding and catering to the five stages of the travel buying cycle is crucial for effectively marketing to potential travellers. These stages are the dreaming phase, the planning phase, the booking phase, the experiencing phase and sharing phase. In this blog post, we explore each of these stages and how you can market to holiday-makers in each part of the cycle.
21 July 2023The Power of Video Marketing in the Hospitality Industry
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, establishing a strong online presence is no longer just an option; it’s a necessity. For establishments in the hospitality sector, especially, video marketing has emerged as a powerful tool, allowing establishments to connect with potential guests and stand out from the competition.
8 July 2020Why Set Up Facebook Ads for Hotels
Facebook advertising is a fantastic way to increase brand awareness and traffic for your hotel, generate leads and create a loyal customer base. With 2 billion monthly active users spending an average of 40 minutes on the platform per day, chances are your audience is already on Facebook. Here we highlight a few of the many reasons to set up Facebook ads for hotels.
15 May 2020Everything you need to know about Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories allow you to integrate videos, photos, music, text and emojis into a visual story that can be viewed by your followers as a slideshow in…