TotallyBarbados.com has become the leading resource for local information by blending detailed travel and destination information for visitors with a strong business and investment section. BTN investigates how it has used indepth local knowledge to attract a global audience.

With the online environment offering internet users countless travel information sources, today’s savvy browsers are looking for authoritative information sources where they can gather travel-related information and develop a sense of trust for an online brand.

On the Caribbean paradise island of Barbados, TotallyBarbados.com is a website that has become the leading resource for local information by blending the detailed travel and destination information for visitors with a strong business and investment section, complete with a Barbados Business and Investment Guide. It also features a Barbados Business RSS Feed, giving users constant live updates of developments in local commerce.

For a relatively small Caribbean island, Barbados enjoys one of the highest GDP per capita in the region. The tourism and international business and finance sector has been the main drivers of the economy and for those who fall in love with Barbados as a tourist, investing in Barbados is the next best thing.

(Right: St Nicholas Abbey)

TotallyBarbados.com caters to this need for a blend of Barbados business information with travel and leisure information and has uniquely positioned itself as the portal of Barbados catering to both sectors of the economy.

Website Features

Totally Barbados features detailed guides about everything in Barbados including guides for the beaches, car rental, nightlife, sports guide, tourist attractions, transportation, island happenings, and essential services. There is also a section with important facts about Barbados and a great feature called ‘Meet a Bajan’ (local term for a Barbados national).

(Left: Sandy Lane Bay)

Totally Barbados is truly all-encompassing, and includes information on accommodation, entertainment, restaurants, transportation, businesse, shopping, real estate, business listings, photo gallery, places of interest, parishes, special offers, island news, upcoming events, weddings and sightseeing.

For patrons wanting to stay in constant touch, Totally Barbados offers a bi-weekly newsletter users can subscribe to as an easy way to keep up to date with things relating to Barbados.

Search Engines Change the Face of Travel

The majority of today’s travellers start researching a destination at search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN’s Bing search engine. These engines have levelled the playing field away from the large corporate websites as they reward good content which is relevant to readers by ranking those websites higher in the search results.

(Right: Lone Star Restaurant)

A quick Google search for the keyword “Barbados Guide” yields totallybarbados.com in the first search results, rivalling the likes of lonelyplanet.com, worldtravelguide.net, wikitravel.org, and World66.com.

Another quick search in Google for the keyword “Barbados Shopping” yields totallybarbados.com again among the first search results.

Well-positioned websites like totallybarbados.com employ the right strategy to capture a large share of the search market. These platforms allow for great exposure as their real strength is capturing search eyes that would have largely been missed.

(Left: Port St Charles)

With search engines showing the true intent of a user, for local advertisers wanting to reach this share of the search market, TotallyBarbados.com is an ideal platform to reach potential consumers. Indeed, to reach travellers now and in the future, destination websites who keep abreast with developments in search, strive to give accurate and relevant content, and build their online brand will succeed as the new face of a destination.