Beefed-up Booking Tool Makes Member Websites “Stickier”
St. Helena, Calif. (March 24, 2015) CellarPass, the travel companion that makes it easy to schedule winery tour and tasting reservations online, has announced strategic partnerships with the top travel and entertainment booking engines to deliver a comprehensive website. Partnerships with a “who’s who” of the travel category – OpenTable, Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and more – have created a one-stop travel resource for fine beverage traveller.
The all-inclusive travel solution has been years in the making.“There’s really no other site like the new CellarPass.com,” explains founder Jonathan Elliman. “Now, when someone visits our featured destinations, including Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Central Coast and Texas Hill Country, they’ll have access to not only our top picks and our community’s most recommended wine tasting properties, they will also have instant access to secure reservations for tastings, tours, hotels, restaurants, activities and transportation, all in one place.”
“In addition to wine tasting, we were constantly make recommendations to our online visitors on where to stay, where to eat and what else to do in wine country, through our CellarPass Live Chat,” notes Elliman. “One day, the lightbulb went off. Why not expand our website so visitors have access to everything they need for their trip, 24/7, all in one place?”
“To our expanded website, we added something else – a cool new mascot that expresses how intelligently the new CellarPass.com works, our CellarPass fox.”
And sly, it is. Whether a traveler’s search is for Napa wineries or Sonoma accommodations, as a result of highly-intelligent search engine optimization, CellarPass search results consistently appear among the top results on Yahoo, Bing and Google. And when CellarPass ranks high on a search results, CellarPass featured destinations and partners also rise to the top, attracting more clicks to their websites and making them “stickier.”
“It’s all about owning major relevant keywords to attract the largest opportunity for our members,” explains Elliman. “We know how to get those crucial, top two or three positions on search results and our goal is that our CellarPass link to your business appears at the top on any relevant search. Whether your business provides winery tours, hotel rooms, spa treatments, helicopter rides or hiking excursions, everyone stands to benefit.”
And CellarPass.com now works faster, too.
“When building the new site, we expected a surge in a new traffic, so we also upgraded our system architecture and infrastructure, adding datacenters in North America and Europe,” explained Elliman. “We wanted to make sure CellarPass loads fast from anywhere in the world, which is crucial since nearly 40% of our bookings are made using a tablet or smartphone and in fact CellarPass.com loads faster than 93% of all websites benchmarked.”
Last month, with the website expansion almost complete and in the middle of what is considered “low” season, CellarPass already exceeded its 2014 peak season revenues and March is on trend to set another record. To learn more about how CellarPass works for business, visit http://www.cellarpass.com/business/default.aspx.
Claim your business listing program
While the results for CellarPass membership are clear, even non-subscriber businesses can reap the benefits by engaging CellarPass visitors. Hospitality businesses (including wineries, breweries, distilleries, lodging, restaurants, and tour and activity companies) should claim their free CellarPass business listing page at www.cellarpass.com/claim. CellarPass will confirm and provide simplified access to the CellarPass back office to add their destination profile and further customize their page. Destinations can upgrade to get access to detailed visitor information, upload promotions, and even sell tickets to special events, food and wine pairings, all through the powerful CellarPass platform.
CellarPass works with the in-demand properties and up-and-coming fine beverage destinations covering Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Central Coast, Livermore, Lake County, Sierra Foothills, Solano County and San Francisco, as well as other popular destinations – New York’s Finger Lakes, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas Hill Country and Washington State. More regions are being added every month, so be sure to explore CellarPass at www.cellarpass.com.
