Tourism is, by definition, one of the most information-intensive industries. How are we, as potential customers, going to find information on that fantastic little cottage in the Gold Coast hinterlands that we have been dreaming about for the past 10 days? I need to book it, and I need to book it NOW... So here I start Googling "gold coast hinterland cottage"... to my surprise, not many of these fantastic little cottages come up.

"That's not possible" you will tell me, "there are millions of them up there. I see the signs in front of these properties every time I drive up! and I am certain that I remember them telling me that they are bookable online.

" Well, well, well. This is the issue. These properties are bookable online, however they are not SEARCHABLE let alone FINDABLE. It is a bit as if they had a phone number but they were not listed in the phone book.

As one would know, over 90% of the key players in the tourism industry are Small and Medium Enterprises. SMEs that focus on their one reason for existence: developing a product or service that will sell. They do however lack a strategic sense of how to move forward in the e-marketplace. They have yet to incorporate an e-business strategy into their business or use Web enabled technologies to assist them in their internal and external business process. However, they are starting to realise that even with a lack of financial resources, they can take advantage of the Internet as a distribution channel which will reach a global market at a lower cost than distributing through the traditional distribution channels.

So, that fantastic little cottage in the Hinterlands simply needs to let the world know it is out there and that the woodfire is on in this rainy winter month. How will it let the world know?

There is an enormous gap in the Tourism industry with regards to web optimisation. Operators get sold fancy online booking platforms by very well trained sales people but unfortunately the link between these online booking platforms and the potential customer is not established. As I mention to my clients, it is as if they now have a phoneline but they are not listed in the phonebook. Operators do not see the expected ROI of their booking platform simply because the client cannot find them.

The discipline that makes these operators findable is called Online Marketing. Online Marketing then branches out into Search Engine Marketing (advertisments that the operator pays for), Search Engine Optimisation (keyword tweaking that should get your ranking up on search engine) and now into Social Media and Social Bookmarking (Digg, Stumbleupon etc). Online Marketing used to be assimilated to Web development a decade ago but it has now become a specialty on its own.

Unfortunately, many tourism and other operators have not yet grasped that concept and believe a Web designer will get them a fantastic website AND lots of traffic and conversions through it. WRONG! The Online Marketer therefore also has a strong educational role in this regard. One way to help operators understand how important it is for them to work on their "online findablility" is to get them to put themselves in their customers' fingers and Google their service. We need to get the Hinterland Cottage Owner on Google and type in "cottage gold coast hinterlands", "woodfire accommodation gold coast hinterlands".

Once the owner has convinced himself (very different from a salesperson telling him that it is the way to do it) he will be very receptive and will with no doubt work with experts to increase not only traffic to his site but also conversions and therefore ROI. 1 happy operator will quickly lead to 100 visible and bookable operators which in turn will eventually lead to a whole destination with a strengthened online reputation.

To facilitate the learning curve that tourism operators need to embrace, I have simply integrated the Google search box to my business' website: check it out on http://www.untanglemyweb.com/test_business_keywords_google.html. My clients really appreciate being able to become their own customer as it allows them to understand the key relationship between Search Engines and Online Marketing.