We Brits love to walk. In fact, in 2019 71% of UK adults reported walking at least once a week, with an average personal distance of 205 miles in a year.  Wouldn’t it be great if some of those walking miles started and finished at your hospitality business?

Hospitality marketing

All this exercise is great news for the health of our nation and, if you’re in the hospitality marketing business, something you really should be taking notice of. If you’re looking for ideas to enhance your website, writing walking routes can be a great place to start.

The whole experience

Most of us understand the cosiest hotel fire and most delicious Sunday pub lunch are enhanced when combined with a burst of outdoor activity. By interesting potential customers in local walks, you’ll be making your business more attractive than the one down the road. Not only that, if you include local walking route information on your website, you’ll be increasing your chances of being picked up by the search engines.

Writing walking routes

We all have our favourite walking routes but writing them up for other people can be tricky. This is of course where a good route-finder and copywriter can step in but if you want to have a go yourself, here are our five top tips for successful online route writing.

1. Talk to your potential audience. How far do they like to walk? What kind of terrain are they happy with? And perhaps most importantly, how good is their map reading?
2. Write circular walks. By making sure your walks start and end at your location, you’ll be opening up your potential for increased sales.
3. Learn about your local area. Too much information risks confusion but a few tidbits about local history or nature can enhance the walk and encourage happy customers back again.
4. Provide a clear map. You need to follow licensing guidelines to use certain types of maps on your website but, for shorter walks, a hand-drawn option can often suffice.
5. Walk the route yourself. If you’ve ever followed walk instructions, you’ll know how important this is. Little nuances such as ‘cross the stream’ and ‘look for the old oak tree’ can make all the difference to navigation success.

Route writing in Devon

With the two National Parks of Dartmoor and Exmoor as well as the South West Coast Path, Devon is the perfect location for walking routes. We believe your customer experience and website would be enhanced by including some. Get in touch with us today to find out more.

Fi  Darby is an experienced walk leader and creator, writing in Devon and beyond. She loves to explore and, amongst others, has written routes for Countryfile Magazine and mapping giants Ordnance Survey.

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