The motivation behind myTobago

[Steve Wooler]

Within minutes of posting a reply to Charles (General Questions - http://www.myTobago.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=511 I received an email from an irate reader who hadn’t the balls to post his message directly in the forum. Probably because he was a she. Anyway, that’s by the by.

This friendly correspondent more-or-less accuses me of being a fraud, alleging that I claim the site to be non-commercial while actually promoting certain businesses. My mention of John Malcolm and/or The Red Door in the reply to Charles seems to have triggered the outburst. She infers that there must be a commercial relationship between us. I don’t think the email came from disgruntled competitor in Tobago. It’s difficult to tell with hotmail.com email accounts, but it would have been remarkably early in the morning if posted in Tobago.

For obvious reasons I cannot publish an email sent to me privately, but ethically I see no reason not to reply through the forum. So here goes, nice lady:

May I please refer you to the home page of our site. This clearly states our aim and intentions. Nothing has changed since we first expressed those sentiments.

Our goal is simply to help employment on Tobago in appreciation of the wonderful holidays that we have enoyed there. I have been visiting the island, on and off, for 45 years. The beauty of Tobago is not just the scenery or beaches – it is the local people that make the real difference.

So, by promoting tourism to the island, we will, in our own small way, help local employment. How do we promote tourism? Well, my theory is that we tell the TRUTH about the island – quite simply because it is one of the few places left in the world that you can be truthful about. Readers will hopefully be both convinced and captivated by this approach. As one reader said to me some time ago “better the devil you know”. She was referring to the fact that myTobago made her feel that she knew the island and what to expect, despite never having visited Tobago.

Given this thesis, our method is simple. By steering visitors to the best places and away from the worst, and by providing all necessary and essential information, we believe that we can enhance a visitor’s holiday experience. Follow our advice and the advice of our forum contributors and your visit will not just be a GREAT holiday, it could be the holiday of a lifetime. The better the holiday, the more likely you are to return and to recommend the destination to others. Ergo, we achieve our aims and hopefully aid local employment.

Now, the crux of the matter is how to steer visitors to the “best” places and away from the “worst”. Bearing in mind differing tastes, standards and budget, this obviously has to be done in a responsible manner. One must also bear in mind the possible impact (good or bad) on the businesses mentioned.

All our aims would be worthless if we did not mention the “good” and the “bad” by name. Surely that is the whole purpose and value of the site? The fundamental issue I must stress is that nobody PAYS to be mentioned on this site. We do not receive commissions, fees or advertising revenue of any kind to favour or mention anybody. We only mention businesses when our experience and/or research indicates that the particular business is deserving of mention (good or bad).

Over and above this assurance, dear lady, I would have thought that even a baboon would have been able to recognise that anything and everything we say would be for nought if not totally endorsed by the general readership of the site. I provide this forum to allow others to agree or disagree with our personal recommendations or warnings and to suggest other businesses that we may not have thought or know of. Many of the businesses that we do recommend came to our first notice through the suggestions and comment of readers. We very largely simply reflect the view expressed here. If we were to start ‘promoting’ businesses that were not deserving and readers posted messages of contradiction, the validity of our views – and therefore the integrity of the entire site – would be quickly destroyed. So, we try to make our recommendations wisely, honestly and without bias.

How do we decide who to promote? Well, there’s no easy answer to that question because there’s no single method. Many hotels and restaurants have well established and widely recognised reputations, so they are easy to identify. Smaller businesses and services are sometimes harder to identify. We reviewed two accommodation properties this year purely on the basis of a nice letter from the owners. Those letters were followed by extensive research to ensure that local contacts and visitors endorsed the service provided, but the start of the chain was a simple letter.

We also like to find ‘new’ places and we particularly favour local businesses that are putting something back into the community.

We have an increasingly large list of Tobago contacts, both private and business. Sometimes we write to our contacts asking for their advice and recommendations when looking for the ‘best’ sources of a specific service. Sometimes we even post a message in the forum asking readers likewise. Our recommendation of both John Malcolm and The Red Door fall into exactly this camp (Readers may remember our post "Health & Beauty - Help Required). Prior to our last visit, we had established that John and Abigail were the “top operatives” (as a certain BBC2 presenter would say) in their chosen fields. During our visit we took the opportunity to try their services and are now able to endorse the general view. Therefore, we are not afraid to give them our ‘official’ myTobago seal of approval.

We actually try to avoid using the term ”best”. It is too subjective a term. We simply say that if you use any of the businesses we recommend, you stand an extremely good chance of not being disappointed. Remember that saying - “Better the devil you know”.

So, dear lady, may I respectfully suggest that you use your time a little more constructively. Letters questioning our motive are more a sad reflection on your own character than an attack on ours. This is a private site. If you don’t like it, or wish to question its methods or motives, feel free to post your views – or simply SWITCH OFF!

Here endeth today’s rant.

[Charles Scott]

Steve,

There are always knockers to any wothwhile project. I guess some people jusT don't like to see others succeed and I think that you have met your stated objectives in fine style.

Given that you provided two contacts when you replied to my post and I don't suppose that there are that many masseurs in Tobago, how can your response be seen as favouring selected businesses?

Anyway, my e-mail address is on the forum so if your correspondent wants to send me details of other massage providers, I will consider them.

I think it's pretty obvious, to anyone who takes the time to look at the contents of this site in detail, that you have no commercial axe to grind. Perhaps it is the professional approach and presentation of the site that might give the casual visitor cause to think otherwise. People really should look at the substance rather than the paint job!

I don't always agree with your decisions (remember your e-mail response when I mentioned the possibility of posting an account of the Trinidad portion of my trip) but at the end of the day, it is your site, you are not forcing me to visit it and if I don't like it I can go elsewhere (even if it does take me longer than 8 minutes to identify someone who could provide a massage).

I am really sorry that you have to receive messages such as the one you describe when what you are really doing is providing a public service.

Remember: Nil Illegitimus carborundum.

[Frank Tettemer]

Charles,

Totally!!!

Steve,

He is right as rain.
Your intentions are grand,
and your site "Rocks!"

Frank
(from the other side of the Atlantic)

[Steve Wooler]

Thanks Charles – it was all your fault of course!

Funnily enough, the email didn’t upset me; it was so silly that I laughed. However, it deserved a reply and my attitude was that if one person thought it, then on the law of averages it must have crossed the minds of others. It really does no harm to clarify the situation – how many people actually read the Home page or study the site in detail?

I really don’t know whether the lady had a problem with one of the services mentioned. She didn’t express any dissatisfaction, or suggest similar or better alternatives. I got the impression that her grouse was more a general thing rather than the specific mention of John or Abigail. Maybe I just hadn’t been very complimentary about somewhere she liked.

Just for the record readers, I am a professional webmaster. I design, build, host, administer and market websites on a daily basis. Funnily enough, this site was never ‘designed’ and the look and feel was cobbled together in minutes, simply because I didn’t know if my theories would ‘work’. However, the structure, content, navigation and marketing are by-products of my professional services. Being a webmaster meant that running a website for Tobago was an easy way for me to show my appreciation and help. No big deal, in other words.

Sadly, handling the site in a professional manner seems to also work against it, leading some people to think it’s a cover for something else. Mind you, even the official tourism department of Trinidad & Tobago, TIDCO, believed this and told a public meeting of hoteliers that we were a cover for a commercial operation selling CD copies of the site. They claimed we had sold 6,000 copies – just a week after I had sent a newsletter to the same Tobago hoteliers telling them that we had had a total readership of 4,500 in the three months since the site had been launched. Although I say it myself, I think the TIDCO claim shows just what an amazing success myTobago is! (Mind you, I better stop typing posts and get on with burning those CDs - I've still got 2,362 to go!).

Some readers will be wondering about your comment re Trinidad, so please let me elucidate.

This site is for and about Tobago. This poor little island has lived in the shadow of Trinidad for far too long. I like Trinidad very much and certainly have no axe to grind. Neither do I wish to make a political point. When it comes to dumping on Tobago, nobody has done it better than my own fair country, England, so I can hardly criticise Trinidad.

During my last visit, I was delighted to learn that the authorities are starting to recognise that Tobago needs to be marketed on her own, not as part of “Trinidad & Tobago”. I have long felt this to be the case and myTobago simply puts that thesis into practice by gently remaining focussed on Tobago. I won’t ban or delete posts about Trinidad, but simply don’t actively encourage them. I’ve even considered adding a “Trinidad” sub-forum (comments, please). Anyway, apart from all that, myTrinidadandTobago.info just sounds so crap.

Anyway, Charles, stop causing trouble by asking for recommendations and sod off to the sun! Have a great time and drink a few Stags for me (not Carib, please, I prefer Stag. Ooops, that’s probably going to be seen as a commercial promotion – better shoot off and claim my commission).

p.s. Thanks Frank.