By JESSE GRAHAM
THE owner of a recently launched website and app for Yarra Ranges businesses says it will be a one-stop shop for visitors, tourists and residents in coming months.
Book Yarra Valley was launched at Coldstream’s Rochford Wines on 9 December last year, with business representatives coming together for the event.
The website aims to be a one-stop shop for visitors, with restaurants, services, accommodation providers and tourist destinations all listed, with bookings made through the same site.
Since the launch, owner, Ross Stevens, said the uptake since the launch had been “brilliant”, with 100 businesses and members joining the website.
“Obviously, they see the gap in the market, and it’s just a matter of trying to keep up with it all,” he said.
He said the website’s full range of websites – which covers wedding venues, markets, events and business listings, among others – were expected to be up-and-running by the end of March.
Though adding a business to the website is paid, there are free small listings for businesses, and Mr Stevens said he hoped it would eventually allow for local businesses to find service providers, such as plumbers, in town.
For now, he said his sights were set on drawing crowds to the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges from Melbourne.
“A very big percentage of our business is what we call the ‘visiting friends and relatives market’,” he said.
“Melbourne is our base, that’s our market, that’s what we’re aiming to pitch the whole thing at.”
The aim is also to bring tourism money through locally, by providing accommodation bookings through the website and app, rather than through large, international booking companies.
“What’s happened in the market is we’ve lost a lot of that local booking presence, and that’s declined dramatically over the last two years,” Mr Stevens said.
“We’re giving that away to international companies such as Expedia and Booking.com, which don’t have that local presence – so you need to have a system that people feel they are spending their money locally.”
For more information, visit www.bookyarravalley.net.
