Town News, Events and Stories - The dos and donts of web publishing

Contributing regular news items about your town, region, community and business is an easy way to promote your area and attract online visitors and bookings.

PlanBookTravel is allowing you, as site editors, a great deal of journalistic freedom.

It is important that you are mindful that what you say and how you say it is directly linked to you and your business.

Please read the following suggestions to ensure that the content you contribute has the positive affect you desire.


Be thoughtful: Remember, above all things, the internet can make or break businesses. Dont write anything that could harm your business or be harmful to others. Every news item will carry your name, your business name, date and a link to your business.

Stick to the facts: Do not exaggerate. Travellers are seeking concise, accurate facts and rely upon this information to plan their trip.

Keep it brief and simple: The best, most reliable and most read news items are concise. 150cm Flat Head caught at the entrance to Northern Beach is a new town record. Garry S, who traveled from Melbourne was pleased with his catch and claims it to be the highlight of his trip. Locals have also enjoyed success and attribute the run of big fish to last weeks storm. 52 words

Make your news headings interesting: Traveller teaches locals how to catch the big one.

Spell check: Write your news items in a software editor like MS Word and apply grammar and spell checkers. Copy and paste the article into the web page.

Avoid politics and your opinions: Remember not everyone will share your opinion. Dont isolate travelers who may be interested in your visiting your business.

Review other news items: There are many subjects that will attract people to your town try to avoid doubling up.

Do not plagiarize: Provide references and links to news sources.

Contribute regularly: Regularly updated news items will help you attract travellers and improve your search engine ranking.

What makes travel and tourism news? PlanBookTravel broadly defines travel and tourism news as any news item that could be interesting to travelers and helps to define your town. This does not include information regarding your business. Popular topics include:

Conditions: weather, surf, boating, fishing, road,
Community: projects, initiatives, events, developments, attractions
Results: sporting

Draw inspiration from local newspaper headlines, magazines, television and radio.

Presentation: Use basic paragraphs and line breaks to present your content clearly for example:

This is a paragraph. It has several sentences. This is a paragraph. It has several sentences. This is a paragraph. It has several sentences. This is a paragraph. It has several sentences.

This is another paragraph.
There is a line break in it.

No business content: Business updates, travel specials, rate changes and associated information are to be restricted to your business listing. A text box is provided as part of your listing to add business related content.

Your news items will be linked to your business listing.

Thank you for your contribution and for helping to put your town on the map!

Jeremy Baird
Marketing Director
PlanBookTravel Australia