A lovely place that--pretty sure--I won't be visiting.
Took a break last week from writing/tweeting/ facebooking for a client to have a little fun and enter a “Free Room Friday” caption contest on facebook, sponsored by Ocean Club Resorts. Got to do some quick, fun, creative writing, AND won the contest–woohoo!–always ready for a vacay, even a working vacay.
Then, checked flights. Holy Guacamole! Even though Turks & Caicos is only a 90 minute flight from my hometown of Miami, even a “great deal” for a flight is around $400. And then tack on inexplicably high and very vague “taxes” that add another $200 or so to the ticket price.
Sigh. Goodbye, Turks & Caicos vacation. I mean, I live in Miami, not the-middle-of-freezing-cold-somewhere, USA. I am not paying over $600 to fly to a different tropical beach locale–that just doesn’t make sense. Totally grateful for the fun I had with the contest, though. When you’re writing all day, taking a quick break by writing something fun or different, whether it is a poem, a journal entry, or a few pages of your future bestselling novel, is really refreshing and energizing.
I also really dug the caption contest from an online marketing point of view–what a brilliant facebook contest for a resort! Even if a winner never collects his or her ”one free night”, and Ocean Club Resorts doesn’t score the add-on night booking, they will have learned a little about Turks & Caicos AND the Ocean Club Resorts in the process of entering the contest, and so will the other caption contest entrants. As much as I preach about tracking ROI in social media and online marketing so you, the client, don’t get burned, isn’t always about the immediate ROI. These days, especially in the world of social media marketing, everyone is making connections. So the next time someone in the-middle-of-freezing-cold-somewhere, USA asks me if I know of any exotic, remote, romantic island getaways, I’ll certainly remember Turks & Caicos and the Ocean Club Resorts, and will make that suggestion.
As for me, don’t feel too bad. I do live in Miami after all, where the view is just fine:
Meh, I guess I can live without Turks & Caicos:-(
