In honor of America's favorite fall holiday, we over at CartoBlue decided to create an interactive map of 13 of some of the most haunted hotels across the US.
For those looking for a more thrilling escape from home, haunted hotels are a fun alternative.
Using the interactive map haunted hotels across the country are highlighted. Click on each icon to read a short description and for booking information.
May your stays be spooky and frightful!
It’s been emphasized over and over again the importance of
having high-quality photos to represent your properties. But now that you’ve
made the investment to hire a professional photographer how can you make sure
the pictures look their best?
The key is being prepared. Photographers aren’t hired to clean your unit, and cleaners most likely don’t know how to stage a unit for photography. There may be a few things that get lost in the communication between the contractors, where you may need to step in, that could make the difference in unappealing pictures and outstanding photos.
Here is how to help out the photographer prepare a home for shooting.
Before they start shooting:
*Carry light bulbs in your camera bag. You may have to remove bulbs from one fixture to use in another if it a special type of bulb (i.e. fluorescent) Make sure the bulb that you borrow does not affect any lighting in the scene you are shooting.
Following this basic outline will ensure that the potential booking clients get the cleanest view of your property when the photographer comes to take pictures.
Queue the funky intro music. At CartoBlue we love floor plans and recently stumbled across a blog post that showcased floor plans of famous shows. Since we have receive several requests for examples of our interactive floor plans, we decided to recreate Seinfeld's apartment, CartoBlue style. Within the interactive floor plans there are images, videos, and links. We would recommend starting with the video icon on the couch.
To find out more how our floor plan platform works check out this this link to The Floor Plan Challenge.
How exactly can you make your resort, hotel, casino, or conference center stand out from the competition on the Internet?
In the age of virtual reality, it is more necessary than ever to portray as detailed of a getaway as possible to potential guests when they are looking to book their travels.
Embedding comprehensive media into your site will capture guests’ attention and give them an experience online that they will want to continue in-person.
At CartoBlue we have developed Interactive Image Maps to maximize your booking potential by allowing guests to see the full spectrum of what your accommodations have to offer. Here are a few highlights that can be seen through our Image Map:
1. CartoVision
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a 360-degree walk-through tour must be worth a million. Prospective guest will take a virtual stroll through amenities, rooms, and meeting spaces with CartoVision. Each of these tours are also Virtual Reality compatible through Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR viewer.
2. Amenity Highlights
Pinpoint sporting areas, conference rooms, pools, spas, and the like by dropping an icon on the map. Make it interactive by adding pictures, links, and saucy descriptions.
3. Restaurant Bookings
Link out to sites like OpenTable, TripAdvisor, or Yelp with just the click of a button. Nearby eateries can be easily highlighted, leaving no guest hungry.
4. Interactive Floor Plans
Showcasing a floor plan with photos of your rooms embedded has shown to increase the amount of time spent looking at a property, which converts sales. Floor plans also display an accurate layout of what guests can expect when staying in each room. Don’t have floor plans already? CartoBlue can assist you with that as well.
5. Outside views
With an aerial drone shot, encompassing the surroundings of your property is easily viewable for anyone planning a stay. Whether you are showing off the surrounding golf course, natural scenery, or city life, a wide angle shot will capture the essence of the area.
6. Changeable Views
Switch from aerials to elevations and anything in-between with the click of a button. Access other interactive maps from within the original, without opening a new window or taking your guest off of the page. In our example below clicking the red building icon will transform the aerial view of the resort to an up-close of the elevation of that particular building, where a guest can then view the booking page for each of the highlighted rooms.
An Image Map provides a transparent, beautiful show piece that is engaging to guests and keeps them locked onto your webpage. They will know your resort better than any others, increasing their desire and likelihood to choose you over the competition.
Be at the top of your tech game, keep your resorts, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and conference centers up to date by creating a custom Interactive Image Map with CartoBlue.
Our physical office is located in Destin, Florida, and we pride ourselves in being an active part of the Northwest Florida community.
Through a Chamber of Commerce meet-up, CartoBlue was put into contact with a local charity that endeavors to help local youths in times of difficulty. To read more about the aim of Children in Crisis read their description below:
"Our mission is, "Providing Homes and Establishing Hope” for the abused, neglected and abandoned children of Northwest Florida, which we are able to do at The Children’s Neighborhood thanks to the generous support of our community. Children in Crisis has provided a home to over 500 children since we opened in 2008 while maintaining our goal to keep sibling groups together as much as possible. The Children’s Neighborhood provides an emergency shelter for young children and the family foster homes help with the severe shortage of foster homes in our community.
The Susanna Wesley Emergency Shelter is for children who are removed without notice from an unsafe environment. The Emergency Shelter is staffed 24 hours a day with dedicated employees that provide a loving and safe environment for the children. The Emergency Shelter has the capacity to serve up to 16 children, with ages ranging between 6-12 years old for the boys and 6-14 years old for the girls.
The Children’s Neighborhood also has four long-term family foster homes with a married couple that lives in each of the houses. (We are in the process of building and opening our fifth family foster home.) These full-time house parents provide a stable domestic environment for children who are in long-term foster care. Each of our family foster homes can hold up to twelve children between 6-17 years old.
For children who have aged out of foster care and have nowhere to go, Children in Crisis built 8 studio-style apartments to prevent homelessness in this under-served population. Our young adults, aged 18-23, live in these fully furnished apartments under supervision of our Transitional Living Coordinator who helps to strengthen their life skills and professional development. While living here, the young adults are required to maintain full time employment, enroll in school full time, or volunteer with an organization.”
CartoBlue was happy to provide the organization with one of our interactive Image Maps using drone photography. This will give donors and occupants alike the ability to see a clear outline of the neighborhood.
Walk-through tours of the homes and amenities using CartoVision depicts a realistic view of where dollars are being put to use for the betterment of the local youth in tough situations.
Our maps and tours are typically used for marketing to increase business sales. In this case, CartoBlue was delighted to use our tools to bring awareness to a cause that improves lives and helps raise money to serve the future generations of Northwest Florida residents.
See our interactive map and virtual tours for Children in Crisis here:
To donate to Children in Crisis head here.
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