Thank you for everyones advice thus far! I understand there are many other blogs out there and that's completely fine with me. No matter what you do in life, there will always be competition. If people like my writing and the topics I cover, I believe they'll start following me along with the other "big" guys. If I don't get a solid following, that's fine with me as well and all I hope is that I at least converted a few people to start collecting points.
As for the images, I will certainly start naming the owners of them. I was under the assumption if I name the hotel in the same post that that should be fine.
In terms of creating traffic, I plan to utilize social media, comment on fellow bloggers blogs, become more active and not be such a lurker on FT, and hopefully guest write on others blogs. If anyone has any other suggestions, by all means please do share.