The Innkeeper's Resource

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

In the spirit of the season and with a wink and a nod to "political correctness", The B&B Team extends greetings to all for a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best for a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

 

As this very challenging year comes to a close, we want to thank all in our industry who give so much of themselves to others.  Innkeepers have a rich tradition of extending a welcoming hand to travelers and for putting others ahead of themselves. Thanks for being who you are.

 

This, sad to say, is another year when so many in our armed forces will be spending this time of year away from family, friends, and home so that we might enjoy our precious freedoms.  To everyone of them, we also extend our greetings and all good hopes and wishes that come next year they will all be home safe and sound and able to enjoy the warmth of family and friends.  Thanks for being who you are.

 

As we look forward to the new decade, the "10's", we do so with a renewed optimism for our industry.  2009 was without a doubt one for the books, but we look forward to the new year with anticipation and an awareness of the contributions and difference we in the Innkeeping industry make.  Thanks for being who you are.

 

So, to you, our friends and colleagues, all our warmest and best wishes to you and yours, from all of us at The B&B Team.

On Transformative Events and the Human Community

Today is September 11, 2009. We all remember this date eight years ago, but today as I was listening to many of the memorials and speeches and talking with friends and family about it, I was reminded about how our lives can be forever changed by transformative events like the attacks of 9/11/01. And many of the changes are positive.

Big, and I mean really big, events and periods, especially those that we view as terrible at the time of their occurrence, have a way of causing us to reexamine what is important in our lives. Whether it be an illness or death of a friend or family member, a stock market crash and harsh recession, or watching the attack of our homeland on live television, we always end up taking stock. Taking stock of what we think is important: our jobs or careers, whatever. And then, surprisingly, many of us decide that we need to do something else. Behave differently. Be kinder. Do something more meaningful. Worry less about some things and more about others. And it is this taking stock that has brought many people into Innkeeping.

Why? I think it's because Innkeeping is about people. Service. Kindness. Restoration. Many of you who believe that you want your life to be about more than just "making a living" and, instead, want to make a difference in other people's lives while still making a living, have chosen (or are considering) Innkeeping as a profession. At The B&B Team we're glad you think this way, because we have the good fortune of working with people who, in our humble opinion, are somehow a little bit better than many, more elevated, sharing a higher purpose.

After the attacks of 9/11, innkeepers across the country found their business upended. An initial flood of cancellations in many cases lead to new bookings by folks needing to get out, get away, find some peace and security. And where did they turn for that sense of safety and togetherness? To small inns. These weary and frightened travelers looked to innkeepers for solace, even as those innkeepers themselves needed some solace of their own. But in the serving, the sharing, the caring for, the feeding and smiling for the benefit of others, innkeepers found themselves uplifted as well.

Community is an overused word in this era of social media, but the community of humanity remains an enduring precept, one which transformative and often tragic events make us appreciate all the more.

Peter

Birthdays, Blogs, and Twitter

Today is my son's 31st birthday. As a father, I'm proud of him. He lives in Costa Rica, so we don't see each other very often. Over the weekend he asked me to be his friend on Facebook. Like his sister a few weeks ago, I didn't exactly "ignore" or reject the offer, but I gave him the chance to reconsider and opt-out. Like his sister, he agreed.

Why would I NOT want my children as "friends" on Facebook? Most parents would KILL to have the insights that being a "friend" can give about their kids. It wasn't that I didn't want and wouldn't love the chance to be their "friend," it was simply that Facebook, for me (and, I suspect, for many who are reading this post) isn't really a social tool. It's a business tool. So why should that matter?

I have a tendency to tweet things every so often, usually about great hospitality-related articles that would be of interest to my Twitter followers in the lodging industry. Those show up on Facebook. And I usually comment on hospitality related subjects on Facebook, though not as much as I might or should. Blog posts like this on The Innkeeper's Resource sometimes show up on my pages, too. It's coming along, little by little, as I develop more of a network with innkeepers and become a fan of more inns. The thing is, when I look at my kids' Facebook pages, they really do carry on conversations with friends about cultural things, personal things, politics, and humor. My conversations, such as they are, are business related. And that kind of throws cold water on their youthful musings.

Maybe I should get a separate "personal" Facebook page. Don't get me wrong, I've had some old friends from my past find me on Facebook. And it's a treat to reconnect. But Facebook for me is a networking tool. And, as I get the hang of it and others in the innkeeping industry get the hang of it, it's bringing some of us together. That's fun. I think it will be to our mutual benefit. But somehow, Dad's business just seems out of place on a 30-something's page.

Am I wrong? Have any of you experienced a similar dilemma? Let's hear about it!

Peter

How About Some Optimism?

It's been a long, cold winter, not just because the weather has been that way, but also because the United States and the World have been rocked by a horrible recession. Every time you turn on the TV, open a newspaper, listen to the radio, or read your news on the Internet (take your choice of venue), the doom and gloom are almost overwhelming. But guess what? I think everything is going to be just fine!!!

I have the reputation of being an optimist. Last fall when things were starting to get really shaky but "they" still hadn't declared us in recession, I was telling Rick that I wished they'd just tell us we were in a recession so we could get it over with. Well, we finally got it, and it's a doozy. The loss of confidence is startling, but it's not all unfounded. There were lots of mistakes made the past few years, and the pendulum is swinging far in the opposite direction. But success in all things depends upon optimism. And, as they say, this too shall pass.

The world is full of people who bemoan the failure that they feel has been thrust upon them; and there are those who have had stellar success by the sheer strength of their optimism and belief that they would succeed. Some good planning is important, and luck and timing can play a role, but without optimism no amount of planning will be enough. Optimists can sell ideas; pessimists just depress people. Enter the bed & breakfast industry to provide some of that psychic "care and feeding" that people who feel battered and bruised by the economy need. Innkeepers are the stars in the economic landscape, but the lodging and travel industry have been hit hard and are being hit even harder by a tone in Washington that suggests that travel is somehow a bad thing, at least for corporations.

There's a great article by Chris McGinnis entitled How I Saved 100 Jobs. It's a recount of the people he encountered traveling to a conference on business, people who needed people like him to have a job. There are a LOT of people who's livelihood depends upon travel, and, despite all the negativism, there are signs of hope and reasons to be somewhat more optimistic.

Peter Yesawich's YPartnership released their Insights February 2009 with results of their latest travelhorizons(tm) survey. This survey looks at travelers' near term intentions. Amazingly, the U.S. Traveler Sentiment Index(tm) shows an increase of 15.3% over the October, 2008 figures. While this is 3% below the sentiment index a year ago, it is a positive, optimistic trend. It says that travelers (those folks who stay at your inn) are feeling a bit better about leaving home. People want to and are going to travel.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the consulting firm, did a recent study in Britain that would probably have similar results if conducted in the US. In the study they observed that 25% of travelers are trading down in their plans by staying someplace less expensive, taking a cheaper flight, waiting for a last minute deal, and cutting the length of their trip. But overall, the intention to cut back was less than last year. That's an optimistic sign.

Furthermore, PWC suggests that travel companies should hold back on discounting. We talked about this in our article, Innkeeping Success Without Discounting. "It is vital that companies hold their nerve, do not panic into cutting prices too soon and remain flexible in what they offer consumers." As travelers look to save, every innkeeper may benefit from the guests that are coming to them instead of staying at the more expensive place. So, instead of cutting your rates, think in terms of a new demographic coming to your inn. Of course, no one is "trading down" to the highest end properties, so they have to be more creative in attracting recession-weary guests, but some folks aren't going to give up the luxury they feel they need and deserve; they just might travel less often and for fewer days. So, this is another reason to be optimistic. Everyone who does a good job should be able to get a piece of the pie. Those who aren't doing all the right things aren't going to get as much business, no matter how much they cut their prices. A judicious blend of many strategies is the best course.

We are optimistic that 2009 is going to be a good year. It's really essential to feel the joy of coming to work every day, whether it's helping our clients be successful with our guidance or seeing the creative things innkeepers come up with that work. Optimism works. Look around you. It's everywhere if you open your eyes to it. And we need all that we can get.

Peter

An Online Community

Alright, so we write a lot about blogging and social media and the importance of it in your marketing, etc., etc., and sometimes you just want to tell us to SHUT UP already. We get it. But we don't give up that easily!

A couple of weeks ago in my article, "Do Innkeeper Blogs Work?" I mentioned a blog, My Bella Vita, by an American innkeeper in Italy, Cherrye Moore. Something happened this past week that caused me to dig a bit deeper into her blog and to reflect on the power and strength of online community. Something happened to Cherrye's father, and the outpouring has been remarkable.

If you explore My Bella Vita, you'll read a lot about Italy, about food and art and history. But you'll also learn a lot about the author. And you'll learn a lot about blogging. It's by inference and the prominent link to Il Cedro Bed & Breakfast that you'd want to stay at her B&B as well. Cherrye gets an unusually large number of comments to her blog posts because, as she told me, "people feel like they know us through the blog." Remarkably, she replies to every comment, something we're told to do to be effective. But then she told her readers on Feb. 13 that she was going home to Texas for a couple of weeks because she'd received the middle of the night phone call that no one wants to receive. "It's your father." And something amazing happened. 

In just a couple of days nearly forty people have left comments, offered prayers and best wishes. No doubt some are friends but many, like me, are strangers. Sometimes it's tragedy that makes us realize how many people "out there" really care. And then you realize that it really is possible to create a community in cyberspace.

The whole purpose of a blog for a bed & breakfast is to share something of yourself and your area with the larger world, to make people feel like they want to come stay with you. You begin to create an emotional connection with your past and future guests, and as you write and make the effort you may not know if anyone is really reading or if they care. But if you persist you might be surprised.

Is this for everyone? No. But if you visit My Bella Vita you'll understand why a blog can be a powerful tool for communication and for creating community. And you'll understand better what drives some people to "broadcast their lives to the blogosphere." And why people would want to stay at Il Cedro Bed & Breakfast. And why you might consider following a great example of what works.

Peter

Do Innkeeper Blogs Work?

Every year The B&B Team travels to various innkeeping conferences, sometimes to exhibit in the trade show, but always as speakers. In the past month we attended the Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Conference and Trade Show in Hot Springs, Virginia and just this week were at the 17th annual conference of CABBI, the California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns, in Monterey. As always, we had a great time meeting innkeepers and speaking about topics that we're passionate about, like "Attracting the i.guest in a Slowing Economy"(a version of which we presented on a PAII webinar recently) and "Inn Branding and Market Positioning."

In both of these presentations we focus on the contemporary traveler, the i.guest, who is intelligent, independent, informed, imaginative, Internet-savvy and empowered, and Identified. This i.guest is using the Internet and social media to make travel decisions, and one of the topics that always comes up when we mention blogs is, "Does a blog bring innkeepers business?"

While we have anecdotal evidence that it does, based on some innkeepers who swear by their blogs, there is some new evidence of a blog's effectiveness in generating new business.

Stephanie at the Albert Shafsky House Bed & Breakfast in Placerville, CA has been writing a blog for a year and a half. Before speaking to an eager audience at CABBI about blogging and social media, she showed us her Google Analytics page that proved that one of the top referrers to her B&B's website is her blog. And her bounce rate on those referrals is a mere 25% or so. That's quite something. She thinks that the blog is integral to their marketing, along with the B&B's Facebook page and other efforts. Steph and Rita are really working social media, and it's paying off.

This morning I received a Google Alert linking to My Bella Vita, a blog by an American innkeeper in Italy, Cherrye Moore, at Il Cedro in Calabria. We exchanged an email or two, and I asked her if she got any business from her blog. Her reply was that her "blog site has been a great source of leads for our B&B." She also made an incredibly valuable point, that many people go out of their way to book with them, "because they feel like they know us through the blog." That, folks, is what social media, Web 2.0, Travel 2.0, and all the other stuff is about. Successful innkeeping is about building relationships and providing enduring experiences.

If a blog at your inn could help you build relationships before you've ever met a potential guest, that's really getting a head start on a long term relationship that can pay great dividends, both financial and "psychic," as Holly Stiel likes to say.

For all the inspiration from all the innkeepers mentioned above and those that keep us going every day, all I can say, again to echo Holly Stiel (and some guy with sideburns), is "Thank you, thank you very much!"

Peter

Corporate Darwinism 2009

In a recent AP article, Corporate Darwinism: Only the Strong Survive, it was explained that, “Economic cycles are Darwinian, picking off weak companies and leaving survivors stronger”.  From my perspective, this is a pretty brutal but completely honest and interesting view of the business landscape for the New Year. Ok, so it is an interesting point of view…but what does that have to do with you and your inn?

Everything!

We now know we are officially in a recession, yes, times are tough, yes, there are economic, geo-political, environmental issues and more....but the world has not come to a standstill.  As I wrote to an aspiring innkeeper this week, the one underlying fact is that inns who will do well in 2009 will be the ones who are doing everything right....website, web photography, marketing, packaging, amenities, services, and providing legitimate value and hospitality to their guests.

Those inns who fail to aggressively target themselves as being the best, will be the ones who suffer.  The consumer will be more discriminating in their choices of where to stay and how to spend their leisure/vacation dollars. 

 

Now is not the time to be a meek or timid innkeeper as they will be the “victims” of these times.  If you haven’t yet, grab a cup or a glass of whatever you enjoy and sit down and begin to put pen to paper as to what needs to be done to insure you are the property of choice when the i.guest, today’s contemporary traveler begins to make their travel and lodging plans. Don't be afraid to try or offer something new or that you've never done before and don't be afraid to ask for help if you're not sure. Remember, nothing ventured...nothing gained.  Then after you’ve identified what needs to be done……….Do it and do it Right!

 

This is the time to figuratively and literally roll up your sleeves (and incorporate every other metaphor or adage applicable to your business) to ensure your inn is at the top of its game and that guests are gravitating to your site and to your inn.   The AP article further comments “…but we won't remain in the dumps forever...".

At the end of the day, the message is clear.  We are in a highly competitive and tough environment and will have to work harder and smarter to gain our “unfair” share of market and competitive advantages.  But if you do, you will not only survive these times, you will have solidly positioned yourself for when times get better…and 2009 could just be that time!

All the best for a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

Rick

Thoughts on the Holiday Season

Every year toward the end of December we begin the process of celebrating the holidays. Whether it's shopping for gifts, decorating the house or the inn for Christmas, planning time away or with family and friends, most of us become engaged in the "holiday mood" in one form or another.

The holidays also bring with them wonderful opportunities. For those innkeepers who stay open from Christmas to New Year's, it can be a brief period of high occupancy and great rates, even if they have to defer their own time with loved ones until later. Some might wonder how any innkeeper would stay open for the holidays and seemingly put money ahead of the "important" things like family. But the other side of that is what it means for the guests.

For some people, the notion of being away for the holidays by choice, as in really away, away from friends and family, away from home, away from what is familiar, to be with strangers at a very "together" time of year, is hard to understand. But for some of those who travel to an inn for Christmas, it is precisely because they are seeking togetherness, kindness, sharing, a festive atmosphere, something new and exciting. Even though innkeepers provide their guests with those important qualities all year long, it can be especially important at the holidays. While the money may be good, it is also a sacrifice that some innkeepers would not be willing to make, nor should they if celebrating the holidays with loved ones is more important than staying open.

In that spirit of giving and sacrifice, it's notable to remember that Americans are the most generous people on earth. Annually, Americans give $300 Billion to worthy causes; that's $1,000 for every man, woman, and child. Surprisingly, 75% of that is given by individuals, not foundations and corporations. And 75% of that individual giving is by people earning less than $100,000 a year. We give because it matters, because it makes us feel good, because others need it more than we do.

All of us at The B&B Team hope that you find your own way to give this holiday season, whether it be time, money, love, or just a small kindness. We wish you the happiest of seasons and a wondrous 2009.

Peter, Rick, Peggy, and Jan

Advice from Jim Leahy

We all get bombarded by "stuff" all day long: good stuff, bad stuff, funny and scary stuff, silly and sage. And it comes at us through lots of media: TV, radio, the Web, email, snail mail, billboards, etc. etc. We humans have an incredible power to sift through it all and glean what we want, but sometimes there's such a preponderance of negatives that it gets, well, depressing.

I picked up my company mail yesterday and, amongst the good stuff (a check!) and the tiresome stuff (bills) was a piece that was destined for the trash bin on the way out the door until something caught my eye. Call it serendipity. It was a catalogue for American Hotel Register Company in a plastic sleeve with a newsletter inserted. There was an article on the newsletter which caught my attention enough to take it back to the office with me, but it was the "Letter from the Chairman," Jim Leahy, on the back page that made it worth it. (Sorry, Jim, the catalogue went into recycling.)

Jim talks about how all that "stuff" (he was more eloquent) affects each of us, and he shared eightstrategies that have helped him. I share them with you verbatim. Thank you, Mr. Leahy!

1. Accept the truth as fact and embrace it. What is, IS! Trying to wish it away doesn't work.
2. Sometimes we find we're resisting or stressing over something because we have no control, rather than just accepting it for what it is.
3. Feelings and thoughts are temporary. We rarely can remember those of a year ago. Even our fears and worries pass away and life looks less threatening.
4. It's best to live in the moment. Experience life as it is. Don't dwell on the past nor focus solely on the future.
5. Seek peace, harmony, and love in your life and relationships. Life isn't all about winning or losing.
6. Truly listen to the words and thoughts of those around you. Be present to others. Don't focus on being somewhere else.
7. Create in yourself a person of honor, wisdom, strength, and love. We are our choices. Who we are is what we choose.
8. Be always grateful for the life you've been given. Our lives are filled with beauty. Focus on it; don't dwell on ugliness.

I'd add to that what my father has always been fond of saying, that "nothing is constant but change." Life is way too short to do anything other than the right thing. And you'll feel better for it.

Peter

Innkeeping Education

We have just returned from the Mid-Atlantic Innkeeper's Conference in Natural Bridge, Virginia. A privately organized conference that included innkeepers from several state associations including Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and a robust group of aspiring innkeepers who were lead by David Caples of Lodging Resources Workshops, there was great representation from a cross section of hospitality industry leaders from around the country. As always, there was one overriding value of the conference: education.

Education comes from two sources at these meetings, the vendors who have an opportunity to demonstrate and explain their products and services, and speakers (who often come from the vendor pool) who provide insights into varying aspects of the unique lodging industry. Key speakers including Bill Oates of Inn Consulting Partners, Eric Goldreyer of Bed and Breakfast.com, and Rick Wolf and Peter Scherman of The B&B Team, all focused their sessions on the current trend of social media, consumer generated media, reviews sites, blogs, and the contemporary traveler, whom we call the i.guest.

The guest is the reason for hospitality to exist, and the i.guest is a modern animal with new and unique habits and preferences. All of us who talked about this guest pointed out that innkeepers today must pay attention to the fact that today's travelers are getting their information, making their plans, and booking their trips using varying degrees of technology and media outlets that didn't even exist ten years ago. And all emphasized that innkeepers ignore these trends at their own peril.

For our part, we find the trends exciting! And, as people like Bebe Woody of the White Doe Inn in Manteo, NC, who is president of the North Carolina Bed & Breakfasts and Inns get enthused and commit to creating a blog on their site this year, we know that it's catching on. And, knowing that successful innkeepers, like all business people, always look for ways to improve their business model and practices, we see it happening more and more. If you are already leading the pack, be an industry leader and share your experience with others.

Peter