Jay was clear, articulate, and forthright in addressing the issue at the conference and in the PAII newsletter– I very much appreciate his intelligent response.

Scott raised several concerns/complaints about PAII conferences & speakers. Yes, vetting is important. In fact, such questions were posed with this year’s program planning committees.

I see the professionalism of innkeeepers increasing. Scott’s concerns of vendor access/erroneous information should be heard, appropriate/good vetting of speakers should be completed, and that said…his comments strike me as a bit condescending.

As a professional innkeeper, I learn gain tremendous insights and information from every PAII convention. I also know and expect the vendors to be selling their products. It is my job to do research, to know my needs and the needs of my inn/guests, and to ask questions. Lots of questions of the vendors.

Most innkeepers choose their workshop attendance based upon their needs, and when in a workshop that doesn’t fit their needs, they get up and walk out. We are too self-directed to sit for an hour when the topic/speaker is simply not working for us. Most of us come from educated backgrounds with good experience in other careers–and are commited to making this business flourish while bringing us joy.

I look forward to a bright innkeeping future, even as we face the economy challenges. I apreciate PAII’s assistance in leading this industry into the future, and anticipate Jay’s energy, creativity and experience to provide positive influence.

Jay is now the fourth director of PAII that I’ve talked with openly about these issues. I’m not dwelling on what happened 10 years ago — I’m dwelling on what’s STILL happening after ten years of talking. The keynote and his comments are just one example of a speaker misleading innkeepers. As I’ve said before, I can’t remember a conference where at least one speaker didn’t tell the audience something very misleading. Sure that’s going to happen but if you vet the speakers a little better you can usually avoid the majority of it.

I think my favorite time was when an association pulled in the marketing director from Sea World and Universal Studios and he told the audience that “your marketing is a one-time shot — nobody will ever stay at your inn more than once.” Sure the innkeepers realized he didn’t know what he was talking about but now you’re wasting an hour listening to this buffoon and you paid to be there! Worse yet are the internet marketers that give bad SEO advice as innkeepers really aren’t knowledgeable enough to realize it will actually hurt their position in Google. Since a high ranking on Google is an incredible asset, screwing this up can significantly hurt your bottom line.

Quite honestly, I don’t know why I waste my breath but I guess I’d rather see PAII succeed rather than fail. I earn my living by bringing business to a small number of innkeepers but it used to be a huge number at our former company. I thought I could help a large number of inns but found my limitations rather quickly not to mention the extreme dislike innkeepers have for large companies. So yes, I live a bit vicariously through PAII in the hopes that they will be the vehicle that will help all innkeepers.

When I (or anyone) warns PAII of a problem on the horizon and they dismiss the warning it helps no one. The UXL problem last year could have been avoided had my repeated warnings over vendor ethics (or rather the lack of) been headed. Likewise, I warned PAII a year ago about vetting the speakers better and it was ignored. I’m not all-knowledgeable but these problems are nothing new and easy to see coming. What Jay does differently about them will define his tenure at PAII.

Okay, so it wasn’t just a couple comments. Sorry, thoroughness was always my strong point and brevity… hmmm, should I keep explaining

Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com

While I appreciate the energy in this blog, would it not be better used in support of our association, instead of continuing to beat this dead horse? The adage “one bad apple can spoil the entire sack” does not have to be the case here. I personally dismissed the speaker’s remarks, concentrated on the other 99% that were great and moved on. I did so because I would never do what he suggested. I am in the business because I enjoy the business, but for those who are not playing fair, remember, what goes around, comes around… you reap what you sow.

Let us not dwell on what should have happened 10 years ago, but concentrate on what our future holds. Yes, PAII does need to set some guidelines, but give them a chance. We have new leadership and with our support, the sky is the limit. I have seen many changes since Jay has joined us and given the chance we will see many more.

Jay, I applaud you and your staff and thank you for what you are doing for the industry. We needed you… you are a Godsend.

Hoyt Dottry, President
SC B&B Association

Tom (or Kathy), thanks for the personal attack on the ego comment. Do I have an ego? Sure as defined by “Your consciousness of your own identity.” Is mine over inflated? No, I don’t think so — I’m just very conscious of exactly who I am. I have a formal education in marketing and am an expert in marketing lodging properties. I’ve spent 70 hours a week for the last thirteen years doing nothing but thinking about, reading about, writing about and actually doing the business of marketing lodging properties and especially bed and breakfast inns. So when I speak on the subject, it’s from a point of authority. You can see it as ego, I prefer to see it as expertise. Does this and the fact that I’ve heard most of the speakers in our industry present many times over make me an expert on who the good and bad speakers are? Ya, pretty much.

With regard to your mini-education on Total Quality Management — that’s “part” of what we tell our clients. However, the customer is NOT always right and the TA review may not always be from a customer/guest. According to your theory the guest who is dissatisfied that you don’t allow the burning of candles in your rooms is right when in fact, they’re dead wrong. We saw an exact case of this a while back where the innkeeper confiscated candles after the guests burned the lamp shade in the room. The guest wrote a very nasty review in response. Guess what, the guest was wrong.

As others have suggested, this would be a good time to write a management response on TA and sometimes that’s helpful. Sometimes you need to listen to the complaint and actually fix the problem. Other times you need to ignore the attack and just bury the bad review with good ones.

The point of my post was that the writing was on the wall with PAII speakers when I warned them of the problems a year ago. Had they headed that warning it “might” have lead to a better vetting of the speakers and “might” have prevented the problem which Jay has now presented. Furthermore, we can all hope that PAII learns from the mistake and takes greater steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.

As to what PAII should do, I think that last paragraph answers the question.

Herb, I agree with you completely about the code of ethics but here’s the problem. Years ago (10+ years I think) we complained to PAII that they had just allowed a vendor to join who was known to be HIGHLY unethical. In other words, we wanted a code of ethics for the vendors they represent as otherwise, what did the PAII logo represent — that they had paid their dues? PAII ignored the request. Flash forward to the Myrtle Beach conference last year and the debacle where UXL screwed over a lot of innkeepers. If I remember correctly, the response from Jay was that they could be sued for turning away a vendor or for that matter, a vendor who wanted to be a member. (Jay, if that’s not correct feel free to elaborate but that’s how I recall it ended).

So while I would LOVE to see a code of ethics for both vendors and innkeepers it probably won’t happen. It’s why I dropped my PAII membership once before and it will probably cause me to do so again.

Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com

Tom (or Kathy), thanks for the personal attack on the ego comment. Do I have an ego? Sure as defined by “Your consciousness of your own identity.” Is mine over inflated? No, I don’t think so — I’m just very conscious of exactly who I am. I have a formal education in marketing and am an expert in marketing lodging properties. I’ve spent 70 hours a week for the last thirteen years doing nothing but thinking about, reading about, writing about and actually doing the business of marketing lodging properties and especially bed and breakfast inns. So when I speak on the subject, it’s from a point of authority. You can see it as ego, I prefer to see it as expertise. Does this and the fact that I’ve heard most of the speakers in our industry present many times over make me an expert on who the good and bad speakers are? Ya, pretty much.

With regard to your mini-education on Total Quality Management — that’s “part” of what we tell our clients. However, the customer is NOT always right and the TA review may not always be from a customer/guest. According to your theory the guest who is dissatisfied that you don’t allow the burning of candles in your rooms is right when in fact, they’re dead wrong. We saw an exact case of this a while back where the innkeeper confiscated candles after the guests burned the lamp shade in the room. The guest wrote a very nasty review in response. Guess what, the guest was wrong.

As others have suggested, this would be a good time to write a management response on TA and sometimes that’s helpful. Sometimes you need to listen to the complaint and actually fix the problem. Other times you need to ignore the attack and just bury the bad review with good ones.

The point of my post was that the writing was on the wall with PAII speakers when I warned them of the problems a year ago. Had they headed that warning it “might” have lead to a better vetting of the speakers and “might” have prevented the problem which Jay has now presented. Furthermore, we can all hope that PAII learns from the mistake and takes greater steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.

As to what PAII should do, I think that last paragraph answers the question.

Herb, I agree with you completely about the code of ethics but here’s the problem. Years ago (10+ years I think) we complained to PAII that they had just allowed a vendor to join who was known to be HIGHLY unethical. In other words, we wanted a code of ethics for the vendors they represent as otherwise, what did the PAII logo represent — that they had paid their dues? PAII ignored the request. Flash forward to the Myrtle Beach conference last year and the debacle where UXL screwed over a lot of innkeepers. If I remember correctly, the response from Jay was that they could be sued for turning away a vendor or for that matter, a vendor who wanted to be a member. (Jay, if that’s not correct feel free to elaborate but that’s how I recall it ended).

So while I would LOVE to see a code of ethics for both vendors and innkeepers it probably won’t happen. It’s why I dropped my PAII membership once before and it will probably cause me to do so again.

Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com

Here are two things that I wish PAII would do: 1. Don’t give vendors such a free hand at being speakers at the PAII conference where we innkeepers essentially have to listen to their sales pitches. Bedandbreakfast.com , just as one example, has had way too much opportunity to “feather-their-nest” at innkeeper’s expense for far too many years. Sure, they are a reliable sponsor of PAII functions, but lets not loose sight of their intense profit motive.

Secondly, PAII should try to work with the numerous B&B internet directories to prevent the great amount of duplication that is occurring. How many directories need to add guest comment sections? This seems to be a very “me too” type of business with little or no originality. If one directory adds recipes, then the next one thinks they have to add them too. Why not have one or a few locations for inn guest comments? Its silly that they all seem to think they have to do the same thing. The more this foolishness proliferates, the more time it takes from innkeepers and the less time our customers get. The internet inn directory businesses should serve the inn industry, not the other way around. PAII and Select Registry could play a more influential role in balancing this dynamic.

One last question: if hundreds and thousands of innkeepers ask guests to make comments about their stay at a particular property (and presumably bias the reviews to the favorable side), what purpose is being served by this review system? Maybe professional travel writer reviews as in the guide books of old (eg. Frommers and Fodors) are just as good. Something tells me that this too shall pass! Walt innkeeper@farolito.com