The Innkeeping Blog

I’ll admit it. My family has recently been patronizing the Golden Arches more than we probably should. When you are in my situation (two kids under 4, a kitchen that is operational, but still a construction zone, and a financial ground that has shifted under me), sometimes the path of least resistance is taken. Of course, being the fiscal conservative I am, the concept of cheap food can also be appealing. But it just occurred to me on our last trip that a trip to Mickey-D’s costs me upwards of $16. Wait a second! I thought you could feed a family at McDonald’s for something like eight bucks. How is this happening, and what the heck does this have to do with innkeeping?

Caught red-handed eating McDonald’s at Midway Airport on my way home
from the Heartland Innkeepers Conference. Shhh. Don’t tell my wife.

I’m a consumer and my antenna is now officially up. While my antenna was down, the price of fast food crept up. Peter Yesawich, a noted authority on travel trends and speaker at the upcoming Innkeeping Show, recently observed that affluent travelers (defined by household incomes greater than or equal to $75,000) will be comparison shopping MORE than their less affluent counterparts. Antennas are up. People are paying close attention to how they are spending their hard-earned, and seemingly less valuable, dollars. Isn’t it counterintuitive to think that the more affluent will be comparison shopping MORE than the less affluent? Yesawich also just released an interesting stat yesterday – his Traveler Sentiment Index is showing its first signs of upward momentum since January 2008, meaning travelers are feeling more positive about near-term travel possibilities than a year ago.

Let’s connect the dots to innkeeping. People are paying close attention to the choices in front of them, but they’re still in the market to use their hard-earned vacation days. Your guests are going to engage in more comparison shopping. A reasonable conclusion to draw would be to make sure your inn is found where people are comparison shopping. Are you still committing to the industry’s directories that feed you people, who turn into bookings? Now might not be a good time to ditch directories, if indeed you’re getting more than your money back in bookings. Are you paying attention and doing anything about your placement on TripAdvisor’s “Popularity Index”? Like it or not, TripAdvisor is a place where millions of people are doing some comparison shopping, and your placement on TripAdvisor is probably more within your control than you realize. (A side note here: too many innkeepers have not uploaded any photos of your inns on your TripAdvisor pages.) Can you be found in the top ten Google Local results when someone types in “Your Town Bed and Breakfast”? Lisa Kolb with Acorn Internet Services recently observed that about half of our upcoming conference attendees don’t have their Google Local Business Accounts set up and verified. These are places where your potential guests are comparison shopping. Fishermen like to fish where the fish are. Are you where you can be plucked out of the water?

Last year at a meeting of innkeepers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jeff Logan of InsideOut Solutions turned me on to Google 411, which is now on speed dial on my BlackBerry. Try calling 800-GOOG-411 next time you are looking for the phone number of a local business. You will be amazed. The automated system on the other end of the line will spout out some results you may be looking for. The interesting thing is that the results come directly from their Google Local listings. In other words, if you go to Google and type in “Bed and Breakfast Cape May NJ,” you’ll see a Google Local list of inns. If you call 800-GOOG-411, you’ll hear the same list of inns. Yet another tool out there to help me with my comparison shopping! I could go on and on. Are you found on GPS devices? Are you working with your local destination marketing organization (DMO), also known as CVBs, to make sure visitors can find you when searching for lodging in your destination? Check out www.neworleanscvb.com and see how you can book a B&B stay right there from the homepage. Thanks to the leadership of Patrick Ashton (Ashton’s B&B) and the Professional Innkeepers Association of New Orleans (PIANO), comparison shopping for B&Bs in New Orleans is a cinch from the city’s tourism web site.

With regards to our patronage of McDonald’s, I’m surely going to do a little more comparison shopping and critical analysis of our choices. Oh, I’m still likely to go to McDonald’s with the family once in a while at the end of a long day. I just have a feeling I will be looking at the Dollar Menu a little more closely…at sharing fries with my wife instead of getting my own fries…or maybe getting a Happy Meal for myself instead of one of the adult-size combos. The point is – I’m going to look at the entire menu before making a choice. My antenna is up. In the context of innkeeping, can you even be found on the menu? If so, how appealing do you look as a choice?