Innkeeping Fun in Natchez
Written by Jay Karen on July 22, 2009 – 9:36 pm
With Maybelle Beasley, executive director of the Bed and Breakfast Association of Mississippi, just before I judged the Innkeeper Cook-Off.
I just love coming to Mississippi and Louisiana to visit with the innkeepers in these two states. Fortunately for my travel schedule, they host a combined annual conference, and this week it was in Natchez, Mississippi. Thank you to Peter Sharp (President of BBAM and innkeeper at the Fairview Inn in Jackson, MS) for having me as the opening speaker and for allowing me to judge the Innkeeper Cook-Off. What a blast! It wasn’t easy tasting 10 dishes.
I was thrilled to present some of the most important and interesting findings of our newly released 2009-2010 Industry Study of Innkeeping Operations and Finance. We’ll have a press release soon with some highlights, and innkeepers who contributed data to the study should already have their free copies by way of email.
I always appreciate seeing some of our national vendors participate in the trade shows at these state and regional conference. It demonstrates a real seriousness about being in this industry. At this conference there were several friends of PAII on the show floor, including BedandBreakfast.com, Acorn Internet Services, The Comphy Company, Innvideos.tv, and InsideOut Solutions.
With my friends, Joe and Bebe Rabhan, innkeepers at the Avenue Inn B&B in New Orleans.
Hanging with Rick Wolf and Peter Scherman (The B&B Team) at the Mississippi River.
The only bad part about visiting this conference? I leave 5 pounds heavier than when I arrived.
Tags: Allied Associations, Industry Study, Research
Posted in PAII Travels | 4 Comments »
Jay Karen, President & CEO of the 
July 23, 2009 at 10:34 am...
Jay,
It was a great conference. As always, Rick and I enjoyed seeing you and chatting about PAII and the industry. Those LA and MS innkeepers are a lot of fun! We add our thanks to Peter Sharp for the invitation and to all who organized the event.
July 24, 2009 at 8:02 am...
Totally agree! These folks know how to combine learning and fun. Another of the conference highlights was dinner at Monmouth Plantation, complete with delicious food, great live music, and best of all, innkeepers dressed in costume, from antebellum to flapper!
Sandy Soule
BedandBreakfast.com
July 25, 2009 at 8:51 am...
Jay, we really appreciate your coming to the conference and talking about the trends in the industry. Your advice was very helpful to us personally since we have to go to the bank for refinancing this month(ugh). I don’t know where else we could get such up to date data and recommendations about our industry.
Most of all we did have a lot of fun and our thanks to Chairman Peter Sharp of the Fairview Inn in Jackson, MS and to his committee for putting on such a wonderful program. Jay, when you are the cooking contest Judge, the idea is to sample each item and make notes, not eat the entire portion! Glad we only had 10 entries or we would have had to roll you out in a wheelchair…all the best!
September 17, 2009 at 8:21 am...
Post B&B Videos at BedBreakfastTraveler.com. Videos posted within your blog are an excellent way to syndicate information and gain attention for your message. I see that you have several videos included in this article above. Perhaps you can add a category on your innkeeping blog for B&Bs to post videos. Currently B&Bs can post their videos and other information at BedBreafastTraveler.com. See the following page for more information:
http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/blog_bb/2009/08/post-your-bed-breakfast-videos-here-free-advertising/