The Innkeeping Blog

So, yesterday morning I thought it happened. I thought that some innkeeper got to Joyce and convinced her to play a practical joke on me. It might have been her interim innkeeper, who suggested that I experience an electrical blackout at some inopportune time, like just before fifteen guests are coming downstairs for breakfast. I was ironing my shirt around 6:30 a.m., when the electricity in my room went out. I’m thinking there is no way we’re going to be able to fire up the oven and serve a hot breakfast. Here is the curveball innkeepers around the country were hoping Joyce would throw. Did she really get up early and kill the electricity, just so I’d face a real challenge? Would she do that to the guests in her house? No way, I thought.

And I thought correctly. When I looked outside my quarters, I noticed the rest of the house was well lit. Something in my room must have tripped the breaker. Thank goodness! But, the effect worked well on me – thoughts raced through my mind about how we would have to improvise to take care of the guests. What was the lesson? Have a back-up plan for breakfast. Had the electricity REALLY been out, we would have scrambled to get something on the table. Possibly fruit salad, granola, etc.

Breakfast went smoothly. For our guests we served a tropical fruit salad, homemade granola and stuffed French toast with orange syrup. One guest requested to come a bit early at 7:45 a.m. to grab her meal for an early departure. She showed up a bit earlier than the appointed time, and we’d forgotten she was coming early. So we had to break our momentum to make sure one of the hot breakfast entrees was ready in a few minutes. It worked out fine. Just another example of the frenetic flow of things.

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I am what could be considered a fairly seasoned business traveler. In my professional career, I have been to over thirty states for business meetings, conferences, trade shows, etc. For the longest time, I was a loyalist with one of the big-box hoteliers, doing my best to rack up those points, so I could redeem one free night every two years. And since time is probably the most valuable currency these days, I tried spending as little time as possible finding and booking my lodging needs. I went directly to their web site, logged in, found the city, identified the best price, and hit click. While I have stayed at a number of bed and breakfast facilities with my wife on pleasure trips, I cannot remember once considering a bed and breakfast property for a business trip. Why is that? I can think of a few possible reasons, which I will get to in a minute.

Now that I am with PAII, I am making a commitment to stay at inns on business and pleasure trips whenever possible. What better primary research is there? But don’t worry if you get a call from me to stay at your inn, I am not a quality control inspector. I simply want to talk with innkeepers to learn more about your businesses and needs. Since late June, I have stayed at inns in Marshall MI; St. Paul MN; and Cape May, NJ. I have one booked in Stony Brook, NY for an upcoming family wedding. I am enjoying my stays, but what’s “on my mind” right now is our industry as it relates to the business traveler.

Now that I am actually pursuing inns for my business lodging needs, I am becoming aware of the various ways in which I can find and book my stays. To all those innkeepers who actively seek out opportunities to ensure your inn comes up in search engine results, and who participate in various industry-specific web portals—thank you! As a business traveler, it is essential that I can go to as few sites as possible to find as many inns as possible—and to find what features or amenities are most important to me. I consider myself a fairly typical business traveler, and here is what would make my experience (and probably many others) golden:

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