The time has come – we’re stepping out on the limb and going public with Better Way to Stay with our “B&Bs Kick Gas” promotion.  While this is not the point of my column, I will now insert my short pitch to participate…come up with your most creative promotion/special/package that plays off the rising gas price phenomenon, and upload it at www.betterwaytostay.com.  The campaign team will subsequently broadcast the campaign to tons of travel media, with the hopes of attracting much-deserved attention to B&Bs from coast-to-coast.  Now, onto the real purpose of my column this month…

When Brand Pandemic showed us their first mock-up of the BWTS web site, which spotlights the “Kick Gas” promo, my immediate response was, “I love it!”  They used text message shorthand to make fun of how high the gas prices are getting.  Seeing “WTF” in a B&B-related promotion got me excited!  But I have to admit, my immediate follow-up thought was, “Uh oh…innkeepers aren’t going to like that.”  I showed the image to a few friends and colleagues, and they all thought it was funny and really creative.  Those to whom I showed it were all under the age of 50, so my comfort level about the average PAII member’s potential response wasn’t necessarily changing.

Then I fly out to Des Moines, Iowa, to speak at the Iowa Bed and Breakfast Guild conference in Panora.  I had about 60 minutes to talk about Better Way to Stay, why we’re doing it, what’s happening, etc.  I thought I’d give a sneak peek of the web site and the gas price image – just to see what kind of reaction it would elicit among a group of innkeepers that I figured would probably be the most likely to not appreciate the humor.  To my surprise, when I showed the mock-up, there was ample laughter and head-nodding in the audience (as well as a fair share of puzzled expressions on the faces of those not familiar with text lingo).  I breathed a sigh of relief.

Last week, we let members know that we changed the focus and name of the promotion from “Free Gas, No Foolin” to “B&B’s Kick Gas.”  That announcement elicited several “Right on!” responses, but one email response from an innkeeper who wasn’t too pleased with the new promo name.  She felt we were aiming at the teenage crowd, rather than trying to attract the “refined guests” that enjoy B&Bs.  The bottom line is that we live in a different world now and are trying to attract a new generation of guests.  To get and to sustain the attention of the media and millions of new paying guests, we have to broaden our approach.  Marketing in the B&B industry for 20+ years has been devoid of humor.  We know in the new age of social media and the over-exposed, commercialized world we live in that humor works.  Approaches we take through the Better Way to Stay campaign will not please all innkeepers, but I hope innkeepers will come to understand that the campaign is not necessarily about pleasing innkeepers – it’s about pleasing and attracting travelers who right now don’t think about B&Bs.

If you are ready to jump on the Better Way to Stay bandwagon, enter your gas-related promotion today at www.betterwaytostay.com.  Be sure to read all the promotional details.

Recently I attended the Bed and Breakfast Association of Virginia meeting in Charlottesville.  I arrived by train and took a cab to the Boar’s Head Inn – a classic inn up the road a couple of miles from the UVA campus.  I worked and lived almost across the street from the inn about 15 years ago, so I was excited to be back in the area.  As I waited for the cab driver to run my credit card at the entrance of the Boar’s Head, I thought that I would “check in” to the inn on Facebook.  The relatively new Facebook Places feature allows Facebookers to “check in” at various places, i.e. restaurants, parks, stadiums, hotels, attractions, etc.  One uses his or her cell phone’s Facebook application to let their friends know where they are at that moment.  It’s just a way of sharing news with your friends.  Click here to learn more:  http://www.facebook.com/places/

When I attempted to find the Boar’s Head Inn on Facebook on my cell phone, I couldn’t find them!  I was hoping to tell the 700+ friends of mine that I was checking in, and maybe some of my local buddies might see that I was in town.  But, because it appears no one at the Boar’s Head is on top of the social media side of marketing, they missed a golden opportunity for me to tell hundreds of people that I was staying there.  To confirm my suspicion that someone is asleep at the social media wheel, I went to their web site and could not find a Facebook logo anywhere.  No invitation to become a fan or “check us out” on Facebook.

When I searched Facebook for “Boar’s Head Inn” this is what appeared:

It’s now painfully clear that they are ignoring social media as an opportunity to engage guests, and have those guests be ambassadors for them.

I usually don’t spotlight a business like this in my column, but I feel it’s important to encourage innkeepers to not miss the boat on this one.  Make sure you set up your Facebook business page, attend any Facebook-related webinars or classes those in our industry are offering (PAII has Lisa Kolb’s recent Facebook to the Hilt webinar available as a recording.  Click here to access it.  There will be a charge for Silver members.  Gold and Platinum can download it for free.)

Your guests love you!  Give them every opportunity – let alone the most powerful evangelical marketing tool we’ve ever known – to be your ambassadors.

TripAdvisor started to hear the complaints right away from innkeepers.  Our Innkeeping Forum was buzzing with discussion, and some innkeepers were encouraging folks to start a campaign to get as many innkeepers as possible to submit grievances.  And this was all happening at the same time TripAdvisor was offering a 50% off deal to innkeepers on their relatively new Business Listings program.  You can read all about that here, but the gist is – pay an annual fee and have your phone, email and web link added to your TripAdvisor property page.  Innkeepers on the fence about Business Listings were scratching their heads – why pay for Business Listings if B&Bs can’t be readily found on the Tourism Pages like they had been for years?

I give credit to TripAdvisor.  They have some senior staff who are involved with PAII.  Brian Payea, their Trade Relations Manager, pops in from time-to-time on our forum to offer innkeepers advice, clear up misunderstandings and to announce things like the changes made earlier this week to the Tourism Pages.  They listen to what innkeepers have to say.  I’ve been meeting with them regularly for nearly two years, and they’ve always been willing to listen – and have made some improvements to their site based on our ongoing dialogue.  So, what changes were made this week?  First of all, “Top-Rated B&Bs” are back on the pages.  Thank you, TripAdvisor!  Furthermore, if you go to a Tourism Page that has more B&Bs than hotels, you’ll notice that “Top-Rated B&B”s are shown above “Top-Rated Hotels.”  This makes good sense for the web site visitor, because if they’re checking out a town with more B&Bs than hotels, they’re probably more interested in B&Bs.  This is TripAdvisor’s way of improving the experience for the web site visitor.  When doing homework on Cape May, New Jersey, it makes good sense to showcase the B&Bs first.

On Tourism Pages where hotels outnumber B&Bs, like Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,“Top-Rated Hotels” are displayed above “Top-Rated B&Bs.”  No problem with that, since the B&Bs are back on the page.

For towns where there are a small handful of total properties (B&Bs and hotels), like Lititz, Pennsylvania, they have co-mingled both types of properties under “Top-Rated Accommodations.”  I think this is a great improvement too, because you’re going to find that B&Bs are generally better rated than hotels, and this allows these properties to shine.  It makes sense too.  If you have a town with one decent hotel, two bad motels and one really good B&B, this allows the right property to be seen as an attractive option stacked against others.

Knowing the 50% off Business Listings promotion that TripAdvisor has been running with PAII comes to an end on May 8, the questions have been coming in at a faster pace – is it worth the money?  I spoke at the Preferred Inns of New Jersey meeting yesterday and the Minnesota B&B Association conference on Monday and Tuesday this week – it was a popular question among attendees.  With only about 3 months of hindsight (Business Listings launched in January), it’s a tough question to answer with absolute authority.  Based on what I’ve heard from innkeepers who are tracking the traffic from their new links and my own opinion – yes, I think it’s worth it.  And I think these changes to the Tourism Pages improve the investment, because B&Bs have a better chance of shining brightly – especially where they likely deserve it.  Plus, the promotional pricing will not last long, so now is the best time to jump in with two feet.

Plus, TripAdvisor may soon be experiencing even more traffic, now that Facebook has integrated their new Open Graph program with TripAdvisor.  Learn more about that here.

If interested in signing up your B&B for Business Listings, go to www.tripadvisor.com/BusinessListings and use the coupon code “TRIPDISC” to get 50% off.

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?

Every business in the hospitality industry to some extent crosses their fingers and hopes the customers keep coming. But crossing fingers is not all that successful businesses do. They try new things. They experiment. They take risks. The reach out to new audiences, who may or may not be receptive. They depart from old ways of doing business.

As we look forward to the rest of 2009, here are some thoughts for you to consider…all in the name of seeking different results by doing things differently.

1. Love them or hate them, embrace the online review phenomenon. Properties with reviews get double the traffic that properties with no or few reviews get. Don’t ignore negative reviews. Too often I hear innkeepers say, “I will not dignify that review with a response.” On the other hand, I’ve heard many innkeepers say they earned business from guests who were impressed with their response to negative reviews. Dignify them with a dignified response! Many innkeepers choose to ignore or be indifferent towards the online review realities. At the same time, those who embrace it (despite all the unfairness I know exists) are earning business away from their competitors. Plain and simple.
2. Don’t follow suit with the hotels and stop the amenities. While I hear that guests today are more interested in a good price than what amenities you offer, I still believe that the amenities they enjoy on site will keep them loyal to you and our industry. What new amenities could you introduce to supplant ones that guests might not value?
3. Are you engaging at all in niche marketing or other new marketing opportunities? Do you offer babymoon packages to expectant mothers, and have you checked out a babymoon directory? Are you GLBT-friendly, and have you listed on any GLBT directories, or optimized your sight or purchased Google Adwords to attract the GLBT crowd? Do you even purchase Google Adwords at all? Experts in the industry cite very good ROI when you wisely choose your key words. Have you explored the advertising opportunities on Facebook? An innkeeper friend of mine is telling me he gets more referrals from those ads than one of the major B&B directories. Have you tried your hand at being a pet-friendly inn? If you have concerns about moving in that direction, just talk to one of your peers on the PAII forum about how surprisingly good that business has been for them. Pet-owners will go out of their way to find pet-friendly properties, and will pay a premium. You could always try it for 6-months and go back if it doesn’t work for you. Take some calculated risks with marketing!
4. Have you checked out your competition lately? Have you asked a friend to look at your web site compared to others in your market and give you the brutal truth about how those sites might be better than yours? Along that point, when was the last time your web site had a facelift or an overhaul? Quality, well-designed sites are winning business they lost before their sites were updated. Many innkeepers who tell us business is good cite updated web sites as a major reason. I highly suggest you use someone in our industry to work on your site. Don’t use your nephew, friend down the street or anyone else who doesn’t intimately know the B&B business, effective B&B sites, search engine optimization in our industry, etc. Your money will ultimately be wasted, with few exceptions.
5. Seek out those $25,000 ideas, rather than sit back on your heels and hope this year is a good one. Where can an innkeeper get an idea that might make a major difference in her business? By stepping forward, rather than backwards, and getting on innkeeper forums and going to conferences, rather than staying home. The only place to get those $25,000 ideas, meaning ideas that will bring you new business or increase the repeat visits of happy guests, will be at thought-provoking events where you will be among thought-provoking peers. Sound like a shameless plug for the style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Innkeeping Showstyle="font-family:trebuchet ms;">? You bet it is; but I contend you should go to any innkeeper conference in our industry. I’ve seen attendance down as much as 30% at state and regional innkeeper meetings this winter. Now is not the time to retreat and hope the $25,000 ideas arrive at your doorstep.

What are you doing differently that is producing results? What are you doing differently that you hope will produce results? Here is the place to share! You never know which idea will really make a $25,000 impact on your business.

Jay

BedandBreakfast.com’s release focuses mostly on why a stay at a B&B is more valuable than a stay elsewhere. In particular, I liked how they draw attention to the “free” value-added services, which would not likely be free when staying at a hotel:

• Free breakfasts for two (all B&Bs): $25
• Free Wi-Fi access and/or guest computers (nearly 90% of B&Bs): $10
• Free afternoon refreshments, wine and cheese and/or evening dessert for two (94% of B&Bs): $20
• Tip-free help with luggage and concierge services (over 65% of B&Bs): $5
• Free local telephone calls (75% of B&Bs) plus free long distance calls (25% of B&Bs): $5
• Free parking (over 95% of B&Bs): Up to $25

bnbfinder.com helped to jump start industry promotions recently that focused on saving gas. The “One Tank Trip” promotion is a neat idea, reminding people that a commute to a wonderful vacation spot doesn’t have to cost a lot of time or money. I particularly like how they listed the number of B&Bs within about a half-tank drive (175 miles) from some major destinations. It’s amazing that over 400 B&Bs are within a half tank from Boston.

Their efforts have paid off with a good bit of media pick up. Check out media results from BedandBreakfast.com and bnbfinder.com.

A press release from ILoveInns.com also highlights the soaring gas prices and how staying at B&Bs can be a great choice for saving at the pump. I like the term “staycation” as the idea of staying closer to home, but still vacationing (that’s very appealing to folks like me with little children staying at home with the sitter while we’re away). Who coins phrases like “staycation”? I really like the Thomas Shephard Inn promotion they spotlight, which pitches the idea of parking your car at the inn and leaving it parked there until you’re checking out, because there is so much to do within walking or biking distance of the inn.

Innkeepers should follow their lead and develop your own message on why staying at your inn is a fantastic value versus alternatives…and if you can come up with creative ways to show potential guests they’ll save on gas by staying at your inn, I think an email marketing campaign would be timely! Take the guess work out for your customer.

Happy Summer.

Jay