Innkeeper Updates

New reviews widget
Save up to $60 per year on your BedandBreakfast.com membership
100 videos live on BedandBreakfast.com
BedandBreakfast.com Blog

New reviews widget
Now you can easily display your preferred selection of BedandBreakfast.com reviews right on your own website! Just follow these easy steps:

1. Log in to your Home Base, and click Reviews Widget in the table under Free Member Benefits.
2. Create your customized BedandBreakfast.com Reviews Widget* in a few easy steps. Play with the layouts, click the radio buttons to change the rating colors, and click the boxes to change the text and background colors. Go for combinations that are easy to read and match the colors on your website.
3. Don't forget to click the Manage Reviews link in the upper left-hand corner of the Reviews page to filter out any reviews you do not want to appear on your website. This will not affect the display of reviews on your BedandBreakfast.com listing.
4. If you have a RezOvation website, we will add the widget to your website absolutely FREE! Contact Support@RezOvation.com or 866-565-1800.

Many innkeepers have already added the widget to their websites! Here are a few examples of the different variations of the widget. Remember that you can use any or all of these on the appropriate places on your website:
Horizontal: Sweet Dreams Luxury Inn, Abbotsford, BC (scroll down)
Vertical: The Australian Walkabout Inn, Lancaster, PA
Compact: Bykenhulle House, Hopewell Junction, NY
Full page: Pinehill Inn, Oregon, IL

Including the widget on your website will help you add more reviews and increase reservations generated by your website. It will also help you save $5 a month on your BedandBreakfast.com membership.

Save up to $60 per year on your membership!
New! Every month a review is posted on your paid listing, we will credit your account $5; save up to $60 per year! In the month since the program launched, our members have been credited $6,950!
 

100 videos are live on BedandBreakfast.com
Don't forget that Silver members and above get one free video on their listing. Mail us a copy of your video on a CD or DVD, or use the free website MegaUpload to send your video files to us. On the MegaUpload home page, click Language at the top of the screen, then select your country. Next, browse to select your file, enter our email address (Support@BedandBreakfast.com) and your inn's name and contact information, and click Send!

When we get your video (by either mail or email) we will send you a confirming email to let you know we’ve received it. If you've sent a video but haven't received confirmation of its receipt, please contact us; we may have not received it.

Here are the requirements:

• Size: Maximum 100 MB.
• Video compression format: Video files from most digital cameras, camcorders, and cell phones in the .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats are OK.
• Time: Three minutes is ideal; 10-minute maximum.

We will format your videos to the right compression and size. Click here to see a sample video.

Please don't hesitate to contact with any questions:  Support@BedandBreakfast.com, 1-800-GO-B-AND-B or 1-512-322-2700.

BedandBreakfast.com Blog
Check out our blog! BedandBreakfast.com editors regularly post trip reports, B&B specials, and interesting B&B-related tidbits. Sign up to receive updates via email. Who knows? You might soon read about your inn!

If you have a blog about your property, please let us know and we can do a link exchange.

Travel Trends

The expanding role of user-generated hotel reviews: "The role of user-generated reviews is exploding. Eighty-eight percent of the 30 million people who visit TripAdvisor each month are influenced by content they read. "With an increasing number of user-generated reviews and people reading and acting on them, the impact of guest satisfaction and dissatisfaction is multiplied and has a quicker economic impact. It used to be said that an unhappy customer would tell 3 others about their poor experience; now they tell 3 million (with less effort). The guest experience has never mattered more." Here are some quick facts; click here to read the entire article.

• "Market Metrix research has demonstrated that beyond the additional revenue that repeat customers provide, their word-of-mouth communications translate into significant profits for the hotel. In one example the positive word-of-mouth from a happy customer was worth $1,559 in profit for an upscale hotel.
• "According to the latest Market Metrix Hospitality Index™ results, one in five hotel customers read a review about a property before booking that hotel. Luxury guests (25%) and Timeshare guests (23%) were more likely to read a review before purchase, perhaps due to the variability among these properties.
• "Guests who read a review prior to their stay were more satisfied with their experience (+2) and were more likely to recommend that hotel (+4) compared to guests who did not read a review.
• "Younger leisure travelers and women are more likely to read reviews prior to hotel selection.
• "On average, 9% of all guests wrote reviews about their hotel stay. Although these persons reported twice as many problems, they were more satisfied (+4) with their stay and much more likely to recommend the hotel (+10%) compared to persons who did not post a review of their stay. This is consistent with TripAdvisor’s claim that more than 80% of their user reviews are positive.

"A company's effort to ensure that its customers are satisfied over the long term is rewarded by an increase in profit through repeat business, referral sales, decreased customer maintenance costs, and reduced exposure to price competition."

Revenue management can make up for lower occupancy: The value of hotel revenue management (RM) does not diminish when room occupancy falls. “During low occupancy periods, some hotel management teams mistakenly view RM as a low priority activity. However, it is precisely during these challenging times that hotel professionals should be looking under the hood, and asking questions regarding the methods and the data used to manage hotel pricing and customer mix. Hotel teams should rely on RM processes to enable responsive sales, marketing, cost containment and pricing decisions that work in today’s economy.

“Case studies have shown that 4% to 12% improvements in RevPAR are achievable with effective RM processes. Recently, one large property that implemented a revised RM strategy during a 5% decline in demand still experienced a RevPAR increase of this magnitude. Since a single digit increase in RevPAR can easily translate to double digit increases in gross operating profit, RM’s value during this period should never be ignored.” Click here to read about four activities to maximize the contribution of RM processes to your profitability during this economic downturn.

Tourism slump to hit U.S., Europe: “The U.N. World Tourism Organization says global tourism could decline by up to 2% in 2009 amid the financial crisis. The Madrid-based organization says Europe and the Americas will be the most affected.

“The UNWTO said the world's most advanced economies are seeing their first major contraction since World War II and the organization ‘expects 2009 international tourism to be in the range of 0% to a 2%decline.’

“The downturn follows four years of sustained growth, with a 7% rise a year on average between 2004 and 2007. Tourist arrivals worldwide during 2008 rose to 924 million, 2% higher than the previous year.”

Hotel internet marketing experts share best practices: “Hotelemarketer Jitendra Jain set out to seek the knowledge, thoughts and advice of prominent industry leaders and bloggers, on what they saw as important developments and tips in the field of online hospitality marketing this year.

"Common themes from the interviews that seem to emerge include:

• It’s time to get back to basics and cover these well
• There will be an increasing reliance on online technology in the year ahead
• We’ll have to work together, both offline and online, for the best results
• Utilization of mobile and on-the-go marketing will increase moving forward
• There will be a renewed focus on internationalization and destination marketing
• ROI measurement and analytics will become keystones to online success
• A better understanding of our customer needs, niches and experiences will be required
• There will be an increasing use of rich media and online PR in hospitality
• The Hospitality industry will start experimenting with social media in earnest
• Creativity and common sense will reign supreme (or so it ought to!) “

Five ways to gain a competitive advantage: “While your competitors are busy cutting costs arbitrarily, stay ahead of the pack. Make informed decisions about your marketing strategy and sharpen your blades strategically to make every one of your cuts count.

“In every economic cycle, companies of all shapes and sizes cut their marketing budgets. Frequently, managers will make uninformed decisions; therefore, it's critical that your business is poised to capitalize on common mistakes your competitors will likely make. This opens the door for you to take market share away from them.

1. They'll cut their most expensive programs regardless of performance.
2. They'll cut programs by some arbitrary percentage.
3. They'll put new programs on hold.

Five ways to gain a competitive advantage while others are panicking about the economy are: cut out the proven nonperformers, don't make cuts across the board, concentrate on programs that move prospects through the sales funnel, know which marketing is delivering, or start tracking your results, and prune intelligently. Read the complete article here.

Hotels scrutinize online feedback in hopes of luring more travelers: It’s important to monitor the reputation of your inn, and increasingly, that means scrutinizing what customers are saying about it online. Hotel marketers are finding ways to make the most of their web presence. “A few have started blogs. Some advertise directly on travel sites. At the least, hotels are giving their own websites a face lift — essential now that travel sites link to hotel pages and most travelers research online before booking.

“Evidence shows that online feedback counts. Consider a 2007 survey conducted by market research firm comScore: Of more than 2,000 respondents, 40% admitted that reading a positive online review of a hotel swayed them to book it. A 2008 study by Opinion Research Corp. found that 82% of online shoppers checked online reviews, blogs and other online customer feedback before making a travel-related purchase.

“Some savvy hoteliers aren’t waiting passively for online praise. At the Butcher’s Hill bed and breakfast Blue Door, owner Roger Eberlin asks customers who enjoyed their experience to share their comments online, providing links to B&B directories and Web addresses for independent travel sites. He also encourages guests to post reviews directly on Blue Door’s blog. The strategy may be working. Though Blue Door hasn’t been open for business a full year, Eberlin said revenue has exceeded his expectations.”

Travelers will be getting lots of deals in 2009: A recent survey by Travel Leaders reveals that for 2009, “wallet-watching travelers will be taking fewer trips, waiting longer to book them in hopes of a deal and downscaling vacations. Vegas is the No. 1 U.S. destination Americans are booking (as it was last year), the survey says, followed by Orlando. Perhaps fueled by Obama fever, the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial and a Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago (No. 10) is in the top 10 for the first time in years.

"Internationally, Caribbean cruises rule yet again, but dollar-stretching Mexico has five destinations in the top 10: Cancun, No. 2; Riviera Maya, No. 3; Puerto Vallarta, No. 4; Cabo San Lucas/Los Cabos, No. 9; and Mexican cruises (tied for No. 10). Jamaica is also getting lots of attending."

One travel agent says that well-heeled travelers are downgrading, while another says that the wealthy are still traveling and looking to take a break, particularly to England now that they dollar is better vs. the pound. Morocco and South America are also popular destinations.

"Other findings in the survey:

• 90.5% say customers are cutting back on travel compared with the same period last year.
• 57.4% say clients are cutting back on the length of their trips.
• 31.5% say airfares on 2009 corporate bookings are equal to or lower than those in 2008.
• 81.6% say clients are trading down when it comes to hotels.
• 84.3% recommend Mexico as the best value outside the USA, followed by cruises (61.1%) and the Caribbean (43.9%). Agents were asked to pick up to three places.
• Despite the rise of the dollar against the euro and pound, 77% say bookings to Europe are even or down for 2009.
• 71% say travelers are saving money by staying at all-inclusive resorts; 75.7% say vacationers are being more flexible with travel dates to get better prices."

Survey finds affluent travelers less affected by economy: “While most travel service providers - both domestic and international - will have to work harder to capture a meaningful share of travel demand, those that cater to affluent travelers may have an easier time of it, according to the most recent ‘travelhorizons’ survey, co-authored by Ypartnership and the Travel Industry Association (TIA).

“The survey found that seven out of 10 adults intend to take a leisure trip 50 miles or more from home or overnight during the next six months. This is the same percentage recorded in the October 2007 travelhorizons survey, indicating there has been no degradation in the overall incidence of intentions to travel among Americans despite the uncertain economy.

“Almost half (48%) of all respondents stated that they were not planning to make any changes to their future travel plans as a result of the current economic crisis. However, demand from more value-sensitive travelers is expected to show some decline. Of those with an annual income over $75,000, a sizable number (82%) intend to travel during the next six months, while households with an annual income below $75,000 are more likely to agree that "travel is too expensive" and are "reevaluating their travel plans because of budget concerns" according to the survey.

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