I would be seriously PO at TA

Even though I was pretty sure that in 2014 we would not spend our meager advertising dollars on a TA business listing, I am now 110% sure! Just checked out the B+Bs in our area by plugging in the "town B+B" to see what came up. So now all of the motels/hotels come up first (this change is not new and is the reason I originally dropped our TA business listing). But now, at the bottom of the worst of the motels there is a strip that says "Still looking for a place to stay?" where only the top 3 out of 9 B+Bs are listed. Then, under the 3 that are listed, there is a small strip that says "See all 9 B+Bs in town" to click on, taking the viewer to a second page. Under the 3 that are listed on the first page there is a big map showing locations for only the motels...no B+Bs. Under the map there are more motels in the adjacent towns.
Wow if we were paying for a listing I would be SERIOUSLY PO. Imagine spending your $$$ to be put after the worst of the motels, on the second page of listings. Fortunately, we are among the top 3 in our town so we at least made the first page. This just seems incredible to me....that someone actually looking for a B+B would have to wade through all the motels first. Perhaps that is why some of the B+Bs in the area are having a tough time. It's a short season and when B+Bs are seen as lower than the worst motels, that does not bode well for occupancy.

or maybe if you PAID you would not be at the bottom. Seems to me if I ran TA that is what I would do to encourage payment for a biz listing.

Joey Bloggs said:

or maybe if you PAID you would not be at the bottom. Seems to me if I ran TA that is what I would do to encourage payment for a biz listing..

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Nope, that was the first thing I checked out. The # 3 rated B+B in town pays for a listing and is treated exactly the same as the #1 B+B in town. And it's not just our town....there is a very popular destination, next town to ours, with 4 motels and 12 B+Bs and the listings are still: Motels, 3 top B+Bs, click to see all B+Bs and then a map with only motels.
Really, I don't think TA wants anything to do with B+Bs!!! How does the page look in your area JB?

Our B&B is listed under Hotels. Not sure why but haven't done anything to change it because there are only 7 'hotels' listed and 26 B&B or Inns for our town.
Not worth it at this point to correct them.

Silverspoon said:

Joey Bloggs said:

or maybe if you PAID you would not be at the bottom. Seems to me if I ran TA that is what I would do to encourage payment for a biz listing..

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Nope, that was the first thing I checked out. The # 3 rated B+B in town pays for a listing and is treated exactly the same as the #1 B+B in town. And it's not just our town....there is a very popular destination, next town to ours, with 4 motels and 12 B+Bs and the listings are still: Motels, 3 top B+Bs, click to see all B+Bs and then a map with only motels.
Really, I don't think TA wants anything to do with B+Bs!!! How does the page look in your area JB?
.

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Silverspoon said:

Really, I don't think TA wants anything to do with B+Bs!!! How does the page look in your area JB?

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Oh yes they do! I even got a letter in the mail from them today, they are always HOUNDING us. ALWAYS. Relentless! They want out money!
Not saying they want to promote us, at all, but they want our money!

Hotels have always come up first in our town, then their is the tab for B & B's
Yes, TA definitely know about B & B's more and more from Jay and they have changed some things because of it. Maybe not to our liking..but changes have been made and yes the do market to us specifically. I know inns who only pay TA and they are thriving.

Those of us in the "Specialty Lodging" category are even more overlooked by TA than B&B's and Inns (so there, nyna-nyna ) ... although TA wants our money, too!

Stupidest part... and I have pointed this out to TA repeatedly... per room, B&Bs bring them more traffic and reviews than hotels do. For example, take the number of reviews and divide by ((today minus first review date) * number of rooms). So in my case that means that I average .028 reviews per room day. Taking the biggest chain hotel's rooms for this city, they have .00087 reviews per room day. Or in other words, I get 32 x more reviews than they do. They would need to have over 25K reviews to equal my response rate!