Rack card / brochure displays

Hi y'all! I'm new to the forum and semi- new to the business ( less than 2 years) but I was hoping for some help and suggestions.
We we have rack cards, brochures, and menus from local places that the previous owner just spread out on the hutch in the parlor. I have tried grouping them in buckets with bows on them (bucket list?), but as we become more known around town, we are getting way too many from all our new contacts to keep them on the hutch without looking messy - even in the buckets!
is there a good place from which to order a rack or display or does anyone know of a trick to making them available without having them spread all over the place?
Thanks.

As you know, spreading them out means a lof of space, and a dusting challenge.
For things like this, I go for the good prices and huge selection of Amazon.
You can shingle them, or use a lot of wall space. <-- Click the hyperlinks
Oh, and :welcome:!!

Arks said:

As you know, spreading them out means a lof of space, and a dusting challenge.
For things like this, I go for the good prices and huge selection of Amazon.
You can shingle them, or use a lot of wall space. <-- Click the hyperlinks
Oh, and :welcome:!!.

Click to expand...

unfortunatelt Arks, lots of menus, different sizes, etc..i dont think this kind of set up works for that. this is when you have lots of the same thing...kind of like a visitor center.
how many do you have? we kept ours in a binder and not spread out all over the place. oh...binder of each in each guestroom. but we only had 3 rooms. i put them in those plastic page covers. worked well for us

EmptyNest said:

Arks said:

As you know, spreading them out means a lof of space, and a dusting challenge.
For things like this, I go for the good prices and huge selection of Amazon.
You can shingle them, or use a lot of wall space. <-- Click the hyperlinks
Oh, and :welcome:!!.

Click to expand...

unfortunatelt Arks, lots of menus, different sizes, etc..i dont think this kind of set up works for that. this is when you have lots of the same thing...kind of like a visitor center.
how many do you have? we kept ours in a binder and not spread out all over the place. oh...binder of each in each guestroom. but we only had 3 rooms. i put them in those plastic page covers. worked well for us
.

Click to expand...

Us too! We have a binder in our reception area with more detailed area information/ads. We have those clear sheet protectors in the binder, and we just pop the advertisement in one of those. (We have a separate binder in the guest rooms that has general information about our place and area without promoting a specific business)

I have all the menus in a binder in plastic sleeves. The rack cards are in 3-tiered display units I got at Staples. I have 5 of them. There is also a 6 slot business card holder on the table in front of the reach cards.
Neat and tidy, easy to see. Out of the way, no longer dust magnets.
The rack cards are sorted: in town, museums, outdoors, trains and other. Probably have 60 or so different places represented. Sorting makes it easier for me to find them when I'm explaining about the place.

Morticia said:

I have all the menus in a binder in plastic sleeves. The rack cards are in 3-tiered display units I got at Staples. I have 5 of them. There is also a 6 slot business card holder on the table in front of the reach cards.
Neat and tidy, easy to see. Out of the way, no longer dust magnets.
The rack cards are sorted: in town, museums, outdoors, trains and other. Probably have 60 or so different places represented. Sorting makes it easier for me to find them when I'm explaining about the place..

Click to expand...

I found a photo of the one my husband made. We gifted it to another B & B when we retired.

I put out brochure racks with all the local brochures on things to see and do, county maps, etc. It's rare for anybody to take any of them, but by putting then in a rack, they don't take up much space.

Arks said:

I put out brochure racks with all the local brochures on things to see and do, county maps, etc. It's rare for anybody to take any of them, but by putting then in a rack, they don't take up much space..

Click to expand...

Arks said:

I put out brochure racks with all the local brochures on things to see and do, county maps, etc. It's rare for anybody to take any of them, but by putting then in a rack, they don't take up much space.

Click to expand...

Maps. I have a whole other area for maps. State, local, other towns, etc. I offered to take a box of last year's maps off the hands of the state tourism center. We go thru about 100/year. Altho, more folks are turning them down saying their phones do all that. I still don't get how you can plan where to go if you don't know what's there and you can't see what's along the way that might be interesting.
I've got a decent collection of maps of the big city 2 hours from here that guests have left behind. Also the bigger city 6 hours from here.
Like Arks, it's rare when guests take the brochures, and I stick them back in the rack if they leave them behind, but it's nice to have them. Guests will randomly look thru the brochures and suddenly find something they didn't know was here and they're off.

Tomorrow I will take a photo of the rack Himself built for me. It is lightweight and we called it my traveling brochure rack - I took it to Tourism Day etc to display the brochures and rack cards of our member B & Bs when I was Marketing Chair for the Assoc. Its normal residence is on the big radiator in the foyer that is our emergency heating unit (turn on gas, light, and heat emanates - but no safety features) if the electric goes off. It tends to get a bit unwieldy at times because I forget to clear it out - but when someone needs info about something in the State, I most likely have it. It is made of 1/2 inch pine (10 x 12 sides - we just measured - and 26 inches across) and 1/8th inch plywood for the front & back and made with 4 levels. He said today he would use 1/4 instead of 18 in plywood. He also built a rack on the wall in a small space between the radiator and the door to the dining room for more brochures. Tomorrow is another day - too late and too dark now.


There is a carry slot in the bottom.

Welcome to the forum!
I would like to know what sort and how many you have? I am a maniac for order, so I have mine in a basket in the parlor. Guidebooks, state tourism magazines don't fit into the basket, it is just rack cards alone, all stacked together, and guests can look them over if they want or take the whole basket onto the porch and look through them with coffee in hand.
I don't feel led to be a state tourism center, at all. I spend all of my effort putting what there is to see and do online to extend their stay before they get here.
Howz this working?
Good I guess. Since we are not a tourist destination, we are apples and oranges to those who are.
We also have plastic sleeves with pertinent info on each bed.
One side will be a list of hikes, the other side will be a suggested itinerary. Then someone will walk down find me as ask where to go for a hike. I ask them if they had seen the list, they say they did, but want my recommendation. That IS my recommendation, I made the list. Every last letter was typed my these fingers. When I say 180 degree breathtaking view, that is what it is. When I say easy walk from parking area, it is an easy walk.
All that to say, I don't like clutter, so I don't do it here, even in wall units, I let the info centers do that, we have a couple here in town and not far from us who have all the cards and a volunteer to mind the store. I am happy to share anything with anyone, and in fact, if you ask me I can tell you the innside innformation on what to do and see from one who lives here and has been to these places.
I was out of town recently when asking people where to eat at two or three told me of these places...I asked them "So the food was good there?" they replied "No terrible" I stood there, "Why are you telling me about them?" shake head, walk away...

EmptyNest said:

Morticia said:

I have all the menus in a binder in plastic sleeves. The rack cards are in 3-tiered display units I got at Staples. I have 5 of them. There is also a 6 slot business card holder on the table in front of the reach cards.
Neat and tidy, easy to see. Out of the way, no longer dust magnets.
The rack cards are sorted: in town, museums, outdoors, trains and other. Probably have 60 or so different places represented. Sorting makes it easier for me to find them when I'm explaining about the place..

Click to expand...

I found a photo of the one my husband made. We gifted it to another B & B when we retired.

.

Click to expand...

Y'all are such a great wealth of info! empty nest. I think those are what I was thinking of. Gillumhouse thank you for the dimensions and tips...DH is pretty handy and might could build something
Those of you that use binders, do guests who are checking in look at them readily, or do you have to point them out, and do you have a bunch in the binder so they can take a copy with them?

verandasburnet said:

EmptyNest said:

Morticia said:

I have all the menus in a binder in plastic sleeves. The rack cards are in 3-tiered display units I got at Staples. I have 5 of them. There is also a 6 slot business card holder on the table in front of the reach cards.
Neat and tidy, easy to see. Out of the way, no longer dust magnets.
The rack cards are sorted: in town, museums, outdoors, trains and other. Probably have 60 or so different places represented. Sorting makes it easier for me to find them when I'm explaining about the place..

Click to expand...

I found a photo of the one my husband made. We gifted it to another B & B when we retired.

.

Click to expand...

Y'all are such a great wealth of info! empty nest. I think those are what I was thinking of. Gillumhouse thank you for the dimensions and tips...DH is pretty handy and might could build something
Those of you that use binders, do guests who are checking in look at them readily, or do you have to point them out, and do you have a bunch in the binder so they can take a copy with them?
.

Click to expand...

When our guests check in, the binder is open and on their bed, leaning against the pillow. It's open to our welcome letter and there are copies of my driving tour and map on the pocket of the left cover. I do point it out to them and then tell them there's a lot of area info in the binder including the wi-fi password.
Works very well for us.

Welcome.
Here we do not encourage too many of those things. Of course, we are in the country and there aren't very many menu options anyway. Most people eat here at the inn and I don't even tell them what we are serving most of the time. We are more of a full service concept, so folks will just ask us. It fits with the personal concierge services we provide and does away with the common, " I saw the guide book but what do you think?" kind of question.

I went to Staples and bought the plastic rack card holders and then my husband took a piece of pine which matches our rustic decor. I stained it the color of all our trim work and he screwed the rack card holders to it. This way we could make the height and length that we wanted and matched the decor. I have a binder in the entryway by the phone with all of the local menus in it in plastic sleeves. I did an overview sheet which gives a description of the restaurant, what their speciality is and what are our favorites. I can easily change them out when I get an updated one. I don't have anything in the guest rooms, it's all in the entryway on the desk.

Some people do take the book with them back to their room and don't remember to bring it back after they make a choice/reservation. So my next plan to get rid of all of this is to hang a large touchscreen PC in the entryway that will have everything electronically, as well as a folder for our favorite hikes with photos and all of the area attractions with the links to their websites. It will be my concierge kiosk. I'm hoping to have a directions sheet that they can email right to their smartphone once they pick a restaurant.

MtnKeeper said:

I went to Staples and bought the plastic rack card holders and then my husband took a piece of pine which matches our rustic decor. I stained it the color of all our trim work and he screwed the rack card holders to it. This way we could make the height and length that we wanted and matched the decor. I have a binder in the entryway by the phone with all of the local menus in it in plastic sleeves. I did an overview sheet which gives a description of the restaurant, what their speciality is and what are our favorites. I can easily change them out when I get an updated one. I don't have anything in the guest rooms, it's all in the entryway on the desk.

Some people do take the book with them back to their room and don't remember to bring it back after they make a choice/reservation. So my next plan to get rid of all of this is to hang a large touchscreen PC in the entryway that will have everything electronically, as well as a folder for our favorite hikes with photos and all of the area attractions with the links to their websites. It will be my concierge kiosk. I'm hoping to have a directions sheet that they can email right to their smartphone once they pick a restaurant..

Click to expand...

That's a neat idea. It certainly cleans up the surfaces not having all that paper around.

We only keep brochures & menus for places that we have actually visited, things we've actually done, friends that have businesses that we know & respect (even if we don't use the service, but can honestly recommend in good faith). We get businesses and realtors coming by all the time wanting to drop off brochures, business cards, fliers and other crap. We certainly don't want to overwhelm our guests and like being able to say that the places are Innkeeper tested & approved.
A friend of the owner built three small wood brochure holders - two slots deep, four & five brochures long - that sit on a long table in the entrance hallway. Then misc other holders & non-holdered stuff laying on it. I often go through it and cull the herd... if there's too much crap no one wants to even stop to look at it. We have all menus to the right, shopping in the middle & activities on the left. The map in the middle is of our shopping district. I keep it open to encourage people to pick them up. Our biz assoc puts that together (I'm on the board so I peddle them heavily!)

Kay Nein said:

We only keep brochures & menus for places that we have actually visited, things we've actually done, friends that have businesses that we know & respect (even if we don't use the service, but can honestly recommend in good faith). We get businesses and realtors coming by all the time wanting to drop off brochures, business cards, fliers and other crap. We certainly don't want to overwhelm our guests and like being able to say that the places are Innkeeper tested & approved.
A friend of the owner built three small wood brochure holders - two slots deep, four & five brochures long - that sit on a long table in the entrance hallway. Then misc other holders & non-holdered stuff laying on it. I often go through it and cull the herd... if there's too much crap no one wants to even stop to look at it. We have all menus to the right, shopping in the middle & activities on the left. The map in the middle is of our shopping district. I keep it open to encourage people to pick them up. Our biz assoc puts that together (I'm on the board so I peddle them heavily!)

.

Click to expand...

Very nice! I like it a lot! They go well with the table. The light hanging over the area is a smart idea. We have plastic pamphlet holders on top of the piano...not ideal but what we have for now.
My only thought would be to remove the boxes and stuff from underneath. Makes it look junky. Just my two cents.

Duff2014 said:

Kay Nein said:

We only keep brochures & menus for places that we have actually visited, things we've actually done, friends that have businesses that we know & respect (even if we don't use the service, but can honestly recommend in good faith). We get businesses and realtors coming by all the time wanting to drop off brochures, business cards, fliers and other crap. We certainly don't want to overwhelm our guests and like being able to say that the places are Innkeeper tested & approved.
A friend of the owner built three small wood brochure holders - two slots deep, four & five brochures long - that sit on a long table in the entrance hallway. Then misc other holders & non-holdered stuff laying on it. I often go through it and cull the herd... if there's too much crap no one wants to even stop to look at it. We have all menus to the right, shopping in the middle & activities on the left. The map in the middle is of our shopping district. I keep it open to encourage people to pick them up. Our biz assoc puts that together (I'm on the board so I peddle them heavily!)

.

Click to expand...

Very nice! I like it a lot! They go well with the table. The light hanging over the area is a smart idea. We have plastic pamphlet holders on top of the piano...not ideal but what we have for now.
My only thought would be to remove the boxes and stuff from underneath. Makes it look junky. Just my two cents.
.

Click to expand...

The boxes are full of food for the local food bank. We did a food drive & haven't yet been able to coordinate the food bank people & the newspapers to deliver & take photos. We put a sign on it saying what it was so guests didn't think we kept their breakfast fixins in the hallway.

Kay Nein said:

Duff2014 said:

Kay Nein said:

We only keep brochures & menus for places that we have actually visited, things we've actually done, friends that have businesses that we know & respect (even if we don't use the service, but can honestly recommend in good faith). We get businesses and realtors coming by all the time wanting to drop off brochures, business cards, fliers and other crap. We certainly don't want to overwhelm our guests and like being able to say that the places are Innkeeper tested & approved.
A friend of the owner built three small wood brochure holders - two slots deep, four & five brochures long - that sit on a long table in the entrance hallway. Then misc other holders & non-holdered stuff laying on it. I often go through it and cull the herd... if there's too much crap no one wants to even stop to look at it. We have all menus to the right, shopping in the middle & activities on the left. The map in the middle is of our shopping district. I keep it open to encourage people to pick them up. Our biz assoc puts that together (I'm on the board so I peddle them heavily!)

.

Click to expand...

Very nice! I like it a lot! They go well with the table. The light hanging over the area is a smart idea. We have plastic pamphlet holders on top of the piano...not ideal but what we have for now.
My only thought would be to remove the boxes and stuff from underneath. Makes it look junky. Just my two cents.
.

Click to expand...

The boxes are full of food for the local food bank. We did a food drive & haven't yet been able to coordinate the food bank people & the newspapers to deliver & take photos. We put a sign on it saying what it was so guests didn't think we kept their breakfast fixins in the hallway.
.

Click to expand...

made me laugh
"Hey, if you're ready for breakfast just grab somethin' outta the box in the hallway and I'll cook it up for ya."

happykeeper said:

Kay Nein said:

Duff2014 said:

Kay Nein said:

We only keep brochures & menus for places that we have actually visited, things we've actually done, friends that have businesses that we know & respect (even if we don't use the service, but can honestly recommend in good faith). We get businesses and realtors coming by all the time wanting to drop off brochures, business cards, fliers and other crap. We certainly don't want to overwhelm our guests and like being able to say that the places are Innkeeper tested & approved.
A friend of the owner built three small wood brochure holders - two slots deep, four & five brochures long - that sit on a long table in the entrance hallway. Then misc other holders & non-holdered stuff laying on it. I often go through it and cull the herd... if there's too much crap no one wants to even stop to look at it. We have all menus to the right, shopping in the middle & activities on the left. The map in the middle is of our shopping district. I keep it open to encourage people to pick them up. Our biz assoc puts that together (I'm on the board so I peddle them heavily!)

.

Click to expand...

Very nice! I like it a lot! They go well with the table. The light hanging over the area is a smart idea. We have plastic pamphlet holders on top of the piano...not ideal but what we have for now.
My only thought would be to remove the boxes and stuff from underneath. Makes it look junky. Just my two cents.
.

Click to expand...

The boxes are full of food for the local food bank. We did a food drive & haven't yet been able to coordinate the food bank people & the newspapers to deliver & take photos. We put a sign on it saying what it was so guests didn't think we kept their breakfast fixins in the hallway.
.

Click to expand...

made me laugh
"Hey, if you're ready for breakfast just grab somethin' outta the box in the hallway and I'll cook it up for ya."
.

Click to expand...

LOL - Yeah, Mac & Cheese and Beanie Weenies for EVERYONE!