Your State office of tourism may have certain regulations in order to be placed in your state Welcome centers. If you plan to provide them to the centers (IMVHO is a must do) then you should check with them 1st.
Our state requires rates to be listed. As Gillumhouse pointed out this could cause brochures to become outdated so what we did was place 'starting at $X." Some of the others placed a price range.
Other than Pictures which is what catches the eye, we also found that the quality of the paper is very important. You do not want to spend good money on a brochure that bends over or goes limp in the stand. Good quality card stock - a must..
WOW I can't believe a state tourism board would be so stupid as to require rates
(I believe you, I am just appalled). In my opinion, very little good comes from listing rates on a rack card. If you absolutely must put rates on, then I would at least put an expiration date on the card. I'd try to get your B&B association's collective clout to try to get the state to change their rule.
There are three reasons I think it is a bad idea to put rates on a card.
(I wrote this on another forum so some may have seen this before and the "you" in this represents innkeepers' in general, not Copperhead specifically)
1) Everything about your inn seen on the card/brochure may look great, but a price evokes either of two reactions. Either a potential guest is surprised by it in a good way (probably not) or turned off by it. The card evokes a decision before they have been enticed on to your website or called you on the phone. We have lots more helpful and valuable information on our website than we can ever fit on a rack card or a folded brochure. Let the unknown of your price draw them in a bit. Lets face it, most successful B&B's are not known for being attractively cheap. I don't know of any that are doing great because they are the best deal in town. That's what super-8's are for. So if your rates aren't super attractive, don't list them.
2) One thing that B&B's can do more readily than hotels is change their rates and offer specials that change from week to week, season to season etc. If you are actively changing your rates to attract more business, having a brochure or card out there that has some higher price listed on it does you no good. It actually works against you.
3) We used to have rack cards distributed to ~30 different locations and we are unable to always make sure the most current version is always on display everywhere
[we actually stopped putting rack cards out, but that is a choice specific to our B&B and is not something that I would generally recommend]. So if we had a card with prices on it from last year still sitting out some place
(with a date on it), potential guests who pick it up, may get turned off because it is out of date, or they get turned off when they call to book a room and we quote them a higher rate. Sure the date is on there and you can tell them to look for it, but that doesn't make them feel any better. If anything, it makes them feel stupid for not noticing the date. Either way they start off disappointed because you are charging more than they had anticipated. Its not the best way to start off.
In these times where the costs of doing business (milk, eggs, gas, heat...) are increasing rapidly it seems like the state tourism board is being silly and antiquated to force all participants to commit prices into print.
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