Breakfast Diva
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- May 27, 2009
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Rankings are all the same. I just checked yesterday to see if we displeased the Google gods. Ta position is the same.I know that many businesses generally don't want to to reveal much, but how is everybody else in town doing? Is visitation overall up, down, or steady?We are looking at several improvements for the fall that can't be done when we have guests in the house. We're getting our repeats. Getting good reviews. Guests we're getting are happy with their stay. 2 new guests in the past month have already come back, one couple has been back twice.the revenue is only half the story. how has the place been run?Other than carefully spent money on a few items and being on all the OTAs (annoying or not). It offends people, but the world of B&Bs is under threat. Major cities are hemorrhaging B&Bs; I believe I read the last one closed in Raleigh recently, due to AirBnB and regulatory responses to them. NYC B&Bs are also disappearing.
I would listen very carefully to what Happykeeper has said in the past. I think HK gets it more than most. In many areas, not good enough any more to have a room. I am not targeting a B&B - it is half of a tiny destination spa - with classes, spa services and other things. I have kept very mum, but I know that a B&B component is important, but not by itself.
The B&B I looked at 60 miles north has been around over 20 years - I discussed it a couple weeks ago. Finally received a tax statement (2012). 3 rooms - she had $6700 in revenue for the year and lost over $2000 in total. Two other B&Bs I looked at trying to sell - about $20-25,000 revenue each. And both fairly well known..
our first year, we did nearly twice the revenue of the PO.
Our next door neighbor approached us to let us know they were putting up a fence so they wouldn't have to look at our driveway. His words, "She didn't have much traffic. It's clear you intend to manage it like a business." Yep.
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We've had a travel writer in who gave us good marks in the article.
We're just in a slump right now.
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.This is a very important question to find out. Stalk their reservation calendars if need be. Is it you, or is it the climate of the area?Harborfields said:I know that many businesses generally don't want to to reveal much, but how is everybody else in town doing? Is visitation overall up, down, or steady?
Mort, If your reviews are good and you're not getting complaints about the rooms or the property then don't spend your money making changes there.
A couple things to look at:
We went through a slump also. This is our second year we've pulled out of it. And now we're soaring. For us, the major difference is that we're offering other things besides just rooms. I had our marketing and website analyzed by professionals in the industry and their consensus was it was our area. That was good and bad news. I can't change the area's marketing, but I could make us even more special.
- Have your google rankings changed? (when checking, be sure to clear your cache and not be logged into your google account);
- have any other rankings changed;
- did you see an upswing or downswing in online reservations when you changed your reservation system (one of those things should have happened)
- what makes your place special. I know here on the forum you say nothing, but that can't be true.
- Is your target market the ones that actually book with you? If not, is your website geared toward them?
Change is difficult. Just yesterday I posted this quote for myself from Jim Connolly - Never complain about the economy or any other outside factors. Adapt. Put your success in your own hands
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No real difference in online bookings, we're still about 50-60%. I think we're getting a slight uptick because you can put multiple rooms in the cart so guests are not calling because they don't want to enter their info twice.
If everyone else is doing better (by a lot) then Jim is right, it's not the economy! I'll have to think some more on this.
I do know we're not getting the million question emails and calls, guests are just booking. That seems to imply the message speaks to them.
This can be a bit of a slump right now in any year. But the whole month was off by 50% which is a big hit. And it was just us. I can track that easily. Not sure if the fix is more rooms on the OTA sites or what.
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The message is speaking to those that actually book, but what about all those others? I look at that statement the same way I would look at "but my guests tell me what a great website I have". It's all those other folks that don't book we need to satisfy. I know, it's a HUGE task figuring it out. But if the other b&bs are all doing better, then the first thing to do is to try to figure out why yours isn't. Personally, I just think it's a matter of the message.Morticia said:I do know we're not getting the million question emails and calls, guests are just booking. That seems to imply the message speaks to them..
I know how this affects your stress level and outlook. I've been there. I worried about it 24/7 while it was happening to us. Hang in there. Maybe you might invite an innmate over for a stay and get a fresh eye view. Sometimes we're just too close and can't see the forest for the trees.