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Karen

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An article describing the free night Nov 10 for veterans appeared in our local newspaper on Tuesday, with a link to the list of participating inns, and I have been getting call after call. Anyone else inundated like that? We booked the first two callers, and are now turning them away.
Makes me wonder what other promotions might be dreamed up that would result in paying guests.
 
Perhaps you need a drawing for next year, have it ALL ONLINE and they can enter to win. Just a suggestion...the more publicity the more people want it for free.
Eastern Shore B&B's did it that way, you will also have a list of those interesting for future special events/discounts. Let them tick the box to say they are interested.
8 out of every 10 people in this community have served in the military and we are with a couple hours of the biggest naval base in the world, not to mention Pentagon, and every military base/post/outlet near there and DC.
 
I am giving one night away and it booked. Now I am getting a couple calls a day. I am sorry that the people who call seem to be disappointed. I do appreciate their sacrifice, but I am only able to give up 1 room this year. If we can come up with something to bring in the paying guests like this it would be great!
 
Folks need to read the "fine print" closely. The headlines make it seem like everyone is giving them all their rooms and that is not what the program says.
 
Folks need to read the "fine print" closely. The headlines make it seem like everyone is giving them all their rooms and that is not what the program says..
catlady said:
Folks need to read the "fine print" closely. The headlines make it seem like everyone is giving them all their rooms and that is not what the program says.
The calls/emails I have gotten seem to understand. Most of mine have said ' is the fee Vet room booked yet' - or along those lines.
The 3 rooms I set aside for this booked within a couple of hours.... and have received call after call & a number of emails as well. I do believe that this will place B&B's in the minds of many Vets from now on.
 
Folks need to read the "fine print" closely. The headlines make it seem like everyone is giving them all their rooms and that is not what the program says..
catlady said:
Folks need to read the "fine print" closely. The headlines make it seem like everyone is giving them all their rooms and that is not what the program says.
The calls/emails I have gotten seem to understand. Most of mine have said ' is the fee Vet room booked yet' - or along those lines.
The 3 rooms I set aside for this booked within a couple of hours.... and have received call after call & a number of emails as well. I do believe that this will place B&B's in the minds of many Vets from now on.
.
You know, I filled my rooms on a first come basis. Then I got a call from the wife of an Iraq vet. They have 5 kids and he's a state trooper. The more I think about it, I think I'm going to offer them a weekend night room. That should make babysitting easier anyway. One of the rooms I have already donated for Nov10 sounds more like the same kind of people who are BOGO's I get from I Love Inns. (that I'm really not that thrilled about. )
 
The webmaster has added a column to the website to indicate if a B&B has filled its available rooms - a column simply stating FULL in red. Please email Kathleen if you are FULL - we are updating daily (sometimes more than once a day) adding new inns and updating the status.
 
Hey Folks;
As the lone Canadian B&B participating in this program, we are most thrilled to announce that we have our first booking. A retired veteran and her active serving spouse and family from Connecticut. We can't wait to host them.
We tried to get a similar program started here and approached BB Canada, however, to date, there has not been a response.
Have a great Fall.
 
Wow! I stand corrected, as I just noticed that the Canadian B&Bs are up to five - Well done folks.
 
Update!! News Flash!! The Great TA contacted me about the Vets and they are going to run it in their newsletter!! (They also gave me a free listing for 3 months with the understanding from me to them that it goes away with no financial obligation to me as in opt out required).
After the dust settles, I am going to put together via copy/paste some of the wonderful e-mails I have received about this so everyone can see them.
 
Update!! News Flash!! The Great TA contacted me about the Vets and they are going to run it in their newsletter!! (They also gave me a free listing for 3 months with the understanding from me to them that it goes away with no financial obligation to me as in opt out required).
After the dust settles, I am going to put together via copy/paste some of the wonderful e-mails I have received about this so everyone can see them..
Free listing? It doesn't cost anything to list with TA. Or do you mean a free listing with the link back to your site?
 
I really like that addition of the FULL column on the B&B for vets site - that will be very helpful to both vets and inns
 
Update!! News Flash!! The Great TA contacted me about the Vets and they are going to run it in their newsletter!! (They also gave me a free listing for 3 months with the understanding from me to them that it goes away with no financial obligation to me as in opt out required).
After the dust settles, I am going to put together via copy/paste some of the wonderful e-mails I have received about this so everyone can see them..
Free listing? It doesn't cost anything to list with TA. Or do you mean a free listing with the link back to your site?
.
WITH link
 
I don't know how beneficial the link update will be for us. All our contacts have been local because of our website. I plan to spend some time tomorrow adding Colorado links to our ad on our homepage.
Scratch that. I just updated the link to B&Bs for Vets since y'all are doing the heavy lifting on this one. I'm so proud of how Colorado B&Bs have stepped up to the plate.
Thanks, Gillumhouse, for taking the lead on this one!
Tom
 
I don't know how beneficial the link update will be for us. All our contacts have been local because of our website. I plan to spend some time tomorrow adding Colorado links to our ad on our homepage.
Scratch that. I just updated the link to B&Bs for Vets since y'all are doing the heavy lifting on this one. I'm so proud of how Colorado B&Bs have stepped up to the plate.
Thanks, Gillumhouse, for taking the lead on this one!
Tom.
We are now FULL for the November 10 bed and breakfasts for vets event. Not certain what particular piece of media was released yesterday, but our phones started ringing mid afternoon and up until past midnight. Started again at O'dark 30 this morning. We had first planned to give away one room, have now given away two rooms to the first callers.

We just had a call for a room from our local recruiter - since our 2 committed rooms are full, we are considering inviting the recruiter and his wife to breakfast on the morning of November 11. We are WOWed with the response.

We sent news releases last week to our local and regional media outlets.

Thanks to all of you and particularly to Kathleen and Thomas Shepherd's Jeanne and Jim for your work on a great project!!!

Becky, in western NC
 
I don't know how beneficial the link update will be for us. All our contacts have been local because of our website. I plan to spend some time tomorrow adding Colorado links to our ad on our homepage.
Scratch that. I just updated the link to B&Bs for Vets since y'all are doing the heavy lifting on this one. I'm so proud of how Colorado B&Bs have stepped up to the plate.
Thanks, Gillumhouse, for taking the lead on this one!
Tom.
We are now FULL for the November 10 bed and breakfasts for vets event. Not certain what particular piece of media was released yesterday, but our phones started ringing mid afternoon and up until past midnight. Started again at O'dark 30 this morning. We had first planned to give away one room, have now given away two rooms to the first callers.

We just had a call for a room from our local recruiter - since our 2 committed rooms are full, we are considering inviting the recruiter and his wife to breakfast on the morning of November 11. We are WOWed with the response.

We sent news releases last week to our local and regional media outlets.

Thanks to all of you and particularly to Kathleen and Thomas Shepherd's Jeanne and Jim for your work on a great project!!!

Becky, in western NC
.
Wonder when the hotels will start doing the same.
 
WOW This has to be the highlight of my first year in business! It just gives me warm fuzzies.
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I guess that the TA write up plus a write up on their military newspapers has worked-we got two calls today for a room but had one yesterday-so the Power That Be only allocated one room and we have one here-this is great!
 
WOW This has to be the highlight of my first year in business! It just gives me warm fuzzies.
wink_smile.gif
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MTLLodge said:
WOW This has to be the highlight of my first year in business! It just gives me warm fuzzies.
wink_smile.gif
I second this. :) The positive feedback we have gotten has been very nice.
 
I just got a email from someone in the service that wanted to thank me for participating in this. They said they couldn't make it but just wanted me to know. Isn't that just the sweetest thing!
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