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wendydk

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Maybe I'm out of the loop already, but bb.com blog is talking about corporate and bulk discounts for gift card purchases, and one of the gift cards they talk about is a non-denominational two or three night stay card, available in standard, classic or premium (I assume these are price points.) These particular cards are redeemable at 2000 Inns worldwide.
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Anyone ever heard of these??
http://blog.bedandbreakfast.com/post/2010/11/18/Save-on-Gift-Cards-with-Corporate-and-Volume-Discounts.aspx
 
It shows the next card down, the getawa card redeemable at 4000 b&b's, I would hope those participating would have heard of it...
 
I was just going through some old tax return reconciliations and for the first two years we were here we accpeted the B&B.com gift cards...what a waste. Every single redemption came on a weekend when we would have been full anyway, absolutely ZERO weeknight stays over two years.
 
Oh great....that's all we need is for more people to be confused about which inns participate in these different programs!!
 
Hey they always listen to the innkeepers...NOT, remember "this will hurt us more than it hurts you."
Good luck everyone.
I am not with that directory and that headache is gone and guess what, no loss whatsoever to my bottom line, in fact I believe I am recouping what I wasted listing with them for all those years without as much as a slam bam thank you ma'am.
You know that other thread where I mentioned the line "[FONT= 'Lucida Sans Unicode']Linen industry leaders, government agencies and retailers are recommending abandoning thread count and in its stead suggesting we should judge sheets by how they feel."[/FONT][FONT= 'Lucida Sans Unicode'] well that is where I am. I am of the belief that MOST of these directories are now obsolete. [/FONT]
[FONT= 'Lucida Sans Unicode']People can search BIGGER AND BETTER now. TA may be a part of that equation using the map features, as I find I have used it, but overall the directories are going the way of printed B&B guidebooks. I have dropped a few that made ZERO difference to my business here, iloveinns, lanierbb being two that ring a solid on that notion. (not that they are not nice directories with good innformation, I am not nor would I ever say that, but they need to up their game somehow.)[/FONT]
 
Three years after we stopped participating in the B&B.com GC program we are STILL listed in their directory and get calls/emails all the time. But it's funny, I take the time for each of those people to explain WHY we do not participate and they really get it. I would say the majority of them still end up booking with us and save the GC for a different time.
 
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
 
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this..
MTLLodge said:
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Nope.
That directory never brought guests, if any very few. It was never good for us here. At one point (and this is all heated-history on the forum) our state dropped off that directory and they ended up paying for google ads until they could get our state back up, showing on page 1 at least. It took a long time. Meanwhile there was never any compensation and the rates just went higher and higher all the time.
BBONLINE has always been our best directory. Then going more local to different CVB's etc.
I left and never turned back. Directories are not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Iloveinns did NOTHING for us here either. LanierBB zilch. I paid and watched them all closely. BnBfinder is the only one I will go back and forth on and might try again in the near future (in lieu of the paid TA listing perhaps).
I DO hope the twitter and blogging bring us to the forefront of people's minds, but the jury is still out on that as well. Given more time I can answer that better.
 
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this..
MTLLodge said:
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Nope.
That directory never brought guests, if any very few. It was never good for us here. At one point (and this is all heated-history on the forum) our state dropped off that directory and they ended up paying for google ads until they could get our state back up, showing on page 1 at least. It took a long time. Meanwhile there was never any compensation and the rates just went higher and higher all the time.
BBONLINE has always been our best directory. Then going more local to different CVB's etc.
I left and never turned back. Directories are not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Iloveinns did NOTHING for us here either. LanierBB zilch. I paid and watched them all closely. BnBfinder is the only one I will go back and forth on and might try again in the near future (in lieu of the paid TA listing perhaps).
I DO hope the twitter and blogging bring us to the forefront of people's minds, but the jury is still out on that as well. Given more time I can answer that better.
.
I've just been looking at my referral stats here as well....curiosity on how everything shook out with the biz in the end. We got very little from bnb. com. I never had any calls on the Hot Deals promotions that I'd run on that website either. We actually got a few folks from I love Inns. People just found us on the Internet by searching for our town and B&Bs. Many folks mentioned how our TripAdvisor reviews clinched the deal for them. I also found that percentage wise we had few repeat guests, but that was the nature of the types of guests we got. Typically, they were here for one singular event at a big military installation near us which was the largest part of our business. We had a HUGE proportion of our guests that were referrals or direct bookings from our university. Not parents of students, but visiting professors, guest lecturers, or job candidates.
It's interesting how we're all different with our guest mix depending on location and local draws but I think JB is right, referrals from online directories is going to go the way of the paper directories as people just search using applicable terms......
 
Joey, do you think that your blogging, facebook and Twitter are bringing people to you. So you don't see the difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this..
I also dropped the bnb.com and never looked back. Made no diff to my biz. I rarely got anything from it. Hits maybe, but not bookings - and the hits were not all that many to worry about. Am planning to try bnbfinder this year.
 
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