Innkeeper Recommendations/Been There Done Thats

[JBloggs]

What Innkeeper recommendations do you give out to guests where they actually DO what you suggest?
What Innkeeper recommendations are things you yourself have experienced and can share in detail with guests?
What recommendations do you make for things to see or do that you have never done yourself?
Is there an incentive to get out and do/see these things so you can blog about them and/or recommend them personally?
It is not easy, for example for us to go to this famous Friday Night Jamboree, we are here waiting on guests or have too many guests to leave the premises unattended and no cell coverage for this event, so we never get to go!

 

[Morticia]

I have tried to go and do all of the things I recommend. Some of them are just too 'summer' for me to be able to get to, so those I just say, 'Our guests really love this.'
Guests so often come back and tell me about parts of what I suggest that I never notice. One came back from a park and said, 'It's just a big campground!' Oops. I've never been there in the summer. For me it is a great walking trail in the spring and fall.

 

[user 26]

sadly, i hardly ever got a chance to get out and do ... all the great stuff there was to do in the area.
so i had guest recommendations ...
there is this long hallway leading from the front door to the breakfast room. that's where i had the menus and notes and posters of this or that art exhibition or carnival, lobster fest, whatever. and then i'd ask my guests .. all the time ... to feel free to write their comments on the menus and notices ... especially if they loved something! if they told me about it but didn't write anything, i wrote what they said as in 'guests july 14, 2010, 'LOVED the antique planes roaring overhead and then landing in the field, skidding to a stop right next to our car! thrilling!'
on the menu for one lobster shack there was ... 'authentic old maine, great lobster in the rough, we loved it' and also, 'what a dump ... we asked for a nutcracker to crack open the lobster and the waitress handed us a rock'
do you know, a LOT of people went to that restaurant because of the 'negative' comment?

 

[JBloggs]

SS i recall those comments and have since inquired from time to time about that place to tell guests and friends about.

 

[Copperhead]

There is so much to do here with very diverse interests so it is nice to find out what interest them first. Then I provide them with some things along those lines along with other ideas that may be near by. Many come here already having read our long list on our website, some emailing us for more details before getting here. We keep an extensive amount of rack cards here and we are very close to the state welcome center as well.
We have experienced many of the things we recommend but have not done it all just for the reason you mentioned... commitments to our business. We do let them know if we have personally experienced the recommendation or if we have only heard through others and our guests. With things like festivals that could change each year it is difficult to provide them with information that we can guarantee it will be the same.

 

[gillumhouse]

Most of the reviews on my restaurant page are from a friend who actully goes to these lovely places with luscious foos I can only dream about (better than hearing DH complain about the lack of no sugar/no fat/no salt food). Eat N Park is one of the few that we can BOTH eat what we want.
My guests almost always take my recommendations - actually my routings! Yes, I have done them to get the turns etc and what to see where. There are restaurants we recommend for their day trip if they do not have a packed lunch package. I am going to have to put together some new routings, I have some guests who have done all the ones I have - and he arrived saying "where do you have us going this time?"
There are some things I cannot get to - festivals, the Sagebrush Round-up every Saturday is all sorts of music with a family atmosphere - no booze, the Lunatic Asylum is too pricey for me but guests said it is great.
Yes there is incentive - the more types of routings I can put together, the more people I can appeal to. I need to do an antique shop crawl. Trouble is several have closed because they are doing eB ay instead of storefront.

 

[Morticia]

There is so much to do here with very diverse interests so it is nice to find out what interest them first. Then I provide them with some things along those lines along with other ideas that may be near by. Many come here already having read our long list on our website, some emailing us for more details before getting here. We keep an extensive amount of rack cards here and we are very close to the state welcome center as well.
We have experienced many of the things we recommend but have not done it all just for the reason you mentioned... commitments to our business. We do let them know if we have personally experienced the recommendation or if we have only heard through others and our guests. With things like festivals that could change each year it is difficult to provide them with information that we can guarantee it will be the same..

Interestingly, I have lately been referring guests to our blog while they are having brekkie. 99% of them did not know we had a blog, did not know the blog had things to do on it, did not know so many of those things were so close.

 

[Don Draper]

Since we were tourists here for years before taking over the b&b, we can recommend what we loved to do and what we thought was good value. We make a very concerted effort to get out and do the new things as they become available so we can comment on whether we think they are worthwhile or not. Often it is our guests who are the ones bringing us the new info, so that helps.
It always makes me so happy when someone picks something up from the blog, goes and does it, and loves it! Blogging is usually on the dreaded to-do list and more often than not feels like a chore, but there is a good benefit to it.