What will keep me from booking at a B&B is location, (not close enought to what I am going to see), or price - $150 is my max, ususally. I will search high and low all over the internet to find one that fits my needs. I rely heavily on association web sites first, then TA and then b&b directories.
I find it very curious that the B&B owners that were mentioned said that B&Bs were too hard to book, don't you? Maybe too hard to find at the last minute, but hard to book? Hmmm.
aieechihuahua said:
What will keep me from booking at a B&B is location, (not close enought to what I am going to see), or price - $150 is my max, ususally. I will search high and low all over the internet to find one that fits my needs. I rely heavily on association web sites first, then TA and then b&b directories.
I find it very curious that the B&B owners that were mentioned said that B&Bs were too hard to book, don't you? Maybe too hard to find at the last minute, but hard to book? Hmmm
Yes - hard to book. Half the BB's still don't have online bookings - so you have to call, or email, and wait. Then most only have reservation requests - and we've seen in our surveys that 1/4th of people refuse to do a request, and another 1/4 strongly dislike it. Then there is the issue of a booking engine being really confusing (i won't name competitors), or not having photos next to the descriptions of rooms, or when you get to the credit card pages, having no visible hacker protection or credit card security.
Think if you went to Amazon and you were going to buy an item, and you saw no picture, you couldn't see if it was in stock - you had to email and ask them... In order to request it you had to put your credit card info onto a page with no hacker or credit card seal? And to make matters worse, when you got to the final page, they asked you to hand enter your requested product in again...
That is the experience that most BB's are still giving to guests - there is no wonder why folks are wary of the final product.
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"Yes - hard to book. Half the BB's still don't have online bookings - so you have to call, or email, and wait."
Wait for what? We check our emails during waking hours more than once an hour, right before bed, right after waking and send an email confirmation within hours of receiving it even when we're on vacation. We've never had a confirmation take more than 24 hours to go out, ever. We carry our cordless phone with us every waking moment we're on property and check phone messages regularly if not on property for even more than an hour.
I'm sure most innkeepers carry cellphones, PDAs, laptops, etc. wherever they go and are not out of communication capability for more than a few hours at a time, ever. The bigger ones with staff, probably have trained them to answer the phone or check emails if the owner is out running errands also. So where is this lack of communication ability occurring?
Lazy innkeepers who don't respond quickly to inquiries? If thats the case, they don't deserve the bookings and will quickly find themselves run over by their more dedicated, efficient and professional competition.
"Then most only have reservation requests - and we've seen in our surveys that 1/4th of people refuse to do a request, and another 1/4 strongly dislike it."
Well, of course you'd respond like that. You are in the business of selling a reservation system to innkeepers.
I don't mind that, but unless you are prepared to share the actual data from all these "surveys" your company does, I'll reserve the right to not fully trust it given the potential conflict of interest in using such data to make a point.
We've never had one guest express discomfort with a "request" sytem over anything including old-fashioned phone calls, emails, etc.
"That is the experience that most BB's are still giving to guests - there is no wonder why folks are wary of the final product."
Excuse my high school math education and bluntness, but "MOST" means more than 50% to me and in your first sentence you stated only 50% of B&Bs still don't offer online reservations. Can you provide some sourcing for making that claim?
I hate to hold you to a higher degree of scrutiny than anyone else here, but you have a vested financial interest in providing certain kinds of information to innkeepers here and it seems fair to do so on my part.
Espcecially if I'm considering purchasing more of your company's products than I already subscribe to.