Of course, I am very much in agreement with the comments of the innkeeper in #11 of the article.
It is where new innkeepers should set their sites. Being successful in this business is going to require that you find a way to be an original defining experience that creates lasting memories. That can be accomplished across the entire spectrum of properties.
It's unfortunate that this is misconstrued to suggest anyone should be a property they are not or that anyone should be an innkeeper that they are not..
happykeeper said:
Of course, I am very much in agreement with the comments of the innkeeper in #11 of the article.
It is where new innkeepers should set their sites. Being successful in this business is going to require that you find a way to be an original defining experience that creates lasting memories. That can be accomplished across the entire spectrum of properties.
It's unfortunate that this is misconstrued to suggest anyone should be a property they are not or that anyone should be an innkeeper that they are not.
Excellent points.
For myself, when I see these kinds of articles that portray the high end property as THE B&B experience, it makes me cringe knowing guests coming here may expect what they've seen in an article such as this when there is nothing on our website that says we are anything like these places.
PAII did the same thing with BWTS. They focused their marketing around 'high end' properties which a lot of us are not. (The inn with the bar with a bartender, the outside showers, the jetted tubs and granite bathrooms.) You are a high-end property. Mtnkeeper is. But a lot of us are mid-level properties. When someone does an article portraying mid-level properties I'll relax. In the meantime, I stress over these articles because they set expectations in guests way higher than someone in my shoes can fill.
And we then get guests who complain loud and long about how certain features in an old NE building are totally unacceptable. Someone who probably (given the address) lives in a house bigger than the entire inn and has an en suite the size of my apartment. ;-)
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Well said.
Let me add some thoughts about this. It is true that this article and the BWTS campaign painted a picture of high end luxury. I cringed along with many others. It left out a large segment of the industry.
I think it is important to remember that we opened just ten years ago as a low to mid-range property. It is only over the last 3 or 4 years that we have been able to elevate our business into a different category. (It hurts when you separate us out as not being part of the gang because we have found a way to make that happen.)
Regarding guest expectations, your stress is the same as my stress. I have the same worries. So what's different. Using class warfare to explain why one properties guests complain at what they find and another's does not lays blame at the feet of those of us that have worked extremely hard to eliminate those complaints.
Instead, I think it is better to reiterate what has already been said. You can create an original defining experience that creates lasting memories anywhere within the spectrum of innkeeping.
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