As many of you know, BedBreakfastTraveler.com is part of the Instant World Booking organization, which includes over 100+ brands of online marketing and booking engines.  At BedBreakfastTraveler, B&Bs are our specialty, but we also have keen insights into other lodging markets.

While it may not sound fair, some other lodging sectors consider their marketing strategies to be at the leading edge of innovation and ingenuity.  But where do bed and breakfasts figure into this?  B&Bs in North America don’t have the reputation of being cutting edge in terms of marketing or technology.  This also may not be a fair assessment, since there are many inn properties that are up-and-coming into the 21st century age of internet marketing.  But there are some important lessons that our friends and partners in North America and elsewhere can learn from their counterparts in other markets.

Many online booking services know that B&Bs are behind the curve in technology, and they may sometimes take advantage of this fact by overcharging for their services.  This is perhaps the first and greatest lesson that bed and breakfasts can learn: Don’t Overpay for online marketing services!  When it comes to online booking services, many of the availability calendars out there that cater to B&Bs are vestiges of technology platforms that are 15-20 years old. Travel industry technology has undergone a revolution since the 1980’s and B&Bs should be seeking out the best technologies available for their purposes today.

So, in short, there are 2 great lessons you can learn.  1) Don’t overpay for online marketing services, and 2) Take advantage of the latest technologies.

BedBreakfastTraveler.com offers some leading edge services for B&Bs that we want you to compare with your current providers.  Three areas where BedBreakfastTraveler.com can enhance your bottom line are by 1) offering the lowest cost for online booking services versus all the competition, 2) setting up custom booking engines to work on your very own website (again at the lowest cost versus any competitor), and 3) offering credit card acceptance for your business without costly merchant accounts, credit checks, etc.

So, if you’re a bed and breakfast looking to try something new, and start actively improving your profit margin, contact BedBreakfastTraveler and ask how we can beat your current provider’s services.

Tip:  Don’t worry about replacing or dropping any current services you use.  Evidence consistently shows that by simply adding BedBreakfastTraveler.com to the list of providers you use can improve your bottom line without dropping any other services.

Join BedBreakfastTraveler

Post your Bed and Breakfast videos on BedBreakfastTraveler’s Blog:

http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/blog_bb/category/bed-and-breakfast-videos/

Now, BedBreakfastTraveler.com invites you to post your videos on our blog.  This is an excellent way to increase your online marketing presence.  It’s free, and you do not need to have a listing on the Instant World Booking service.  See instructions below.

Video on the internet is on the rise, and is playing a dominant role in the future of web strategies.  Just think, in the USA alone, users are viewing 17 billion videos monthly.  “Having gone from zero to mass market globally in three short years, online video is the fastest-growing media platform in history”, according to a new report from social media research consultancy Trendstream and research firm Lightspeed.

When it comes to travel and B&B marketing, video is an emerging trend.  What bed and breakfast, inn or guesthouse hasn’t already published photos of their accommodations online?  If you haven’t, rest assured, some of your guests are posting photos with reviews of your amenities on multiple websites around the globe.

Bed & Breakfasts and hotels of all kinds are increasingly producing videos of their accommodations.  Easily created by the amateur innkeeper/photographer, a video can add a promotional dimension that was previously inaccessible to small hotels and B&Bs.  One of the easiest ways to share video with a broad base of customers today is on YouTube.com.  Signing up and posting your videos on YouTube is easy and free.

So add your bed & breakfast or hotel videos at one of BedBreakfastTraveler’s blog.  This is a great additional channel for advertising your lodging property, gaining additional exposure, and increasing bookings.  It’s free and no listing on our service is required.  There’s no additional obligation.  All you need to get started is a video posted on your YouTube account.

Instructions for posting videos on BedBreakfastTraveler’s blog:

Our Blog allows you to share YouTube videos with ease, and supports the latest high quality video protocols (360p and HD quality 720p).  It will even be viewable on iPod and iPhone.

Step 1:  Register at our blog:

http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/blog_bb/wp-login.php?action=register

Step 2:  Submit a post about your property at the following page:

http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/blog_bb/category/bed-and-breakfast-videos/ 

Step 3:  Insert a video link in your post

To insert a YouTube video in your posts, paste the YouTube video URL directly into the text of your post with a prefix of httpv:// (notice the ‘v’).

Important:The URL should just be copied into your post normally and the letter ‘v’ added, do not create a clickable link (i.e., with <a> tags)!

Example:  httpv ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKjgajXePd8

If you want to embed high quality video (for videos that have them) use httpvh:// instead (Video High).

If you want to embed HD Quality (DVD quality 720p) video use httpvhd:// instead (Video High Defintion).

To embed playlists use httpvp:// (eg. httpvp ://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=528026B4F7B34094)

-  httpv:// - regular video

-  httpvh:// - high quality

-  httpvhd:// - HD quality

-  httpvp:// - playlist

For as long as bed & breakfast hotels have been around they have offered their guests lodging at reasonable rates. It used to be that all you expected from a B&B was the basics, a firm bed, a shower and a cooked breakfast in the morning for a good price. Generally coming second to hotel accommodation, B&B’s rarely competed with a hotel for luxury and services offered.

However a new trend for travelers in the 21st century, particularly in North America, is to look at the B&B sector for their accommodation needs. There are various reasons for this turn-around, but the main one is that with the downturn in the economy people still wish to travel but now need to tighten their belts. Looking at bed & breakfast options makes economical sense.  

The increase seen in the bed and breakfast occupancy comes from all sectors, the domestic market, international travelers seeking unique holiday accommodation and corporate travelers. As a result, more B&B’s, country inns and bed and breakfast hotels are updating their properties to offer luxury furnishings and provide additional services.

By offering attractive packages and pricing structures to travelers, B&B’s are able to compete with local hotels. Frequent traveler programs are popular with guests and aim to produce business and encourage returning customers. These types of programs generally involve free nights or discounts after a certain number of nights.

Americans often work long hours and time off is cherished, getting away for a few days is a welcome break from routine. A weekend getaway is the perfect way to distance yourself and within most people’s time limits. Business travelers are often encouraged to stay at a particular B&B if it offers a frequency traveler program and has the added advantage of free Wi-Fi. Other business friendly facilities, such as a desk in the room, copy and fax machines, relaxed cancellation policies, and allowed late check-in and early breakfast are also enticements to book at particular bed and breakfast hotels rather than a hotel. Companies also prefer the fact that they are able to hire the whole inn as it means they are likely to get the hotel management’s complete attention whereas if they had booked at a large convention hotel they would be competing with lots of other groups.

B&B’s also offer a unique way to experience the customs and daily life of a particular city. Often located right in the city centre they can also provide a higher level of attention to their guests and offer competitively priced rooms. As a guest in a chain hotel you are likely to see the staff when you check in and again when you check out, staying in smaller bed & breakfast hotels enables you to meet the owners and their staff, people who have the time to give you advice and information on the city. There are also possibilities to spend time in communal rooms where you can meet fellow travelers.

Many people prefer the intimate atmosphere of a B&B in comparison to a hotel which can be sterile and noisy, and staff often have less time to interact with their guests. B&B’s offer travelers unique features and stand out by their friendly atmosphere and personal touch.  Guests of B&B’s are not just looking for a room to sleep in but the whole experience of staying in a lodging that enables them to meet interesting people and receive all the luxuries they would expect from any accommodation choice. 

In general staying in a bed and breakfast offers you more services and options than traditional hotels are able to and is a new and completely different experience to staying in a hotel, it can certainly make your stay in the city a much more pleasurable event. The increase in popularity seen in B&B accommodation is not only experienced in the United States and Canada, but also abroad in European countries and other destinations around the world.

For bed and breakfast in USA look online for instant B&B rates and availability.

We recently read with great interest the blog entries by Eric Goldreyer, the CEO of Bedandbreakfast.com. Intelligent and well-spoken, Eric speaks in one article of the Lifetime Value of a Guest. In short, this is the value a B&B earns over a lifetime by bringing in one guest. Lifetime Value of a Guest is usually multiples of the earnings on just the first reservation. The article is worth reading and has several good points to be driven home to innkeepers.

Where we stopped short in our tracks is when Eric illustrates the concept with a typical example. He uses 25% as the typical cost of a reservation. He then goes through the calcuation and reinforces that ROI (Return on Investment) is a primary consideration for bed and breakfast owners.

Please allow me to emphasize, well no … proclaim loudly, that 25% is not anywhere near a good value for B&B innkeepers to be paying for a reservation. Even when the lietime cost of acquiring a client is maybe half of this (12.6% as Eric Goldreyer goes on to explain in his article), it’s still not a bargain for the hotel.

When CEOs of online booking services announce publicly that typical costs of acquiring guests are in the 25% range, it makes us wonder where all the value is going with the high technology available today. In this particular case BedandBreakfast.com is a proponent of all the right concepts, as stated in their other blog entries, including “online reservations, leveraging ratings and reviews, frequent stay programs, etc.” These are all the concepts we at BedBreakfastTraveler.com (Instant World Booking) have been talking about for year. Nevertheless, consider that the cost structure we are able to offer to you, the innkeeper, are roughly one-third the amount you’ll be paying as suggested by Goldreyer above.

This is why we are imploring all bed and breakfasts and small hotels to consider alternatives to their online marketing strategies. Another well-written article by Eric Goldreyer speaks of how to think about return on investment (ROI) for your online marketing spend. Read the article, then consider that BedBreakfastTraveler.com (Instant World Booking) charges no fees to join the service, offers more online, search-engine-optimized content for your property, more photos, and more translated online pages than the competition. Instant World Booking also offers a fully integrated online calendar, with credit card collections, for no sign-up fee or monthly fee. In short, you have zero cost unless you have bookings. And when you do have bookings, our cost is roughly one-third the cost offered by competing services. We encourage you to sign up for a free listing at BedBreakfastTraveler.com (Instant World Booking) today:

http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/listings/add_listing.php

The blog articles mentioned in this article can be found at the links include in the comment below.

Want to gain a major boost in internet exposure and traffic for your bed and breakfast? Instant World Booking has introduced a major service for our B&B partners worldwide. Now, when you list your property with us, we translate the information you submit into 14 different languages. We then publish your property on 14 individual multi-lingual webpages, each featuring only your property.

This is a major level of service that only Instant World Booking provides for free to B&B partners. In fact, it’s a must-have service for any lodging who wishes to gain serious exposure on the internet. As always, Instant World Booking’s services are free for bed and breakfasts to use.

Consider that your B&B or inn can quickly and easily have 14 new pages, dedicated specifically to your property, in the most used languages on the internet. Unlike other services, these pages are not simply duplicates with your comments translated. Each page is a full translation uniquely search-optimized to rank high on multi-lingual search engines.

If you haven’t listed yet with BedBreakfastTraveler.com and the Instant World Booking network, this new level of service is yet another reason why no competing service offers more to bed and breakfasts around the globe. We invite you to compare competing services, then check us out.

New also is the ability for you to submit your listing information in the language of your choice. If English is not your first language, not to worry. You can submit your property information in any language you wish, whether it’s Spanish, Italian, Greek, Arabic, etc., Instant World Booking will then take the information you wrote, and translate it into 14 of the most widely used languages on the internet.

To increase bookings, you need to increase your exposure. Get 14 translated listing pages for your property up and running on the web now. List with Instant World Booking today.

For more information, and to list your property, please see:

http://www.bedbreakfasttraveler.com/listings/add_listing.php

A recent letter that crossed my desk suggested that online advertisers should forget Google. Consider search engine advertising for cheapskates, the ad proclaimed, suggesting that Google was overpriced. The advertisement made me stop and think, when advertising our bed and breakfast or small inn on the internet, are we getting the value we need?

So, do we sidestep Google, and move in a new direction towards budget advertisers? We can’t answer that question for you. What we can say is that, when considering what search providers to target, you need to carefully consider your goals, and who you’re trying to reach. Many budget search providers can’t be matched in value or performance, considering the target audience you’re trying to reach. Their flat rate plans can offer an excellent way of controlling costs, considering Google PPC type advertising can quickly run up large bills if you’re inexperienced.

So, when considering paid search advertising, know your audience and who your customer base is. Consider that Google accounts for roughly 60% of online searches worldwide, and Yahoo accounts for about 20%. If you want to try some budget search providers you can definitely gain some value for the amount you pay. But, if reaching the largest possible online audience is one of your goals, then Google and Yahoo cannot be ignored.

If your bed and breakfast targets customers in a particular geographic region, the large providers offer excellent ways to target the placement of your ads geographically, so you don’t have to worry about wasting money on ads displaying in regions where you never expect to gain customers.

To recap, the lesson to learn when considering online search providers is to know your target audience and select the provider that offers the best and most economical method of reaching that audience. If your goal is to reach the largest and most geographically diverse audience quickly, then Google is pretty hard to match.

It never ceases to amaze me how online services continue to require hefty membership fees. The internet is the most efficient information distribution tool ever invented. In today’s lean economic environment, bed and breakfasts are seeking value in their marketing and advertising budgets. With the wide array of services available to inn managers for free, why do we continue to pay year after year those annual membership fees for services. This is the perfect time to re-evaluate our spending on those annual memberships that we sometimes blindly pay year after year.

One example I can highlight is a recent advertising email sent by PAII, the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. The email is targeted at bed and breakfast innkeepers like you, and professes how the PAII is advocating on your behalf. Specifically addressing problems the PAII sees with TripAdvisor, they indicate how some of the operations and policies of the Tripadvisor site have flaws that can cause significant financial hardship to your business. They say that this the message innkeepers all across the country have been letting PAII know loud and clear. They ask what the individual innkeeper can do to address this most critical area? After citing that PAII’s President & CEO has been tirelessly meeting and negotiating with the management team of TripAdvisor advocating for you, the rest of the email basically amounts to an advertising pitch to sell memberships in their organization at a reduced rate (for 6 months as opposed to a full annual membership).

Let me be clear that the PAII is a reputable organization which adds value to bed and breakfasts and inns in the U.S. However, know that membership in one or more of these types of organizations can cost between $100 and $300 EACH per year. When you start looking at how these memberships hit your bottom line, what you need to focus on are services “support services” that bring in business, not “support groups”. Also, beware of organizations that claim to be international, but boast a membership of predominantly North American companies.

So, as the new year approaches, look for some new opportunities to build your online footprint with some truly global services. Pay special attention to services that do not charge a membership fee. There are many such valuable services easily available. And, think about eliminating some of the more expensive annual memberships that are not really critical to the operation of your business.