Bed and Breakfast Online

Pictures you place.

2013-10-03T23:54:00.002-07:00

It has been a while since my last blog post. This was mostly due to my personal situation, and the job that I had. Now as I have started in a new position since October 1^st, I am ready to continue my blog.

It is not an accident as my new job is directly connected to marketing and sales in a small hotel called Bjørnefjorden Gjestetun, situaten in Os, half an hour drive from famous Bergen, Norway. This will be a great opportunity for me to use my knowledge and share my experience with you. I hope to be able to show what works and what does not work for a small accommodation business.

I am lucky in a way, as the hotel has not been doing much marketing before me. So I have a chance to start almost from the bottom and build up the image and marketing strategy. The first steps were made while I was working my termination period at me previous job. And the first step was to make a new web-site.

As I wrote earlier, a good web-site is vital for you company, as it is the face of it out there in the wireless world. The other important step was made by integrating of booking-engine into the web-site. As we are in Norway, we are able to have direct booking with the help of Book Norway and,in hour case, TellUs Booking (who recently merged with New Mind UK). Different companies in Norway use different systems for that purpose: VisBook has own connection, for example. Then there is CityBreak used by some other destinations. As I have mentioned, we use TellUs because our destination – Fjord Norway – use it. This allows us to be bookable both on VisitNorway, VisitBergen, FjordNorway.com and of course on our own web-site.

We do use affiliate booking systems of course. The most loved one is Booking.com. The receptionists have noticed that they get a lot of bookings through it.

To continue the story about the booking systems, I can describe what steps I made first during my first days in the job. First of all, I went through all the pictures that were out there. I discovered pictures of grass, flowers and dead fish on our booking.com page. This did not make me too happy, so I spent a few hours updating those. The same was made with our VisitNorway booking page. It is very important to be critical about the pictures that you choose. Think about what your tourist or guest expects to see. And think of how you position your property!

Try to answer these questions:

Who is my guest? Is it a tourist or a conference guest?
Is your property situated in the city or out in the country? Are you promoting city life or cozy quiet atmosphere? Answering these questions will help you understand the style your pictures should have.
Are your pictures up-to-date? Maybe you have renovated some of the rooms or the lobby and forgot to take new pictures? (This happened in our hotel: I have discovered pictures of the lobby as it was a year ago, while the management has spent a lot of money on renovation).
Are the pictures made by you, or someone who should be taken into consideration when it comes to authorship? (It has become very important to follow the rules about authorship)
Are your pictures of good quality, resolution, lightness, brightness, etc.?

My advice is to place pictures that really reflect the specialty of your property, the rooms, the lobby, the food you make. Avoid pictures that don’t have any real message or content, and could be taken anywhere in the world (think trees and flowers).

Booking.com become very important also because Trip Advisor takes its information directly from there. How I started with Trip Advisor I will write next time, as that definitely deserves a special attention.

A Web-site for Free: a New Service Overview.

2012-02-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

I have already written about the importance of a web-site. And I have been through some services before. Now, if you are in need of a web-site, or consider to make a new one, include a shop-option (adjusting it for room-booking, of course), you may want to read about my last discovery. Now, this is not an advertising article. I simply want to share my experience, and encourage you to have a look at this service (of course, if you are in need of a web-site).

As I continue to work with Akvariespesialisten Finnmark (it newly changed name to ADA Norge), I investigate different engines for making web-sites. My latest task was to find one that would support a web-shop option, as the company started to import ADA equipment to Norway and other Nordic countries, and decided to make an Internet shop as well. As my investigation went on, I also thought of how one could use such engines for purposes of B&B's, wither including a booking option, or just to make a presentation web-site.

If you have checked the Webs service, you might have noticed that it has a web shop option. Unfortunately, the free version allows to put in only 5 products. The payment methods are also too few. After looking through a number of other engines, I can say that the choice of templates in Webs is also quite small.

I have tried Magento. I read several reviews, and it looked like a good solution. But after a while, even my knowledge of web-design gave up. Far too complicated. If you are an advanced designer, familiar with all kind of codes, you may want to try this service. But it is also a costly one: you get only 1 month of free use, after that you have to pay.

Thanks to my sister, who is working with web-sites in Lithuania, I discovered an engine that I took into use after all. The name is uCoz. Apparently created by some Russian (or Ukrainian) programmers. And as expected - quite genius. Truly, the number of templates blows your mind. As a more advanced in web-design, I could change the template totally and make it to the ADA Norge's likings. If it is too complicated for a common user, the amount of templates at uCoz is so big, that one will hardly ever encounter a similar web-site.

The service is available in several languages, including English, German, French and Spanish. Your own web-site you can make in any language you wish with a bit advanced changes: I managed to create the site for ADA in Norwegian.

The basic elements are for free. For as much as 5,49 USD a month (with some further discounts if you pay for several months, and free domain name if you pay for 1 year), one gets a Web-shop module. Once registered, one can choose a free domain name, of pay some small amount for a custom one (like .com, .org, etc.)

I could write a lot about my experience with uCoz, but I rather advise you to try it. And welcome to ask me or their tech-support for help. By the way, their technical support is really great: quick, polite and professional.

What makes someone leave a website?

2012-01-12T05:26:00.001-08:00

It is crucial to have good content on a web-site. But here are some other tips to follow. Click the picture to see it in full size.

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: What Makes Someone Leave A Website?

Creating a Web-site for Free with Webs.

2011-10-07T05:50:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked for help in a new company here in Fannmark, Norway. The company has nothing to do with tourism or hotel business (although, its services can be theoretically used there), but my job there is a lot about marketing and positioning of the company in the area.

To be demonstrative, I would like to describe this business in a couple of sentences. The company’s name is Akvariespesialisten Finnmark. From the name one can guess that it has to do with aquariums, more precisely aquaristic design and maintenance of aquariums. I said that its services can be used for tourism and hotels, because eventually it could be a fantastic idea to place a beautiful aquarium (plant or reef tank) in a hotel lobby for example.

Anyway, this blog post is not about the company itself. It is about my experience with creation of a business web-page.

I have read through some articles, including my own about web services. And decided to give a chance to one called Webs. It was easy to register, but a bit tricky to get used to their interface. Upon registration, one can choose to have a free account, or one of 3 other optional accounts where you have to pay for some extras, such as bigger storage, larger internet-shop, Google Adwords and Facebook Ads, and so on. The first day I was using the service, I got an offer of 50% discount on all the payable accounts. I decided that I was not in a hurry. After 2 days they offered up to 60%! That is when I started to wonder, if I should have invested some money in all those options. But the owner of the company decided to wait with investment. In 2 days the sale was over. I played with templates, pages, fonts, pictures. The biggest problem I came to by now, is that I can’t change picture sizes when I use Google Chrome as a browser. With Internet Explorer it goes fine.

After a week I got possibility to add Google Ads and manage files like I want. And I got a sales offer again, this time 50%. But I still haven’t used the opportunity and will wait and see what offers they come up with next time.

What was also great to try, was to create a landing page for Facebook with their affiliate partner.

Plusses:

- With Free account one can have up to 10 pages

- The pages can be renamed and managed easily, as you can see, even to be translated into another language

- One gets a blog, customer reviews pages, forum, FAQ page, location. All can be found in "Applications".

- One can create picture galleries.
- Mobile version of the page comes for free.

- It is possible to place 5 articles in a web-shop (For now I only placed 1), and get payed through Paypal and Google Merchant account (for UK and USA only)

- Different levels of accounts, and possibility for discount rates.

Minuses

- Not all options work in Google Chrome browser

- Can be a bit difficult to find all the options, but it just takes time and patience

- Free of charge templates are not numerous, but still quite various

- With a Free account one gets a name of the site with ….webs.com. On the other hand for a bit of money it is possible to choose a normal domain name. Unfortunately for me, not with .no, but only .com, .org etc.

As for the rest, I have of course made a Facebook page for this business. In fact, it came before the web site itself. I am looking forward to work further and update the site.

My conclusion is that for a smaller business even a free account at Webs is a great opportunity to become visible.

Next, please.

2011-09-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to speak about a topic that is a bit different from that of “attracting customers”. I'd like to talk about the right personnel. B&B's have different sizes. Yes, it can be just a small family business when you don't even need any extra people. In the worst case your cousin takes care of the inn while you are on a vocation.

But there are a bit bigger inns, or the owners are just not interested in being on the property all the time. That is when they start looking for reliable people. What does marketing have to do with personnel? – You may ask. Well, the person who takes care of the hotel, be it a receptionist, cleaning crew, a cook or even a gardener, they are the first to meet the guests, haves a great influence on the image, and not less – are ambassadors of the company's profile in the outside world. By the way, your cousin is also one of them.

So, here when the Internet comes in handy.

Listing: Talk about Monster – the biggest job board there is, probably. But, unfortunately, not for free. There is a new networking job agent, connected to Facebook – BrunchOut. Although, I don't personally, see any success in this invention. A – far too many irrelevant people, B – far too many irrelevant jobs surfing around. Maybe it is different in the US or anywhere else in the world, but in Norway this will not see any success.

LinkedIn is supposed to be a professional network. Yes, there s a lot of useful information and connections there. But I experience it more as a place for looking for leadership careers, IT-jobs, Social Media jobs and alike. In most groups there are Jobs discussions. It is just about finding a proper group (for example, a network of your area). What can be useful, is if you need a web designer for your new web site. Although, in this case I'd rather go to Freelance.com.

You can post a job opening on you web site, in your blog, share it on Facebook. Who knows, maybe a neighbor needs a job or your old high school-friend?

Hiring: When you start receiving those CVs, you will begin to wonder what kind of people those applicants are. It may be not too ethical, but I would look at their profiles on Facebook (Hyves, Twitter, MSN, you name it). Most people choose to have them public, so there is nothing wrong in it. Those who don't want to share, don't share.

Why can that be important (especially if you have young applicants)? You can see at once how a person communicates. In the same way he or she will communicate information about the new job and work place. You can also see more about interests, topics the person discusses, pictures he/she shares, and so on. These days Facebook has launched a so-called Subscription, when you can follow people without becoming their friends.

Both LinkedIn and BranchOut contain possibilities for people to share their CVs. It would be interesting to compare those…

Working: Everybody has for sure heard about all those scandals with people telling bad things about their employers in Social Media. Of course, the best practice is to treat your people well. But the rules on information communication must be set. The employees should know the policy of B&B in Social Media, just as well as they should know how to communicate with customers in person. They must know what they can share in their private messages, how they can do it, how they can help to promote the inn.

And of course, don't forget, that a happy employee is the best representative of you business.

Apropos Facebook Places. Newest updates.

2011-08-31T23:43:00.000-07:00

Apropos Facebook Places - Have you seen? When I logged into my Facebook account yesterday and wanted to update my status, I was pleasantly surprised by the new updated feature at Facebook. And that is: now everyone can tag the places and friends from PC or a laptop, not necessarily from a mobile device. One can also choose at once WHO they want to share their status with.

Of course I have used this opportunity on my recent trip to Kirkenes. First it appeared that the Hotel does not have its place on Facebook. But I found out that one should also not forget to change his own location to see the Places nearby and get them in the search result.

FACEBOOK PLACES

2011-08-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

In my Facebook news feeds I see that more and more of my friends Check-in in different places on Facebook. Cafes, bars, restaurants, hotels, airports and conference centers. Some of the businesses I follow offer Check-in Deals. Not having used those features myself, I got really interested in what they are and how B&B's can use them.

The Internet is not only about computers any more. Mobile devices (mobile phones and tablets) have in past few years won love from thousands of people, young and old. Apple and Android fight for market shares, and it is still unclear who wins. Applications for both conquer the world though, and businesses should start considering how to use them in own advantage. It can be enough to create a web-page and a Facebook Page. But to my opinion it is simply unwise to loose other opportunities, which are even free of charge and easy to use.

Facebook Places is one of those relatively new marketing means. The first place to look for information about them is of course Facebook itself. There you can find that «Many locations have automatically been imported to the Places application. If there is no data available in your current location, you can create a new place from your phone».

Before going ahead and talk about how to create a Place, why not ask: WHY do you need to do that?

Apart from listing your contact information on your Place page, you can reach hundreds of fans and friends. How? When customers check in, they’ll automatically be telling their Facebook friends about it. They can add their comments about your place and tag their friends, who are visiting it with them. The tagged friends will have that on their own walls, and thus the chain is being created. This kind of location-based marketing is very useful also because if there are places nearby, they will be visible for your guests, as well as your place will be visible for your neighbors ‘customers.

If this minimum advantage has convinced you, you are welcome to spend a bit of your time for reading the following information and creating your own Facebook Place.

Step one: You as a B&B owner can either find your property among already existing or create it anew. Maybe some of your guests have already Checked-in at your place without you knowing? You can just claim the ownership.

1. Search for your business name via the Facebook Search bar.

ñ If a place for your business already exists, click on it.

ñ If a place for your business does not yet exist, you’ll need to visit the business's physical location with your mobile phone and create a place for it.

2. Once you find your business's place, click the link at the bottom left of that says "Is this your business?"

3. You will be directed to a claiming flow. We will ask you to verify that you are the owner through a phone verification process, or you may be asked for document verification.

Step two: Update information about your Place. You can add address, phone, website, working hours and other useful information. Thus the Check-inners and their friends on Facebook will not only be able to see your Place, but also information about your business, and can navigate to your website, blog or Facebook Page.

Step three: Share it with your Facebook Fans and place the news about the availability on your Blog or Website. Thus you will let your potential guests know that they can do it while living in your B&B. And the information about you will spread through the world. You yourself can also frequently Check-in so that your personal friends could get the information and spread it further.

Step four (optional): as I mentioned above, some businesses choose to create so-called Deals for their customers who use the Check-in option. Once you’ve added your deal you’ll be able to define it a little further (first 20 people to check in get the deal, 20% off, check in 10 times to get a free coffee etc.). Use your imagination in creating the Deals. What can interest your potential guests? How can you win them from your competitors in the area? You can set a time limit on deals and all deals need to be approved by Facebook which can take up to 48 hours.

The guide on how to create Deals is available in this PDF File from Facebook

Summarizing Facebook Activity

2011-07-25T02:46:00.001-07:00

Last 2 months there have beed a lot of good articles published on the Internet about marketing both for hotels and other businesses. Those who sollow us on Facebook, could see on our Facebook Page various links and comments. To summarize the history for those who did not follow, or do not want to go through all the posts on our wall, I decided to categorize and publish the links in this new post here.

So what attracted our attention the last months?

Customer reviews – our favourites!

Of course, the main source was the well-known blog of Daniel Edward Craig.

Starting with the basics. How to optimize your TripAdvisor listing

Maintaining a Positive Online Reputation: Highlights from TripAdvisor’s Master Class

Why including consumer reviews on travel sites matters – this article I got thanks to advice from LinkedIn. There are a lot of good groups there which one can follow, where both advice, experiences and links are shared of people with common interests.

The Review Doctors were announced on June, 14 by Daniel E. Craig. The materials can be accessed on Revinate, as well as the information about new webinars.

Other good articles from Revinate about responding to cunstomer reviews which deserve attention are available at the blog:

Should you respond to positive reviews?

How much details should you provide in responses?

Rules for Internet marketing

There were few articles with general rules on Online Marketing.

Understanding the 'Micro-Tripper' Trend is a bit outstanding article about new trends in travellers' behavior.

Back to basics with ten social media marketing tips for hotels

Embed a Video into Your Blog Post - Acorn Educational Byte

Facebook and Twitter

10 things hoteliers should be doing on Facebook but probably aren’t

The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Marketing

Dilemmas in Social Media. Are we ready to meet them?

2011-07-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

It is easy to make a mistake in the social media. Øyvind Kvalnes at Handelshøyskolen BI in Bergen, Norway, has identified in his recent research five dilemmas that can come up. While social media give a fantastic opportunity to discover and create network with other people, it also gives us challenging situations. As Mr. Kvalnes puts it, one gets a chance to discover oneself just as the Greek philosopher Socrates suggested. Mr. Kvalnes himself is a philosopher and professor at the Trade University of Bergen.

So what are the ethical challenges that everyone meets when diving into the social media ocean? And how are they related to representing a Bed and Breakfast inn online?

1. Role dilemmas: Who am I/are we in the social media? A private person. A professional or someone in between? A close friend or just a stranger? How can you combine your personal appearance and your business? Do you always have to be positive? The challenges are greatest when the people who meet have different understanding of the roles.

Have you thought about how your separate your own personality and private appearance from the one of your inn? When we invite friends, paste a comment, or share news, should we do it as a person, or as a business representative? As described in “A Good Website for B&B” it is important to be personal for Bed&Breakfast owners, but how far should that be used? I have seen that most of the inns prefer, for example, to use Facebook Page with the name of the inn to communicate with their visitors. Can it be also possible to communicate using your own profile (share or answer on the B&B’s Page)?

2. Fast-to-type dilemmas: Social media give opportunities to spread any information fast and effectively. Participants take spontaneous decisions to send it further. And that can create a dilemma between the sender and the receiver. Do I check that the information is reliable before I send it further? Is it OK to be associated with that information? What if someone sends my spontaneous writings further?

If you decide to share news from the neighborhood, or tell your readers about an upcoming event in your town, you must be sure that the information in reliable.

3. Ambitions dilemmas: We can have big ambitions that we will be followed by many, and get a lot of friends through the social media. How far should we stretch it to satisfy those ambitions? What should we do with our viewpoints to get those friends: shall we agree on anything or go into discussions?

4. Dilemma of expressing: The social media is an arena for sharing of opinions and viewpoints. What should we do when we come to a controversial question? Should we choose to express ourselves to stay popular, or should we tell the truth and out real opinions?

This dilemma is mostly important when we think of answering to the guests’ reviews. What should we do with the negative reviews? What about positive one? You can read more about it at Daniel Edward Craig's Blog, and check out the materials of the latest webinar by Revinate.

5. Dilemma of knowledge: Knowledge can be understood differently by people using the social media. The one who owns the knowledge can use it in his/her own advantage. How should we use the knowledge we have? What knowledge do you possess that should be shared with your guests? What should never see the light?

– If you think about the possible dilemmas in advance, you will be prepared to meet the ethical challenges which follow you once you get represented in social media, - says Øyvind Kvalnes.

Do's and don'ts on Facebook. Learn from the biggest.

2011-05-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

Recently my friend had a trouble with her flight with Norwegian, one of the biggest operators in Scandinavia. So I went to the air-company’s Facebook page and found the Discussion Board where I could share my (in this case) her experience of their nonexistent customer care. But this post is not about the complaints, it is about how the air-companies handle the Facebook communication.

To be able to paste my opinion I had to look for the Discussion Board. When I found one that looked like something I could use (called “Customer service?”) there was only a few people who had ever shared their experiences, and no answers from the air-company. So I pasted my story and one of those people answered to me. Not the Norwegian... The air-company did answer though, after 2 weeks of silence. What did they write? I could not believe my eyes, seriously:

“Facebook is not a correct place to go through such topics, because Facebook is to help customers with general questions”. Then there was a suggestion to write a complaint and send it by post (a real post address, not e-mail).

Are you laughing just as I did when I saw this? Then you probably don't need to read further. If you are not, please do read.

Don't tell your customers what they can or can not say on Facebook. Facebook IS for such cases. In fact all the social media is created for customers to share whatever they like (that was exactly what I wrote to answer the air-company's post, also advising to read Jeff Jarvis' book "What Would Google Do?").

The story continues. After I wrote that we – customers – can actually write whatever we want, that guy I mentioned before – one of the unhappy customers – agreed on that and posted his opinion. “Customers can share their experiences for better or for worse. And in this case it is for worse”.

What could the Norwegian do? They wrote a standard answer: “We don't forbid to share your opinions and we care for our customers” and so on. Bookish and useless. The first post already showed their attitude.

So the conclusion is a DO: Think twice before you write something, because you can't change it. Even if you delete it, it can look even worse – the one who was supposed to read it, already did. And he or she can easily turn that against you.

Don't use the Facebook page only to tell the visitors about yourself. You have a web page or a blog for sharing "the general information". News are good, but it is not only the news that should be pushed on the customers.

When someone Likes your page, they start to receive updates from you. If they like your updates, they push Like button on them too. And thus they give a sign that they want more updates from you. And whenever you publish a new update, they get it. If your updates are all the same, typical and uninteresting (news news news), they customers stop reacting, and updates stop coming to them. What is the use of your news if nobody reads them?

The next DO thus is: Use the communication opportunity in your own good. Facebook is all about communication: Customer to Customer and Business to Customer. Facebook users get inspired if they see the communication.

As I said before, I had to look for a Discussion Board to say what I wanted, because the Wall of the Norwegian is full of news. I was shy to paste anything else there. As a matter of fact, I went to their competitor's Facebook page - the SAS airlines- and there one can see all the customers' opinions right on the Wall. And the company's representatives answer to all of them. They don't even have Discussion Boards.

I pasted something (it was also a small complaint, to check what they would do) and got an answer in 5 minutes (not 2 weeks)! On Saturday! Moreover, I got a link where I could send my full opinion – a LINK – not a post address (we are not in the 80's any more).

To be totally clear, there are a lot of posts on this air-company's Facebook page with complaints about bonus-points, quality and refund. And the staff handles them friendly and apologizes, gives advice, sends information in private messages and shared necessary links. I saw also that other customers answered a lot of questions in addition to the air-company's answers, gave tips and advice.

So here comes one more DO: Let everyone share what they want on your Wall. Thus both you and others will see and get inspired to communicate. And you can show your professionalism by handling complaints. You know how to do it well from TripAdvisor experience. Check out the free webinar if you doubt.

One more DO: Answer to all posts, and as soon as possible. It is your business, and your customers want to see that you care both for them and for your reputation.

As an additional conclusion: My friend refuses to fly with Norwegian now. And I will think twice before I use them next time. And I think we are not the only ones.

Promoting your B&B in Free Ways.

2011-05-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

So, we know now that a B&B has to have a web site, a Facebook Fan page and possibly a blog. Those can and should be promoted to the existing guests as well as to potential customers. If you collect e-mail addresses of your guests, you can easily create a promotion e-mail letter and invite your former one-time or regular guests to visit your new web page, Like you on Facebook or share opinion on TripAdvisor.

Your can promote your pages by advertising: in the traditional media (be it a local or regional newspaper or a TV-ad), or on the Internet. The Internet offers both payable and free of charge means. Ads on Facebook, or GoogleAds, Yahoo! and others can be used, as well as banners on all kinds of sites.

It is proven though that people tend to pay more attention to non-commercial information. Besides those payable ads can be quite costly without bringing any result. People often ignore the payable ads, and rather read the same information if they think it is pasted for free. Why? Because they read it for their own interest, not because it was pushed on them.

So how can you attract that kind of attention?

TripAdvisor:

It has been told already about the potential of TripAdvisor: log inn as an owner, answer the reviews (about the importance of the review answering check out the webinar), and answer the forum questions.

EzineArticles.com

I have found this resource accidently. Those who haven’t seen it yet, are advised to do so. I’d like to share some ideas about how to use this resource for free promotion of a B&B Inn.

Here what Enzine creators write: “Want to generate more traffic to your website? We can help. EzineArticles.com is a community of 360,000+ Expert Authors who share their best original articles with our 30 million+ monthly visitors. Our Expert Authors get exposure and traffic back to their websites in exchange for the submission of their high-quality, original articles”. Not bad, huh?

I have to add that one can find a whole lot of articles about particular places. But what I don’t like in most of them, it that a lot of articles sound just like ads. And that turns me off. So if you decide to join this community and use its advantages, don’t try to sell your property there. Rather share a description of your hotel without typical tremendous words like “fantastic”, “fascinating”, “unique” and so on. Tell a story!

The best part is that you can paste a link to your web site or blog at the end of your article, as a signature.

Besides the discription of the B&B itself, you can also share information about your region or town, and then – Bingo! – share your web site address at the end. Those who are interested in this specific place, will thus know that they can stay with you while visiting. And they will appreciate the information that you shared with them.

Are you good in cooking and have fantastic recipes? I know that many B&B's like to share their breakfast specialty recipes. Share them there as well at Enzine and create a link to your blog or web site! Don't forget, it is not only about visits to your web site or bookings. It is also important to create a presence of you on the Internet, so that search engines would be able to track those links and put your web site in a better position.

What should you do? Register as a free member. Write an article or more (you are allowed to send 10 articles in the beginning). Choose a category where you want it to be visible (normally it would be Traveling/Hotels and Accommodation if you describe your B&B). Post it following some simple rules that are presented by the creators of the EzineArticles.com. Wait for review (takes up to 7 days).

The resource provides tips for article writing as a weekly e-mail update and gives you statistics of reads and linking from this article.

Link exchange. To make your web site searchable in the search engines, you must have a great content and, as mentioned before, as many as possible links to your web site from other sites. This is why it is improtant to create a constant link exchage. There are special resources for it. I use for example Link2me.com.

What you do there, after you register (for free of course), you choose a category of companies which is most interesting for you to be linked from, and who would be interested in linking TO you. You choose companies (5 a day) and send a request. Once you have agreement, you paste their link somewhere on your web site (normally it would be something like: “Links”, “We reccoment” etc.) and verify that you have done it at the link2me. Thus both you and the other party earn 1 point which can be used for extra application for link exchange.

You can also request link exchange directly with the companies you know, your partners or guests. We here offer a link exchange for B&B Inns and place them in the page “Find B&B”.

QR Codes for B&B

2011-04-29T03:06:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues in the tourist business (in Hammerfest tourist office, Norway) complained once that she had to put bar codes on all the items in the souvenir shop, and that some items were so small that she didn’t know what to do. If only she knew about QR codes!

This made me think of the presentation made by German researchers at the Enter2011 conference in January. That is when I first learnt about the QR codes. To tell the truth, it took me a while to understand what it was. But after all it turned out to be an interesting and exciting invention that can be used almost anywhere, for tons of purposes.

Simply said, a QR code (short for Quick Response) is sort of bar code familiar to everyone who visits a supermarket. But bar codes are one-dimensional, which does not allow coding of enough information in it. QR codes on the other had are two-dimensional and thus contain much more information. One can find more information on details in Wikepidia, for example. I would like to concentrate on the usage of QR codes in the hotel business.

What kind of information can be coded? Nowadays any information can be coded. Most popular kinds are QR codes for web sites and personal information (contact card). One can code any text, phone-number, SMS.

How can one get a QR code? One can develop them. Don’t ask me how, cause I am not a programmer. What I know, is that there are resources on internet where anyone can create QR codes absolutely for free. Check out for example: a simple QR code generator, or a bit more detailed one. This one seems to be fine too: QRStuff. As usual – just Google the phrase and you will get hundreds of suggestions (I got more than 9 million actually).

How can one read them? A private person needs a mobile phone with pre-installed QR code reader. But thanks to the Internet, anyone can download a reader for his model. Although, it should have a camera that can catch the image of the code. A QR code read by this software would normally take the user to the requested location on the Internet, or in case of a phone number – make the phone ring the number at once. The soft-ware is available on a lot of resources and is for free.

For a business who would like to implement a QR code system, it can be necessary to purchase a QR code scanner. It looks like a normal bar code scanner, but has a small camera-detector that catches the QR code image. The price lies somewhere between 150 and 400 dollars. They can be found in some online-shops.

How are they applicable for a Bed and Breakfast hotel? It was inspiring to see how one of B&B’s pasted its new QR code on Facebook and asked to check if it worked. Besides using for marking goods in a souvenir shop, here are some ways I can suggest.

- QR code of your web page, blog or Facebook fan page (with Likify for example). Lead the potential customers to "Like"-button on Facebook og the Book Now on your web page!

- Contact card: address and other contact details for your business card or brochures.

- Some suggest to use QR codes for decoration and souvenir products: on T-shirts, cups, pens, etc. Use your imagination!

- QR code for a map how to access your location.

- If your property has limited access or the reception is not working 24/7: put a QR code with the phone number that would be accessed directly once the guest accesses it. He will be able to call you at once.

- Use QR codes as voucher for reservation and check-in: if your have QR code reader on your phone, or a QR code scanner, the guest could show you his QR code confirmation, and you would know all about him at once.

- Breakfast: make a QR code out of your today’s specialty recipe or history and paste it next to it. Your guest can read what the dish is about while enjoying his breakfast.

- Give extra-service: create a QR code for the local Tourist Information guide or web page, and place it in the rooms. The guests would appreciate the possibility to check out places in the neighborhood, activities and events.

- Use QR codes as coupons.

If you have any ideas or are using the QR codes already in your B&B, please share it with us!

Best Practices for Responding to Reviews

2011-04-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

Webinars is a fantastic way to learn. It is much more fun than just reading.
That is why today I suggest you spend 35-45 minutes of your time on following this interesting webinar about responding to guest reviews.

Best Practices for Responding to Reviews

Guest reviews are extremely important in the age of Social Media and Web 2.0. They tell us about what is good, and what we should improve. The last are probably the most important for the hotel owners and they show the flaws and problems that one can improve. To learn more, follow the webinar.

The famous Daniel Edward Craig is the guest expert and he talks about:

- what reviews should be answered
- how to answer the reviews
- when to answer the reviews

Interesting cases are presented and revised. You can also download the PDF version.

A good Website for B&B

2011-03-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

After having talked about using blogs and Facebook for promoting B&B’s, it may seem that creating own Website is unnecessary. But it is not so. There are a lot of reasons, why a real website has to be made by innkeepers. First of all, on Facebook or even blog you can't choose design and present your business in a way you want it, in a way that your guests and partners would accept as serious. Yes, a lot of people hang out on Facebook, but when it comes to the presentation and booking, they still prefer to look at more content, with good-quality pictures etc. It is just more reliable. After all, anyone can create a blog or a Facebook without actually existing. A good Website will present your B&B and make you a desirable host.

Website is a powerful tool to generate business for a B&B. The main goal of a B&B Website should be to clearly describe the experience of staying there. As we all know, people don’t buy goods and things longer. It is not a bed or a room they purchase. It is the overall experience, the atmosphere, the service and hospitality that customers are willing to pay for. That is why is it important to stress the special qualities and characteristics of the B&B and personality of the innkeepers. This can be done by providing information on the history of the property, as well as information about local events, rates, photographs, awards, testimonials of former guests, packages, and promotions. These factors make the virtual experience of the B&B more tangible for the user.

Booking: FIND/SVP (1999) reported that there were two fundamental reasons for customers’ visit to Web sites: information acquisition (collection) and online transactions (booking). An online reservation function on the Web is considered one of the most convenient and innovative features on the Internet. It provides your guests with an opportunity to complete their booking via the Internet without having to communicate with a reservationist (which saves you a lot of time!). After all, if your guests would like to contact you first, they will do that anyway. But in this case full contact information (phone, fax, address, and e-mail, now also Skype, MSN and ICQ etc.) must be provided and visible.

Content: A Website that is easy to navigate enables a potential guest to freely click in and out of pages without causing confusion or distress. The more user-friendly a Website, the more a potential guest is likely to continue to view the B&B information and want to find out more about it. When HOME button
is clearly available on every page, this makes it easy to find information without getting confused and lost. This also prevents the user from accidentally closing the browser. Such buttons as CONTACT US, PRICES, BOOKING, REQUEST, ROOMS, PICTURES, ABOUT US, INFO, EVENTS, MAP, HOW TO FIND US etc. can be examples of what a user may want to see.

If a B&B Website does not have clear and readable text, color, hyperlinks, and good quality photographs and images, then Web page space is being misused. A B&B Website should not be a photocopy of a print brochure, but an interactive display of what is available at the property. Cluttered and unclear pages decrease Website's effectiveness. The B&B Website should stimulate the user's interest, and not turn them away. If the Website is not attractive, then a guest will feel that the B&B itself is not appealing.

Owners: The absence of information about the innkeepers may scare the potential guests. It may appear that the owners are not managing the property or are not onsite. More importantly, however, the Website must show the personality of the innkeepers, their backgrounds, and interests. According to
BedandBreakast.com (2001), B&B innkeepers need to use or express three Ps on their Websites: professionalism, personality, and pictures. Under personality, the Web provides a prime opportunity for innkeepers to introduce themselves to virtual guests and welcome them to their B&Bs. This greeting
should be in text, but it can also be done virtually in the same manner as the virtual tour. For example, the innkeeper could welcome the guest and describe the B&B using YouTube video implementation.

Additions: Virtual tours are now possible and free of charge to make - in fact it is even better to present a self-made video rather than to hire someone to make a commercial video for you. The reason for it is that users trust you more if you are sincere. Commercials are on contrary seen as fakes. The addition of sound and video takes the online experience beyond the static brochure-on-the-Web experience that one finds on most existing B&B Websites.

Overall, there is much room for improvement. Innkeepers need to expand the description of packages and special promotions, as well providing more links to area attractions. Awards, guest testimonials, and vision and mission statements are all opportunities for innkeepers to make their properties more concrete for Web users by providing positive evidence and opinions on the qualities of their B&Bs.

In this acticle materials and quotations were used from:

Sheryl F. Kline, Alastair M. Morrison, Andrew St. John (2004) “Exploring Bed & Breakfast Websites: A Balanced Scorecard Approach”. Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism and the Internet, The Harworth Pres.

Miyoung Jeong (2004) An Exploratory Study of Perceived Importance of Web Site Characteristics: The Case of the Bed and Breakfast Industry. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, Vol. 11(4)

Facebook and B&B

2011-03-03T04:56:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that our post named "Facebook" attracts attention. It is of course not because all our readers want to join us on Facebook, but as I estimate it, because people want to know how to use Facebook in their business.

There have been a lot of excitemenet about Social Media and Marketing in Tourism. There are even conferences devoted to this topic: take for example EyeforTravel’s upcoming Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2011, EyeforTravel's Online Marketing & Social Media Europe Summit, Enter2012, Social Media Strategies for Travel North America. I did have a pleasure to be present at Enter2011 in Innbruck, where a lot of information was shared both from scholars and industry representatives. But one does not have to attend all the events to have a success in Online Marketing.

Let us instead come back to discussing some of the opportunities that Facebook gives for small businesses as B&B. First of all, Facebook is a part of Social Media - the core of so-called Web 2.0 generation. To explain shortly the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, I'd like to mention that Web 1.0 was the well-known Internet with information being pushed on the customers. The traditional web-sites and e-mail promotion (discussed in the topic "Bed&Breakfast and the development of the Internet"), are common representatives. Web 2.0 means communication with your customers: the customers communicate with you, and with each other about you. That is when you meet such resources as Facebook (and its national versions), Twitter, TripAdvisor, Igougo, Flickr, YouTube and so on and so on.

So, Facebook is to be used as a way to communicate with your former and future guests. The most important thing to understand here is that you can't replace other resources as customized Web-page, by a Facebook Page. There are several reasons for that (which I will discuss in my next article). Now I wish to concentrate on the positive sides of this SM. If you already have a Facebook Page, you may agree or disagree with me. If you don't, hopefully I will convince you to get one, and to use the simple advance on "how to get the best out of it".

When you decide to make a Facebook presence for your B&B, you may want to choose creating a Facebook Page or a separate profile. There is also an option called "Groups" which you may use after you get a Profile. Most of B&B make a Page. You can have a look at some of them from our Facebook Page.

One important notice: Choose carefully the name. Once you have 25 fans, you will be able to get a name in the link for sharing (as we have http://www.facebook.com/Bed.and.Breakfast.Online) which you can't change afterwards. Once you have more than 100 Likes, you can't change the name of the Page at all. So be careful and think well in advance.

But the question is WHY should you have a Page there?

- Communication. I put this reason in the first place, because it is the whole idea of the Facebook. You go there to promote your business by communicating with your customers. Not more, not less. It is extremely important thus to actually maintain your page and to answer all incoming questions and say "Thanks" for positive comments or give feedback on negative. Your customers must know that you care.

- Branding. By putting your Logo in the Profile Picture, giving general and contact information, you create a presence of your company on Facebook. Don't forget to provide the links to your web-page or blog, an email-address and other important information.

- Promotion. By connecting to your former customers, you get a lot of further connections. People tend to forward links and Likes of their friends. It is a good idea to find relevant businesses in your area and connect to them. "Like" their posts from time to time: that will make you visible. Connect to other B&B's, why not? Apart from looking at their experiences with Facebook, you can get tons of useful information. And possibly, their fans may notice you (if you comment and "Like", but beware - no advertising comments!)

- Fresh information. Your fans may not have time to come by your blog or web-page. But when you update news on your Facebook, they will receive a notice on their Wall about it. Good examples that I have seen: breakfast menu or a recipe, or even pictures; links to interesting articles about the area, events or happenings in the B&B itself, pictures of rooms. You can even advertise some products that you may be selling. Be sure that the information is interesting for your guests and is attractively presented.

- Special campaigns. This is a rarely used by B&B feature, but I did manage to stumble upon one right while I was preparing this post. You can present a program (as done by the Harvest Moon B&B), last-minute prices, updates of capacity, a promotion code that would give your fans a discount (a good way to check the effectiveness of your efforts).

- Special updates. When you have something special happening, you can create an Event and send an invitation to all your Fans, asking them to invite other Facebook users if they can. "Word of mouth" strategy works best.

- Advertising. Facebook gives an opportunity to create an Ad. They promise to target your audience. But this method is not often used, and maybe should not be (at least for now), by B&B on two main reasons. The effect of Facebook Ads is not clear yet. It is a relatively new feature and most of surveys show that users rarely pay attention to the ads that are shown. So why use the money for something you are not sure about? Rather use them on listing on Google AdWords. Another reason is that it is mostly impossible to actually target your potential guests. They may be from any place of the world, of any age, any profession etc. As one of B&B said: My audience is the Guest.

PS: Most of the links to B&B's Facebook Pages in this post were chosen accidentally.

Don't forget to Like us on Facebook :)

Blogging for B&B

2011-02-19T04:50:00.000-08:00

Blogging seems to be a good way to promote your Bed&Breakfast. With the help of blog-creating services like the Blogger, you can create an almost real, at least well-functioning, and, here come the best part - FREE OF CHARGE - web-page for your B&B. In fact, you can put any content that you would put on a custom-made web-page. But using blogs saves you time, money and doesn't demand any special knowledge about web-design.

Going through existing blogs one can make a list of good ideas to be used in your own blog. Here are some of them:

- Blog gives you enough space to put in as much information as you want. You can divide it in defferent pages, so that it is easy to read. You can put in anything from the history of the foundation to the economical numbers if you wish.

- You can describe facilities and put as many pictures as you like, even vidoes.

- You can provide your guests with up-to-date information about weather, driving conditions, breakfast menu, anything you can think of.

- You can communicate with your guests, they can leave reviews, feedback and comments. You can also connect your blog to your Facebook profile, and have the main communication there.

- You can share recipes of your breakfast specialities. Don't forget to add good pictures.

- You can also integrate your booking-system if you like. I was pleasantly surprised seeing that some inn-keepers actually do that.

- If you don't have a booking motor, you can put information about prices and update availability manually.

- You can announce special deals or events.

- You can provide some information about what to do in the ares, which attractions to visit, how to get places by public transportation.

- You can even earn money by advertising on your blog.

- You can integrate the Google Translation Bar which will allow guests from different countries to understand the content of your blog.

Here some examples:
Ivy Lodge
Minnesota B&B Blog
The Thurston House Times
GuateFriends Bed & Breakfast

Share your ideas with us by commenting to this post!

The pitfalls of social media

2011-02-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

The pitfalls of social media

Putting an Honest Grade to the Bed and Breakfast Industry in Hard Economic Times

2011-02-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

Today I was going through some web-sites devoted to Internet Marketing, and some things really touched me. I will come with a summary later.
But now I can't help but quote this article, because it simply expresses my own thoughts. I hope you will enjoy reading.

By Mallory Peterson

With the Great Recession, many bed and breakfast owners are crying "foul" and a handful are using that most dangerous word: "victim". One of the few good things about tough times is it can be an opportunity for re-evaluation, reflection and refinement. That's not to downplay the challenges and difficulties we face right now which are serious. But within the industry, maybe we haven't done as much as we need to do. To judge this we need to honestly grade how well the B&B's are doing as a whole with regards to product, service level, quality, marketing, retention and operations.

How can we come up with a realistic, unbiased grading system? To perform the grading we need two things:

1) To have a list of the majority of bed and breakfasts in the United States.

2) Come up with a fair rating system.

Fortunately, Destination Nexus has done just that. At the time of this post Destination Nexus has 17,691 U.S. inns and they are currently adding hundreds more across the globe. Their goal is to be the end all source of "exceptional lodging & activities" in the world.

Now we have our list. The other good news is that Destination Nexus travel editors review inns one by one and rate them on core criteria, which translates into a score from 0 to 100 based on the inn's website, photos, appeal, ease of use, customer reviews, capabilities, etc.

According to Destination Nexus results of 17,691 bed and breakfasts the average score is a 42.5 on a 0 to 100 scale.

The bad news: we find that the majority scored only between 20 to 60 out of 100! If bed and breakfasts were students, on an A to F scale, they would be struggling. Only 102 scored an A. That is half a percent (.5%).

The good news: There is room for a lot of improvement and it's not really that challenging to go from a struggling student to an over achiever. According to Destination Nexus the top four major issues are:

1) Outdated and uninviting websites - 8 out of 10 inns have websites that are seven years or older. A lot has changed in that time, especially the quality produced by modern web design companies.

2) Blurry or unattractive photos: Most $100 digital cameras put to shame the pictures found on current bed and breakfast websites. Hire a professional or at the least take updated pictures with any newer (10 MP+) digital camera. A lot of websites still use pictures taken from old film cameras.

3) Lack of a real-time reservation system: Only 10% of bed and breakfasts offer real-time online bookings from their website. Another 12% use request-based online booking services, which has to be one of the worst missteps introduced to the industry. Imagine if airlines only allowed phone reservations for booking flights. Or worse the only option was to e-mail them and wait for them to respond confirming your desired flight! The bed and breakfast industry is no different or better than the airline industry. If anything, we take greater risks in not having to screen for bombs, terrorists and lunatics.

4) Lack of quality guest rankings or testimonials on TripAdvisor.com, Google, DestinationNexus.com, etc: The web is here to stay and web presence is important. Start encouraging your guests to leave an impression on the web for you. Automatic thank you e-mails is a great way to automate this process.

Summing it up

What causes bed and breakfasts to score a 42.5% on one industry test? Taking a hard look at the data and tips from Destination Nexus, maybe we hold onto things too long and they become outdated like our websites and online booking options. Bottom line, there is much room for improvement and we can't blame the Great Recession for all our woes. If anything, it should weed out the weak and elevate the cream.

Suite Exchange is a new blog designed to provide tips and how to's on running a bed and breakfast. The blog is run by several industry insiders that work with hundreds of inns daily.

This article was originally published at Suite Exchange.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mallory_Peterson

Our Facebook Page

2011-02-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

To go along with own words, we invite you to join our group on Facebook and become the fan of our web-page there.

Bedandbreakfast Online

Promote your Page too

Some statistics on the use of the Internet for booking

2011-02-11T05:32:00.000-08:00

Statistics show that more and more people prefer to look for information on the Internet and book their travel online. The numbers differ depending on region and country, but they show clearly the growth. Companies should therefore take that into consideration when planning their marketing strategies.

In Norway up to 80% use the Internet to book and pay for hotels online. In the Netherlands and UK the number comes up to 85%, while in Sweden and Japan it lies on 70%. In several countries (Russia, Germany, China) people use the Internet to look for information, but they do rely on travel agents while booking their vacation.

For more statistics look at Consumer Barometer

Bed&Breakfast and the development of the Internet

2011-02-07T23:15:00.000-08:00

I am getting exciting updates from LinkedIn, the group of "Hotel Marketing + Distribution + Revenue Management ". The recent post was from Seth's Blog, something about the best customers. Scrolling down to January, 18, a post about Internet attracted my attention. The thought of how does the Internet develop in the case of small hotel businesses came up. Are those stages realised and used by modern inn-keepers?

Here is the model called "Nethierarchy".

Seth Godin suggests to start "reading" it from the bottom up.

Email is especially useful and most often used. Though it is an "asynchronous person to person connection", it is still commonly used by most of the B&B owners. Having worked in a B&B myself, I know how it goes. Most of the requests came by email. Although it makes a visibility of personal communication, it is not. Email messages are, to my opinion, mostly far too short to express any feelings (a lot of B&B want to be personal in their communication with their guests), and far too rarely used as such. Although I liked to add "You are welcome" and "We will be glad to see you", I know that those, working before me, have never done that. Another backdraw of the email, is time. My mother had to order a room recently. She mailed to a number of small hotels, and guess what, she was really irritated by necessity to wait for an answer for two of three days! And after all, she just called (to another hotel) and booked a room.

I am not sure about forums and threads being even used by inn-keepers. The only way that comes up to my mind is the feedback sites like TripAdvisor og Igougo, where one can actually reply to threads, but that rarely leads to conversations. The smart way to do it, is to go, lets say, to TripAdvisor Forum and start answering the appropriate questions. It takes time. And it takes an affort not to start advertising your hotel there. The posts should never look like a commercial.

Complex content creation - that is familiar to most of us. Talking about web-sites. Nowadays it is extremely important to have a web-representation of your business. The problem is that not everyone takes it seriously. How many times have I bounced against user-unfriendly and totally uninformative web-pages that simply scare potential customers. Think about your guests, where do they come from (which language the web-site must be in), age (are those over 60 able to find and read the information?), interests (can they find activities around, family facilities etc), and so on.

Shopping on Internet has become popular. How do the hotel-owners use it? The most common way I saw it, is putting a "Send a request" scheme on the web-site. The best way is to use a booking system with interface integrated into the web-site, but this one is the most costly one, used by most hotel-chains and of course hard to implement into the reality of small B&B. What to do? Join OTA (online travel agencies) like Expedia of Booking.com? Is it worth is?

The social graph is something we got when Facebook came to our lives. Although we have always had networks - people we surround us with, their friends, friends of their friends, and so on. With Facebook it just became visible and now one can actually trace others' aquaintancies (take LinkedIn and its connections). In the case of small-hotel businesses, that is the part that had been used before Internet, and must be used further. Reccommendations from the customers have always been the best way to get new guests to any B&B. Facebook just made it easier. Does your B&B have a facebook group?

Last but not the least - the "real time". Have you known that modern technologies are able to connect anyone to anything in real time? I am not talking of mobile phones and tablets which are being discussed by Mr. Godin. I am talking about reccomender systems, online booking engines, well yes, mobile booking ad information requests. The customer today does not want to loose time (remember my mother?), he or she wants to get all the information, confirmation and sometimes even pay at once, to have the security that all is arranged, and there is no need to think about it any more. Time is money, as never before.

The original article you can find by clicking on the link: One way to look at the internet, mobile, web and tablets

Working through the hotel-OTA relationship

2011-02-02T00:07:00.000-08:00

The basic things to know about OTA.

Working through the hotel-OTA relationship

Welcome to our blog

2011-02-01T23:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Bed & Breakfast owners and guests,

This blog is created to get closer insight into demands and interests concerning usage of Informational Technologies for small and medium sized accommodation businesses.

Each week we will try to present you a new article or two about generally B&B and Internet. We hope to hear your opinion and wishes. Each time you read an article, ask yourself: How can I use it? What would I improve? What would I want to do in future about it?

If you have particular interest and question, something you would like to learn more about, please send us an e-mail, and next article will touch that topic.