News for the Hospitality Executive |
B&B or Big-Box?
By
Daniel Edward
Craig
February 16, 2011
“I have no doubt we will be stealing
some market share.” –
Jay Karen, President & CEO, Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII). Social
media, the great equalizer, has allowed bed-and-breakfasts and
independent
boutiques to compete for the attention of travelers online with big-box, chain hotels. And when it comes to
creative
content and compelling stories, small, independents properties have
emerged with some of the strongest
voices. Recently,
the Professional
Association of Innkeepers
launched a
campaign called "A Better Way to Stay" to convince
travelers—especially Gen X and Y—to choose inns and B&Bs over
hotels.
PAII’s President & CEO Jay Karen calls it “a true grassroots
campaign” that
will feature “fresh and edgy content—perfect for social media—never
seen from
our industry.” To
find out more, I caught up with Jay. Here’s a condensed version of our
Q + A
session. Some wear boxers, others brief; some
prefer B&Bs, others hotels. Convince us: Why choose a B&B over
a hotel? That’s
easy! Do you prefer your breakfast made from food off a Sysco
truck or
hand-picked by an innkeeper (most likely sourced locally)? Do you
like
never having to pay for wi-fi? How do you feel about free
parking? Historical settings? Beautiful
properties? Afternoon or
24-hour free snacks? Sometimes wine and cheese hours or afternoon
tea? Local knowledge of the best places for recreation and
dining? Also, B&Bs are considered by many women business
travelers as
safer than hotels. Guests
at B&Bs aren’t just a room number and a stat that adds to the
RevPAR and
occupancy charts – they’re people looking for more than just a room,
and
innkeepers enjoy delivering more than an electronic key card. Do B&Bs compete more against hotels
or other B&Bs? Should hotels be worried? When
someone chooses a B&B, it’s safe to say they likely chose that
B&B over
another B&B, not a Hilton or Marriott. We compete with hotels
every
day of the week. I firmly believe that the loyalty index among
B&B
guests is much higher than hotel guests. And in the new world of
social
media, more and more loyal guests will be telling their friends and
families
about their fantastic experiences. I’m
not saying hotels should be shivering with fear, because our total room
volume
is incredibly modest by comparison, but the playing field has certainly
been
leveled in this new age of connectivity. I have no doubt we will
be
stealing some market share. Lately there’s been a lot of controversy
over the authenticity of online reviews. What’s your position on this? There
is a problem with that in the B&B world - we don’t have the large
numbers
that hotels do. A good B&B that is actively soliciting reviews
from
guests will still only have a few dozen reviews over the course of a
year – not
a few hundred. A few bad apples can spoil things a hell of a lot
faster
for a B&B with 5 rooms than a hotel with 500 rooms. To
me, the bigger problem is review sites claim little or no
responsibility when
it comes to the details within the review and won’t get involved in the
veracity of the reviews. When it comes to negative reviews that
have been
embellished or falsified, the property owners have everything to
lose. Joe
Schmoe Reviewer has nothing to lose, and that’s still very troublesome
at
times. TripAdvisor: friend or foe of innkeepers? TripAdvisor
reviews can work really well for local, independent players. The
rest of
the commerce on the site, i.e. banner ads, booking, etc., is no friend
to the
innkeeper. Nine out of ten B&Bs do not participate in the GDS
system,
so when someone is searching for availability, we are left out almost
completely. It would be good to build a bridge with the off-GDS
platforms
that most B&Bs use and the TripAdvisor availability search
tool. Over
the past few years, we have gained a good bit of attention through our
high-profile discussions with TripAdvisor. I believe we have been
the only
lodging organization that is persistently meeting with their senior
staff about
parity, fairness and responsiveness with their very powerful system.
I’ve been blogging about it since 2008. B&Bs
generally do not play the OTA game for a few reasons. Those who do
play
the game, though, are generally pleased. The reasons for opting
out
include not being able to afford the commission structure (25-30%), the
lack of
good information on the guests that gets passed between the OTAs and
the
innkeepers, and the lack of supply with which to play in the yield
management
game. It’s a bit of a hassle to contribute only one or two rooms
to the
system and have to manage that. Companies
like BedandBreakfast.com have done a good job building that bridge
between an
innkeeper’s PMS system, booking engine and the OTAs, but it takes a lot
of
hands-on management on the innkeeper’s part to make it all
work. Oh,
and then they have to go turn three rooms, shop for tomorrow’s
breakfast and
respond to the latest online review. The
major search engines are still the biggest players for
B&Bs. Google
Places (and various iterations of Google Maps and Google Local) have
always
been an influential player, and even more so if they keep stepping up
their
game in the travel space. Given such limited resources, which
social media tools and resources if any do you recommend B&B owners
engage
in? Facebook
– no doubt. There is no better tool that allows a happy B&B
guest to
tell their hundreds of friends and family what a wonderful time they
had. We haven’t even seen the beginning of the fruits Facebook
will
produce for innkeepers. I’m encouraged greatly by the social
buying sites
out there – especially LivingSocial. Twitter is great, but only
if you’re
posting content that is relevant to Twitter users, and if you look at
it as a
search engine. How is 2011 looking for the innkeeping
industry? The
only weak point in our industry as a result of this recession has been
the
transaction market. Our RevPAR, occupancy and revenue numbers have
remained steady. Changes in travel preferences have benefited our
industry
– the desire to stay closer to home, long weekend trips, smaller,
boutique
properties (duh), etc. Therefore, we are generally poised for
strong
performance in the coming months and years, as long as the economy
doesn’t tank
again. Our
biggest challenge seems to be that more and more gets added to the
plate of
innkeepers each year, but nothing gets taken off. Innkeepers pine for
the days
when SEO was the only internet-related marketing game they had to keep
up
with. Keeping all the plates spinning in an ever-more-complex
world is a
big challenge. But that’s where PAII comes in, right Daniel?
Copyright © 2011 Daniel Edward Craig |
Contact:
Daniel Edward Craig |
Also See: | Social
Media and Storytelling for Hotels / Daniel Edward Craig / February
2011 |
A
Round-up of Social Media and Reputation Monitoring Tools for Hotels
/ Daniel Edward Craig / February 2011 |
|
The
Confidence to be Transparent: Why Accor Hotel Group Posts TripAdvisor
Reviews Directly to its Website; An interview with Jean-Luc
Chrétien, Executive VP Marketing & Distribution, Accor /
Daniel Edward Craig / December 2010 |
|
A
Positive Spin on Negative Reviews / Daniel Edward Craig / November
2010 |
|
Walking
After Midnight: How to Avoid Being Bumped from Your Hotel / Daniel
Edward Craig / October 2010 |
|
Why Everyone Gets a Hotel Room Upgrade... But You / Daniel Edward Craig / April 2008 |