Looking for a great B&B?

If you're looking for a great bed and breakfast, this may be useful.


How To Find Great Budget Accommodation

Plan for low season with local events

Bed and breakfast owners usually know what's going on in the local area. The smart ones are using local events to plan in advance and ensure high occupancy in low season.

When people don't feel like travelling, perhaps because it's the middle of the school term or they've just spent all their money after Christmas, give them a reason to come and stay.

There are many events you can keep any eye out for and promote them to your list of previous satisfied guests including:

• Literary festivals
• Film festivals
• Centenaries
• Anniversaries
• Carnivals
• Local events

You'll know what's going on locally, but the point is to give potential guests a reason to book when they might otherwise have stayed at home.

Do Everything You Can To Let People Find Your B&B

Have you done everything you can to enable prospective guests to find out about your bed and breakfast or hotel?

In addition to having a website as a showcase for your establishment, it's vital that it's laid out in a manner friendly to search engines so that you can be found with a relevant search. If your website is not performing well in search results, you should consider speaking with an SEO consultant who can help resolve this problem.

Once you have an optimised website you should then consider the following avenues of marketing:

• Trip Advisor - Do you have a listing and have you taken control of it? Respond to guest comments to show how responsive you are to feedback. There are other travel, review and hotel sites like TripAdvisor. Are you listed by any of them?
• Directory Websites - Do you know which directory websites have the best performance for your area? Find the ones that have the highest search ranking and get a listing. If they're paid for, set a budget and don't exceed it.
  
• Squidoo - Build a page about your local area and attractions like this Squidoo page about Hunstanton, being sure to feature your bed and breakfast or guest house. Write a Squidoo page about the history of your B&B or business like this one about a driving school. It doesn't need to be fancy, just informative and link back to your site.
  
• Blog - Write regular updates about what's going on in the area or even about the guests you have coming to stay. Incorporate one into your website or sign up to an account with Blogger or Wordpress.
  
• Flickr - sites like Flickr allow you to share pictures with others easily whilst promoting your B&B website
• Facebook - A great way to connect with past and future guests
• Bookmarking - There are many bookmarking websites like delicious.com and Digg that enable you to share with others links to your site and other sites you bookmark whilst promoting your website.
• Comments - Take the time to comment on any blogs you read with a suitable anchor for your link. Even blogs with use the "nofollow" attribute may still drive traffic to your site.
• Forums - Add a signature to your profile when using profiles for a link back to your website. It also gets you interacting with other people and telling them about what you do.
• Email List - Are you keeping in regular contact with your previous guests?
• Talk to the local newspapers - Whenever you do something different or interesting, let the local newspapers know about it.
• Twitter - Some people like using Twitter. It helps if you have something interesting to say.
• Article writing - In addition to Squidoo, there are other sites out there for posting articles with a credit link back to your website. What can you write articles about? Running a hotel or bed and breakfast for example.
  

Ruth Watson Shows How To Get A Hotel Right

Ruth Watson, the original Hotel Inspector is back on television and this time she's showing new hoteliers how to get their hotels and guest houses right from the beginning.

Ruth Watson's Hotel Rescue on Channel 4 parachutes Ruth into the development of a new hotel
or bed and breakfast and gives her advice on what they need to do to make their establishment a success.

In addition to gaining the benefit of Ruth Watson's experience, the hoteliers featured also get loads of free publicity from being in the programme.

She says that when it comes to the standard of hotels, the "public deserves better". Let's hope that the programme inspires all hoteliers to aim high in their standards.

The other lesson here for existing hoteliers is to keep an eye out for oppotunities to market your business for free.

Link:
Ruth Watson's Top Tips for starting up and running a hotel