How hospitality businesses can get the best out of mobile.

There’s a short but eminently clear and to-the-point article on – of all places – the State of Indiana local government homepage about mobile websites. In the “Tourism Tech Corner” of the site, Jeremy Williams not only does a superb job of explaining why a mobile website is becoming vital for any hospitality-related business, but also drives home the fact that it’s becoming morevital with every passing month, since use of smart phones for Internet browsing is growing at a tremendous rate.

Some of the points he makes (albeit from an American perspective) are similar to those that theBandBer has been banging on about for more than a year now: “In the five short years since 2007, smartphones have become a ubiquitous fixture. Since it’s not 2007 anymore, you can no longer ignore the fact that more people have smartphones than feature phones (basically any phone that isn’t an iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Android) and they’re using those smartphones to browse the internet. […] While modern smartphones can render full websites (with the exception of Flash for iPhones), mobile users expect a site that loads quickly, is easily navigable (without pinch-zooming) and contains plenty of functions and sections that are pertinent to mobile users.”

However, he also has some things to say that are genuinely fresh and insightful…

For example, he strongly advises investing in a mobile website rather than a mobile app: “Rather than spending your time or limited budget on even just Android and iOS (i.e. iPhone) apps, putting those same resources behind a single mobile website will be a much better investment. Since Android and iOS apps are built using different programming languages, it’s not as simple as just submitting the same app to both app stores. A mobile website also gives you the flexibility that it will display on ANY mobile device, so if your visitors have Blackberrys or Windows Mobile phones, your website will be just a usable to them as it would be to a visitor using an Android or an iPhone.”

From a usability perspective, he also counsels that a “What’s Nearby” button can show its value by allowing you to become your guests’ de facto tour guide when they’re staying with you and exploring the surrounding area. If they decide to come back in the future, you’ll have a stronger relationship with them and might, therefore, be more likely to get a repeat booking.

All this can sound a bit abstract when described in general terms, but the article also boasts some great screenshots from U.S. tourism sites that illustrate its arguments in a clear, informative way. Well worth a read…

READ MORE: http://bit.ly/11O8Kah

VAT rates throttle UK B&Bs

“Any ful kno” (as Nigel Molesworth used to say) that one of the most effective ways to get an economy out of a slump is to boost exports. One way to do this is to devalue your currency and make exports cheaper (exactly what Greece, Spain etc can’t do right now). But another way is to avoid taxing the hell out of the revenues generated by whatever it is you’re exporting – regardless of whether it’s a product, or, in the case of B&Bs, a service. High taxes on UK accommodation stifle the recovery, pure and simple.

Right now, bed and breakfast owners have a rare chance to help the country in terms of both exports and domestic consumption. Staying in a B&B – especially a rural one – is often one of the most delightful experiences for visitors to the UK: it gives them an invaluable chance to experience domestic life in another country without sacrificing anything in the way of comfort and modern amenities. B&Bs are also a crucial generator of jobs and GDP in the local economies that we so desperately need to stimulate (in order to stop the UK becoming, business-wise, “London… and everywhere else.”)

So… B&Bs can help to grow exports, create jobs, boost rural GDP and enhance our reputation abroad by offering foreign guests great experiences: a quadruple benefit. Given these facts, you would imagine the UK government would be falling over itself to help independent accommodation providers. But, oddly enough, it doesn’t quite seem to work out that way. The table below shows data extracted from the World Economic Forum’s “Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013”. This is how European countries pan out in terms of their Standard VAT rate vs their Accommodation VAT rate (click for a larger version)…

As you can see, the UK effectively has the equal third highest VAT rate on accommodation in Europe, tied with Slovakia. Indeed, of 27 EU countries, the UK is one of only four that charge the full rate of VAT on tourism accommodation. The countries we might regard as our principal competitors do far more to help their hotel & B&B owners. France’s rate is 7%, Germany’s is 7%, Italy’s is 10% and Ireland’s is 9%. Every single one of them enjoys an advantage against us. I know we’ve devalued the Pound a lot recently, but the Euro isn’t that strong a currency these days either. (The average VAT rate for accommodation throughout all other European countries, incidentally, is 10.5%).

The world of international trade is heavily regulated, so it’s very rare to have a sector where a government has the power to legitimately favour its local business. This is one of them and it seems to me that every other government knows it. So why doesn’t the UK’s? I suggest they look at our competitors and emulate them as quickly as possible. That would be something to really help the export-led recovery we all need.

You can download the “Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013” HERE

B&Bs in the NYT!

There’s has been some interesting bed and breakfast-related stuff in the New York Times over the past couple of weeks. Nancy Galloway and Andre Laporte – a retired couple who run the Wedgwood Manor Country Inn (Crawford Bay, British Columbia) – took part in the newspaper’s regular “You’re The Boss” feature, which allows owners of small business to solicit advice from its huge readership.

Generating revenue of roughly $100,000 in 2012, the Wedgwood Manor Country Inn is undoubtedly successful, with its website attracting between 800 and 1,000 visits per month. It’s also listed on Canadian B&B sites like bbcanada.com and cabinrentalbc.com, at a cost of c$4,000 per annum (about 85% of their marketing budget.) None the less, Nancy felt that they could still do more and was keen to have fresh insight into her property’s web presence: “It is like having a great editor… You need someone who is looking at your work with a fresh perspective. I am too close to our site and the comments were quite helpful and we are taking many to heart.”

Regular readers of theBandBer.com won’t be surprised by the focus of the comments Mrs Galloway received: better photos, more local information, more published reviews and, above all, online booking (though UK readers might be astonished by just how much even basic online booking technology costs in North America.) These are a very informative couple of articles, full of useful tips…

Read More: http://nyti.ms/10R3gyj (Part 1) & http://nyti.ms/17ojkKV (Part 2)

B&B owner Rupert Richardson

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently.  All these directory sites with “Gold”, “Platinum”, “Silver”, “Bronze” categories – as well as a free listing – are missing a trick.  As I’m sure most people have realised, a “free” listing is worth about as much as you pay for it.  So, they list you for free, then point out how few bookings you’ve got, because you have a free, low-priority listing, and press you to upgrade.  Inevitably, you don’t, because you have only negative experience of their site and, as Clausewitz said: “Never reinforce failure.”  I’ve got “Scoot” trying to do this with me right now.

I know many sites like having lots of properties listed, even if most of them don’t get anything out of it, but starting with a free listing just isn’t going to cut it.  They’d be much better off (if their site is any good, that is) by:

• Offering you a free TRIAL subscription, for three to six months, at the top rate – where (allegedly) 90% of the bookings go.
• Offering detailed statistics on the entry’s performance and using those stats to sell a renewal.

If the B&B doesn’t bite, for whatever reason, relegate them to the free entries section.  It has got to be easier to sell from success than from failure, and the customer gets evidence of real value.

Another thing that really gets me is the absence of statistics.  It is the work of a moment for such directory sites to:

(1) Generate numbers of referrals.
(2) Sort them by area, type of entry, type of B&B, type of enquirer and any other category you care to mention.But they don’t.

Getting data out of them is harder than getting blood out of a stone.  They might say, “Oh, we had 600,000 hits last months.”  I’m not that interested in hits; I’m interested in click-throughs to my website.  I want to hear something along the lines of, “3,000 click-throughs, of which 80% went to our 200 Gold entries; 15% to our 500 Silver entries; 3% to our 1,000 Bronze entries, and the remaining 2% to our 10,000 free entries.  That translates to:

• Each Gold entry got 15 enquiries, on average.
• Each Silver entry got 0.9 enquiries, on average.
• Each Bronze entry got 0.09 enquiries, on average.
• The free entries got virtually nil.

I’m also deeply dispirited by the concept of: “Great news! For only £9/month we’ll build a great entry for you, with lots of detail, photographs, online booking and more…”

My immediate thought is: “Oh, God, another b****y web-site to maintain.” Our B&B is listed on over 40 sites as it is and just checking them regularly to make sure they are all singing from the same hymn sheet is a serious burden.

What I really want to hear are two things:

(1) “We’ll put tools in place so that, whenever your web-site changes, we’ll make sure our entry changes to reflect it”.

And, even better…

(2) “So, you’re with Eviivo and Booking.com, and… (insert other names here!). Let us protect you from the nightmare of diary updating and the risk of double bookings.  For mere millions, we’ll keep all of your availability diaries in sync; you just get the bookings.”

I don’t know if it’s too much to ask.  What I DO know is that, if you don’t ask you don’t get…”

Yvonne Halling: B&B Marketing Guru

Yvonne begins by describing the difficulties she found herself in just 3 years ago and how she overcame them: “My room occupancy rates were completely in line with ‘Europe wide industry statistics’ at 21.58% (the Europe average is 21.5% according to Bed & Breakfast.com) and I started to build up an overdraft. Then I started borrowing elsewhere to keep the ship afloat and bit by bit I edged into more and more debt.” However, by changing her strategy, she managed to stop the decline: “I started to increase massively my room occupancy rates, in fact so much so that in a year they soared from 21.58% to 37.68% a MASSIVE 74% increase.” Last year her occupancy rate hit 49.01%, which, she points out, is “almost unheard of in the B & B industry.”

Drawing on this experience, she has identified five areas bed and breakfast owners need to focus on if they’re going to reproduce her success. I won’t go into them in huge detail, because Yvonne’s report describes them so well, but here they are in summary form…

(1) The first mistake she identifies is “Thinking You Are In The ‘Bed & Breakfast Business’!” What she means by this is imagining that you can survive and prosper purely by focusing on your core offering. As she observes: “The turning point for me was to take off my burdening B&B hat and put on a new one with ‘Marketing Expert’ written right across it. This changed my world as I learned the power of being in the ‘Marketing Business’.”

(2) The second mistake is “Not Knowing Your Customers Nor What They Really Want.” Yvonne points out, “I decided to really get to know them and find out what they really wanted from coming to my B & B. […] Sure they wanted a room for a night or two, but what they really wanted was to be treated in a way where they felt loved and cared for.”

The conclusion Yvonne came to was that issues like location and star ratings matter relatively little. What matters is building a relationship: “When someone books, they go into my automated system that mails them lots of interesting and useful information prior to their visit and keeps mailing them after they leave.” By doing this, she has been able to not only boost her occupancy, but successfully raise her room rates to €92.5 (25% above the market average for Europe.)

(3) The third mistake is “Having NO CLUE About ‘The Lifetime Value of a Customer.’”  In order to rectify this, she suggests a strategy that she calls “Know-Like-Trust”. Put at its simplest, the “know” part means connecting with customers through social media, the “like” part means interacting with them and establishing a relationship and the “trust” part means ‘over delivering’ on their expectations. As Yvonne says, “Now once you have people’s trust, as long as you over deliver and never abuse them by sending them stuff they don’t want, all you have to do is stay in contact with them… They won’t mind hearing from you if you bring back happy past memories of staying with you and that in marketing terms is what is called ‘keeping them WARM’.”

(4) The fourth mistake might be summarised as “Not Offering Extra Services.” Yvonne solved this by “Upselling” – in other words, figuring out the other things, aside from just bed and breakfast, that her customers might be interested in spending money on. In Yvonne’s case, that meant talking about local attractions: “All I did was tell stories about the area around me and guess what, they wanted to know more and more, so I started offering them things they could buy from me that were in the story. Now I hear you say, that’s easy for you, you are where you are! But trust me, it’s true of every B & B, you have local expert knowledge that they will love, all you have to do is join the dots and offer them what your research tells you they want – It really is a no brainer.”

(5) The fifth and final mistake is the one we’ve all made many times in our lives, “Procrastination” – or, as Yvonne puts it, “If you cut yourself badly and you don’t take action fast, the consequences can be, well to be honest depending on the size of the wound – catastrophic. Inaction, procrastination and fear stop the average business becoming brilliantly successful; I know that was true for me.”

So, don’t procrastinate! Head over to Yvonne’s site right now, download her report HERE, and learn more of her tips on how to massively improve your B&B business.

Anyway, here are the numbers…

• 48% of c400 global hotels surveyed by TravelClick have a booking facility on Facebook and/or another social media channel.
• Amongst the other 52%, about half plan to do the same in 2013
• 56% of these same 400 hotels offer a mobile booking app.
• Half of the other 44% plan to get a mobile app in 2013.
• Four Seasons have put great emphasis on integrating social media into their websites and general marketing. This has yielded 150,000 Facebook fans and 60,000 Twitter followers (this doesn’t include fans/followers of individual properties.)
• According to digital consultancy Nucleus, mobile browsing on travel websites grew at 31.7% during the past 6 months. That’s twice as much as in the previous 6 months.
• 88.3% of mobile booking was done on Apple devices. It looks as if this overwhelming dominance was at least in part to do with the launch of the iPad mini in November 2012 (indeed the iPad now accounts for nearly 62% of all web browsing.)

As always, the numbers when it comes to mobile are perhaps more compelling than those for social media. But both are issues that every accommodation owner can ill afford to ignore for much longer. Going forward, it looks as if booking via smart phones and tablets will become not the exception, but the rule.

Read More: http://bit.ly/VtN2t2 & http://bit.ly/12CX53o

Google Plus is getting tougher on fake reviews

Google are warning business owners, including hotel and B&B owners, that “fake glowing testimonies” written by reputation management companies on Google+ Local pages will be taken down.

Google+ Local used to just be called Google Places. It’s essentially just normal Google search with a location slant. These local search results appear anytime an online user combines a search item with a geographical modifier, i.e., “B&B York.” The results appear as a listing and as pins on a map. They are sorted by their relevance, which is determined by how close each B&B is to your current location when you search.

An update to Google’s spam detection algorithms will grow the number of reviews appearing on Google+ Local but also treat fake reviews more harshly: “If a business accepts paper comment cards it might be tempting to collect them and ‘digitize’ them by posting the reviews on Google+ Local. We ask that all reviews come from first-hand experience and do not allow posting reviews on behalf of others.”

According to Search Engine World, Google has also offered some other tips on soliciting customer reviews: “On a related note, Google advises against companies asking customers to write a review on a computer or tablet located on the business’s premises. Google said businesses should send reminder emails to customers encouraging them to review the business on their own time – just don’t go so far as to give free gifts or discounts in exchange for encouraging them to leave positive reviews, Google warned.”

Read More: http://bit.ly/12rD9Aa

Will Facebook’s Graph Search help B&Bs?

As part of its continuing effort to convince people that it really can generate the sort of profits that will justify its huge stock market valuation, Facebook is now trailing its latest wheeze: Graph Search. But what is it and what might it mean for owners of B&Bs, guest houses, cottages and independent hotels?

The fundamental motive behind Graph Search is this: exploiting Facebook’s one billion-plus user base to provide you with results that are appropriate to you, based on what people you are already connected to have liked (or, to be more accurate, “liked”) in the past. So, for instance, if you’re travelling to London and want B&B recommendations, Facebook will serve search results for B&Bs that friends (and friends of friends) have been to.

Heather Kelly, of CNN, provides a succinct description of the concept (with a dash of droll humour): “Every post you make reveals slivers about who you are and what you like… Technically, Facebook should be able to detect if you like cats, even if you didn’t take the time to hit the Like button for a page called “cats.” But it can’t do this without rightfully alarming its already privacy-sensitive 1 billion users.

Searching for people presents its own set of issues. Graph Search scours your profile information so people can find you based on what school you went to, where you work, your religion or who your friends are. Searches can be refined using filters for every available profile field, including likes, work info, family connections and the Facebook apps people use. Next time you need to find single male models in Omaha who are Buddhist and speak Spanish, go straight to the Facebook Graph Search.”

Presumably, Facebook hopes that once Graph Search proves its worth, companies will be prepared to advertise alongside its results, thus earning it some of the revenue that has made Google so very rich. But, as Kelly notes, there are a lot of issues to be addressed first: “Much of Graph Search’s power and problems start with the Like button. People just don’t wield the Like as often and as discerningly as is needed to turn Facebook into a useful recommendation tool. It’s also too easy for those deep-pocketed companies who can afford to maintain a social media presence to buy more likes and come out on top.”

Mind you, it’s early days. Graph Search is still in the trial phase, so presumably Facebook will work hard to refine it as it evolves. It might become more useful to travellers (and hoteliers) when results don’t just include brief comments by friends of the “loved the breakfast” variety, but links to more formal info like tourist board star-ratings and map locations.

It’ll be interesting to see if Graph Search takes off. If it does, it could prove significant for property owners. So far, the jury’s out. I’ll leave the last word to Heather Kelly: “Graph Search introduces new ways to search Facebook that are great in theory. The tool works amazingly well in the idealized Zuckerbergian world where all Facebook members are real people who complete their profiles honestly and update them frequently. But in reality, the data people share on Facebook is flawed and incomplete. And so is Graph Search, at least for now.”

Read More: http://bit.ly/10DCtYK

TripAdvisor: now with more “searchiness.”

This may sound at the moment like one of those obscure tech stories only of interest to geeks. But given that so many properties are now reviewed on TripAdvisor, irrespective of size or type, it could have far reaching implications for everyone, from huge chain hotels to tiny B&Bs.

In news that surprised few commentators in the tourism industry, TripAdvisor has finally announced that it’s introducing a test version of “metasearch” for its users. This new service will cover both desktop and mobile versions of the site.

What’s “metasearch”? It’s essentially a way of typing in a search term and getting results from multiple search engines at the same time (i.e. Google and Bing and Yahoo, rather than just one of them.) In this particular case, it means searching for a property – be it a hotel, guest house or B&B – and seeing prices/availability from lots of different Online Travel Agents (not the property itself at the moment, though that may come later.)

Offering a service like this isn’t exactly new. Kayak, Trivago and others have been doing it for years. So what distinguishes TripAdvisor’s version? Its vast database of reviews: “What TripAdvisor has that every other travel site on the planet does not is a user base that currently accounts for 60 million unique visitors every month.” Utilising this resource will grant TripAdvisor the ability “…to filter results not only by the overall rating by users but also by whether it is ideal for business travellers, families or those looking for a luxury or romantic stay.”[i]

Read More: http://bit.ly/W3sFkh

Is your bank ripping you off?

In this new GUEST BLOG, Craig Stewart, co-founder of online reservations company Freetobook, share some advice on making sure that your bank isn’t ripping you off when it comes to credit card handling charges.

“I won’t make any friends in the banking industry for saying this, but here goes…

If you already have a deal which is bad or average then it’s worth shopping around now. You could save money, as your bank may be taking advantage of you.

• A good credit card rate is between 1% and 1.5%.
• An average credit card rate is between 1.4% and 1.9%.
• A bad credit card rate is 2% and over.

(These rates are indications based on PDQ and virtual terminal. They will be good for most B&Bs, guest houses, cottages or hotel businesses.)

So how do you get the rate down?

The first rule of dealing with bank credit card handling fees is negotiate. The second rule is negotiate and the third rule is negotiate.

When it comes to card charges, banks will try and get the highest charge they can get away with. You can easily end up being charged 2.5% instead of 1.5%. It’s a big difference and, let’s face it, in these times it pays to be smart with costs. Who could ever feel bad about squeezing a bank?

We have been dealing with banks and their credit card charges for more twelve years, so here are a few tips. I hope they lead to reducing your charges:

1. When it comes to card charges, feel free to play banks off each against other. They all provide a similar service, so get at least three quotes from different banks.
2. Let each one of them know you are shopping around for a good deal on your card business. If they want your account then they need to give you their best possible rates.
3. Don’t feel you need to stick with the same bank you use for other services. Card transactions are mostly handled by completely different sections. They won’t do you any favours since card handling is mostly treated as an independent service.

What factors do they look for in calculating their charge?

RISK. The lower your risk in the eyes of the banks the better rate they give and each bank assesses risk differently (all the more reason to try different banks).

So what are the main risk factors?

1. Time and Money. The time between taking payment and providing the service is a risk period to them. If you take a deposit in advance rather than full payment it will be a lower risk. Make sure the bank knows you are low risk (if you are). The more payment you take a greater time from arrival the higher the risk.
2. Method. How you take the payment. If you use chip and pin, customer present, the risk is very low.  Taking payments over the phone – so-called card holder not present transactions – are a higher risk. Online card transactions are an even higher risk, but using online 3D secure can reduce the risk. You can expect a higher charge for online card transactions.
3. Reputation. A good long trading history with a healthy set of accounts will reduce the risk that the bank sees in you and hence your charges.

TURNOVER. The higher your turnover the better the deal you can get. This is a simple volume calculation. If the bank can get 1.7% on 50,000 and your turnover increases to 70,000 you could get them down to 1.5% or lower; it’s worth a try.

COMPETITION. They all have targets to meet and if they know you are shopping around for the best deal they won’t be tempted to over-charge you and risk losing your account.

If anyone has any other tips or stories, do please share them in the comments section below – I would love to hear them. Happy hunting.”