Travellers Prefer Feeling At Home
Interesting PWC statistics published recently provide great news for the bulk of our clients who offer a more personalized overnight experience. A lot more guests seem to want to feel at home when away!
Over the next 3 years the number of guest houses in South Africa will grow by around 4.2% to an estimated 11 200 rooms in 2016.
~ Price Waterhouse Coopers South African Hospitality Outlook
What can Hotels offer that Guest Houses Usually Don’t?
Hotels are classified as ‘formal service accommodation’ by the Tourism Grading Council. This means guests will most probably have 24-hour assistance with any problem they might have, early or late check-in/outs or food available when they order it at any time.
Security might be important to these guests with key cards and security guards making them feel more at ease (this could especially be important to females travelling on their own).
Why Travellers Might Still Prefer Guest Houses
It is often the extra little touches like flowers in a room that makes you feel like you are at home.
It seems travellers are starting to appreciate a homely experience where their surroundings are similar to those where they normally live. They like having snacks and drinks in the fridge, full DSTV and free WiFi, just like they would have when they are not travelling.
Guest Houses provide a more comfortable experience from the get-go. You are likely to deal with the owner himself, who would most often do the welcoming and act as concierge – advising you on dinner or activity options.
So go ahead – cook a home-cooked meal for your guests and make your establishment as homely as possible to take advantage of changing travelling preferences! Your guests will surely return for more!
Automatic Guest Review Requests
We previously discussed the importance of guest reviews and also how to respond to negative feedback.
If you are dedicated to putting time and effort into requesting reviews and monitoring the feedback, it could possibly result in a lot more business for your establishment.
Unfortunately it takes up quite a bit of time to keep track of which guest left when, and establishments sometimes forget to ask the guest to review their property after they departed. Which is why NightsBridge’s new automated review request system was born.
Can review requests not happen automatically?
NightsBridge, along with TripAdvisor, now provides you with a service where an e-mail is automatically sent out to any guest that departed from your guest house 7 days ago. This e-mail will thank them for their visit, and request that they review the property and their experience by clicking on a link. Read more 
The A-Z of Marketing Your Property – Part II
Last week we handled the A to K of marketing, this week we’re back with L to Z to complete the list of 24 great ideas to market your establishment.
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Maps
The good news is Google has made it easy – put maps on your website showing where you are located and where tourist attractions are – a graphic picture means more than hundreds of words.
We have more helpful articles on Google Maps and Facebook Places to further assist. Read more
The A-Z of Marketing Your Property
Here is a helpful A-Z guide to help you market your establishment.
All Things To All People – Know Your Market Segment
The expression that you can not be all things to all people is never truer than with an accommodation establishment. Guest houses and B&Bs are selected over hotels for their “personalities”.
A businessman may seek the home touch whilst on his travels, but also need a quiet environment to carry out his work. If your guest house or B&B targets families you can be sure the business person will only stay once.
Become an Expert
Know your stuff – what’s good to see, where’s good to go and where’s a waste of time. Maybe compile something for your guest to browse through (whilst sipping on a nice glass of white from the honesty bar). Read more
It Could Happen To You: Review your Business Insurance
Guest House and B&B accommodation must have insurance against natural disasters. Photo courtesy telegraph.co.uk
We asked Dave Jack to give us some advice on hospitality insurance especially with reference to the damage caused by natural disasters. Dave is a director of BnB Sure, a specialist hospitality insurance company that offers customised insurance for B&B and Guesthouse accommodation. This is what he had to say:
All too often we hear “It’ll never happen to me” and when it does happen the comment is usually “I don’t know how it happened”. In some cases it is possible to lessen the chances, in others it is almost impossible to do anything about it and in many cases Mother Nature is involved. Read more
NightsBridge integration with Opera and ResRequest
NightsBridge is proud to announce full integration with 2 more Property Management Systems, namely Micros Opera and ResRequest. This enables even more establishments to distribute their availability through NightsBridge’s extensive network of local and international marketing channels.
If you want to take realtime bookings online and update your websites or agents with live availability data, your inventory needs to be updated somewhere. The best place to get the availability information is the system where you add all your bookings. E.g. when you get an email or phone booking, it goes into your front-office booking system (Property Management System, or PMS). Read more
The Consumer Protection Act
T
he Consumer Protection Act came into force in South Africa in 2011. Basically this is an act that protects consumers and brings legislation in South Africa in line with the legislation that exists in many first world countries.
It means that the consumer is entitled to get what he expects. So be aware of the expectations you raise if there is a possibility that you can’t fulfil them.
This includes overbooking since you are then contracting to sell a room which you actually don’t have available. Read more
How Blogging can Increase your Website Bookings
“No one comes to your website to be entertained. They have questions they think you can answer. Content answers questions.” ~ Jay Baer, Convince and Convert
The Phantom Forest Eco Reserve’s blog posts include mouthwatering recipies and green living tips
Regular, relevant and useful content published on your website will ensure that visitors will want to share items from it, revisit it and be comfortable enough to book through it.
If people spend more time on your site, they are more likely to become a customer. Provide them with useful information to read through and they will be more likely to book online. The simplest way to group all of this additional content together is in blog format. Read more
NightsBridge Tips from Knysna Country House
The Knysna Country House website has a Book Online link to NightsBridge on every page of its website
Erik Ekkelkamp and Ypie Kingma from Knysna Country House have been very successful in generating direct online bookings using NightsBridge. We asked Erik and Ypie to share their tips about how they use NightsBridge as a marketing, sales and business management tool. This is what they had to say:
How long have you been using NightsBridge?
We have been using the NightsBridge front desk booking system, online distribution tools as well as the booking link on our website since December 2010. NightsBridge was already installed when we took over our property. Ypie had used NightsBridge at another B&B for four years already.
What have you found to be the best position for the online booking feature on your website?
We have a “Book Online” link on every page of our website. This is located prominently on the right under the main image. We think that it is important that this link is on every page to increase direct online bookings.
Approximately how many channels do you link to via the NightsBridge links manager?
We link to about 30 different channels. Read more
More Tips on Great Content
As we discussed in our previous blog post, rich content is very important in all your online marketing efforts.
Let’s discuss a few more tips on upgrading what you have online at the moment: Read more