listing sites

[aasta]

Hello!!

We are busy renovating and hope to be open by early December....!!!!
We are working on our website...will post a review request soon
Since our budget is shrinking daily due to unforeseen problems (we knew this would happen), we are now wondering which sites to post our B&B on. A fellow innkeeper has suggested JustBedand Breakfast.com....which is suprisingly inexpensive...anyone have experience with this site?
And some of the sites we´ve looked at seem to be geared more towards selfcatering than B&B...
all advise appreciated...regards, aasta

[brenda]

If you want to reach people over the whole of Europe we find homelidays.com brings us more bookings than anyone else - we have had 17 bookings from them this year.

By the way, is the address correct for the site you have been recommended? Nothing coming up for me when I try it except a page for Belfast! Do you mean justbedandbreakfast.net - if so I would only use this as a secondary advertising site as I do not think it is well known enough - to owners or renters - to bring a great deal of enquiries.

[CSE]

Once you have got your official registration number try
http://www.toprural.com/
Works very well for us

[pepsipuss]

I agree with Brenda. Homelidays reaches everywhere, you can usually get a couple of months free in exchange for a website link, and the price to list B&B is cheaper than for rentals.

I haven't tried justbedandbreakfast but my experience of this sort of site is that it delivers zilch.

[aasta]

thanks for the feedback. Have any of you listed with Sawday`s Special Places to Stay. a new edition is coming our for Portugal in april and we would have to hurry to be appraised for a possible inclusion...but the fee is a hefty 500 English Pounds...so we are very hesitant and probably will not do it....regards, aasta

[pepsipuss]

If we were looking to build our B&B into something more than a hobby which brings in some nice extra cash I would definitely want to be in Sawday. We never travelled without it when we used to do touring holidays.

However it used to be the case that you had to have been in operation for some time before they would approve you - don't know if this is still the case.

[brenda]

For your first couple of seasons as you try to get established I would personally spread 500 Pounds of my advertising budget over more popular/wide reaching sites rather than on Sawdays. Once you have some experience of running the B+B is the time to go for a specialised publication.

[pepsipuss]

For your first couple of seasons as you try to get established I would personally spread 500 Pounds of my advertising budget over more popular/wide reaching sites rather than on Sawdays. Once you have some experience of running the B+B is the time to go for a specialised publication.

I agree with Brenda. Even if they are willing to inspect you at this stage it is almost certainly worth waiting for the next edition as the review they write will be with you for ever - many people keep their Sawday books for donkey's years - and you will have a steep learning curve for the first couple of years. You may well find that you make a lot of positive changes during that time which you will want to be reflected in your write-up.

Rentalia may be worth a shot. It is just Spain and Portugal, in a variety of languages, and although we tend to get very few enquiries the conversion rate is nearly 100%! They offer a free two month trial.