Lay My Hat

Tivoli wrote:...Malakas!

I don't speak much Greek, but I think that's a rude word, Tivoli! I have been warned never to say it to a stranger.

It's the name all football referees are called when the "wrong" team wins!

It can also be used affectionately among friends, just as the English version can. Unfortunately Google Translate has been written by Americans who don't use that word so they have substituted something else which is never used affectionately. I have now just provided them with an improved translation

I am building up a mailing list ready for advertising to a wider audience, but have a decision to make. Should Owner Holidays include B&B or not? Clearly, I am not interested in hotels, they are well supported by all those listing sites we love, but there are many small B&B's, and they may not be well supported at present.

I guess the big difference is that, like hotels, pricing tends to be per night, whereas all Owner Holidays pricing is by default per week.

But, apart from that, and so long it is clear this is not self-catering, and breakfast is included, I can't see a good reason to exclude all these small B&B owners. It is still a holiday provided by independent owners.

It is, of course, possible in the adverts to display either 'per week' or 'per night' depending on the type of property.

My initial thoughts are no. That's because:

1. The name of your site OwnerHolidays doesn't sound like a place to find B&Bs

2. When looking for a place to stay, people generally aren't looking for either-or. I think that their minds are generally made up already, so including a category that doesn't interest them is a distraction.

Then, I thought yes, because:

AirBnB mixes up everything, as do a number of other sites like BC, so maybe that's what people expect to see.

So, it's pretty clear-cut (not). How about a sister website for B&Bs?

Is your mailing to owners? If so, how big is your list? And how do you prevent it being seen as spam? I think you're on the right track but you need to test your message thoroughly before sending to lots of people. It's so easy to be misunderstood or fail to invoke action. And you only have one chance on your chosen audience because they won't take kindly to a second unsolicited email!

I am gathering my mailing list through previous existing lists I had for my own properties, and primary connections on LinkedIn.

I have about 1400 LinkedIn primary connections, I have been gathering them for some years. Many are from oil and gas business, but then oil and gas professionals also like to take holidays.

Good idea to test it out on a small group first.

Somehow the trick will be to encourage recipients to forward it on to their own contacts.

I don't see anything wrong with including B&B s as long as they are owner operated. It would certainly widen your market. As Ben McNevis says, people usually already know what they're looking for so it would be good to make the two options one of the first filters on search results.

Also some people look for a B&B for a night one or other side of their self catering holiday to help with travelling longer distances.

I still haven’t got to the point of doing my listing yet (soon.....), but following all this with interest.
A number of websites that list accommodation as secondary to the main point of the site (eg pushing a particular area) have various types of accommodation in a menu, including self-catering, B&Bs, hotels, campsites etc etc, so the concept is not unusual (and no I’m not suggesting anything more than S/C and B&Bs!) and I don’t think people would have trouble accepting or navigating it.

I’ve never come across it on a pure listing site, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t work, and be welcomed by both B&B and S/C owners as well as guests (and Rosie’s stopover point is a good one). My feeling is that owners of each type of business are generally complementary rather than in competition, which is good, with a little bit of possible overlap, which is healthy enough, and anything that gets visitors into an area is potentially good for both.

Thanks. I have quite a good LinkedIn profile, and it comes up with lots of suggestion for people to link to, which I can then use to send messages, I am clearly somebody of high repute on LinkedIn ! It does take some time to build a reputation. I am apparently an 'All-Star'.

Many of the suggested connections were B&B owners, so I was just clicking through them to connect, could be of interest to them.

If the information stored is appropriate, it is easy to make the presentation flexible.

ps. sitting at Houston airport waiting for flight, when I return to UK I will be full time on owner holidays, and have a list of improvements to the web site to do arising from excellent feedback.

Another thought - when does a B&B become a hotel? If somebody runs a B&B with twenty rooms, it may officially be a B&B, but it is in all practical purposes a hotel, it is just easier to get the stars, from what I understand from the Hotel Inspector.

So, down the road, I think any subscription should be 'per room', otherwise you might get large B&B owners only paying £50 per annum to advertise, the same as a B&B owner with one room.

There must be ways to do this, it just needs some careful thought.

It can be difficult to police a level playing field. I wonder what Owners Direct did originally. I guess it is easy to check for each listing how many rooms are available.

A starting point might be to have a look at how Visit Britain distinguish between B&B/Guest House/Hotel on their grading schemes. Part of it is facilities, but I don’t know about number of rooms.

I can't get onto the website today to update. Anybody else having the same problem?

It was OK earlier today, but I am having the same problem. will investigate. It is a resource problem - maybe it is becoming too popular .

Must be popular - I'm also getting the 508 error this evening