by Heather T. | Mar 9, 2020 | Bed and Breakfasts, Lodging, Marketing, Operations, Opinion
Threat or Opportunity? I’d say a bit of both. People are scared. I’ll admit I am one of those people that has that nagging feeling in the back of my skull going, “pay attention, pay attention!” and I admit we are prepared to go for several weeks if under self (or otherwise) quarantine if need be. But we prepared for that in advance because we have been through situations like being out of power for more than a week in below zero temperatures several times among other life events. It only takes one life learning lesson to forever be ready for this.
Families and businesses need to think about these things, up here in New Hampshire, while we are less likely to have a major earthquake (it could happen) we could have floods, we could have forest fires if we have another severe dry season. A business needs to be prepared. I won’t parrot the hundreds of websites telling you what you should have to stock up on because Google is your best buddy for that, please don’t go and buy up all the toilet paper in the store, others need it to (bonus for innkeepers though you probably already have a pretty good backstock) but regardless of whether the virus scare affects your property or not, this is a good reminder that you should have those supplies in place anyway.
The virus scare if you think about it, isn’t any different from a major tornado, flood, hurricane or earthquake affecting a property. A bit better actually, any of those listed can result in a loss not just of business revenue but of a property itself. At least this is just lost revenue, your property could have washed away in a flood…… Not to make light of this but to put it into perspective.
I think lodging facilities have some opportunities here that they should take advantage of.
One is educating the public about how a B&B is also your home, you as owners/occupiers/innkeepers are good about sanitation over and above a hotel or motel or Airbnb anyway in a normal situation. I’d much rather stay at B&B normally anyway but especially right now rather than a hotel not just by choice but because I’m pretty sure it’s a heck of a lot more sanitary then your average hotel is at the moment.
Two, yes revenue may and probably will go down for the next few months as travelers are canceling vacations and business trips, but this presents a unique opportunity to capture eyeballs online. If I had to self-quarantine and I could not work at home for whatever reason, I will be in the category of what are most people going to be doing and spending time on if stuck at home or elsewhere? On Social Media of course.
The average innkeeper does not have a ton of time to leverage social media because they are working 24/7, think of this as mud season in New England, it’s the slow time of year when you can get caught up with things. Funny enough and lucky enough at least for New Englanders its almost mud season, so the timing could be a lot worse.
Use this opportunity to start pre-writing posts, take more pictures of your breakfast and your property and planning out some marketing for the rest of the year. When and I will stick with “when” everything is sorted out, people will want to get out and resume normal activities, including putting those vacation plans that got canceled back into consideration. Getting in front of their eyeballs when they are literally a captive audience is a great opportunity.
If you don’t know how to use a social media platform, Google is your friend, but so are the channels themselves, there are so many free resources out there to help a business owner better leverage themselves online. Take the opportunity to educate yourself a bit more instead of letting stress overwhelm you, as that doesn’t accomplish anything (aside from weakening your immune system) so one more reason to keep yourself occupied. Again not trying to make light of the situation but being realistic.
So what happens if it doesn’t blow over, what if we have a major pandemic? I don’t know, no one can know but isn’t it better to be proactive for when it does blow over rather than saying if it doesn’t?
There has been a lot of articles reiterating the same thing, wash your hands, sanitize, etc, yes please do all of those but not many articles out there as yet with actual good suggestions on how and what to do to weather this situation. Here are two recent ones of note that I would suggest a read through though because I think they had some good ideas for innkeepers to take note of:
How Can Hotels Survive the Coronavirus? Some good advice if your property is concerned: Six lessons emerge. All of her touchpoints are important but I think Be wary of broad-scale discounting and Don’t cut your marketing budget (and I’ll add to this, even if you are not spending money, the marketing budget is your own time, it’s ROTI, Return on Time Investment, boost that, not cut it) are two things to take special note of.
Does Your Property Have A Coronavirus Strategy? Is another suggested read. Of note here (and he also recommends staying away from the deep discounting) Mandate a “single voice policy” for all employees and departments (yourself) and Provide honest and up-to-date information regarding the situation in the hotel location/destination are both important for a property to note.
ALP has published several blog posts with resources and we will continue to keep it updated with new articles and resources as well.
What else can you do in the interim, I personally love the Beechmere Inn’s approach to this, educating their guests about what the facility is doing to help protect guests, but I also had a question raised by an innkeeper client of mine, “Well what happens if you still have a guest catch the virus (at your inn) or a guest infects others?” Will I get sued?” “Americans are so sue happy, what do you think?”. I’ll be honest I don’t know if someone came to stay at an inn and they were sick with any kind of issue and infected others the impetuous should be on them, but I am not a lawyer.
If you did everything you could to protect guests you did all you could. I’ll take a recent example of the first case diagnosed in New Hampshire for this. The person was told to stay home, he did not and went out and went to a private event and infected at least one if not more (news developing apparently) people, the facility this happened at is handling this well and being proactive. But that kind of thing is just stupidity at its finest and you can only do what you can do.
I don’t believe in fear-mongering and I don’t think it helps if innkeepers are posting all over the place about this, but I don’t think it hurts to help educate guests now and in the future about the safety of your facility, it can be done in a polite and in a no scare tactic way manner.
When life goes back to normal, people are probably still going to stay fairly local, so if you have not yet invested time into researching and targeting the staycation/localcation market, now is a good time to spiff up on that as well. Use this as an opportunity to get your property out there. Run a SWOT analysis on what your B&B can do to mitigate and potentially profit from this long term when we recover from this, and I’ll stick with the “when” not the “if”. In the famous words of Yoda (if he was a marketing guru) “Marketing Never Stop”.
And as an additional note (updated 3/11/2020) I take this very seriously, my own business along with many others besides just the hospitality industry is, and will continue to be, affected. Having several large projects put on hold for an indefinite period of time IS very concerning, but I am going to use this as an opportunity to learn and increase my knowledge of things that can help myself and my clients in the future. If we go down the rabbit hole of depression and inaction, when recovery time comes around, it makes it that much harder to rebound when it’s time.
by Heather T. | Feb 27, 2020 | Bed and Breakfasts, Marketing, Operations, Security
Many businesses large and small don’t think about creating a social media crisis strategic plan until after the fact. I liken it to not backing up your personal and business information from your computer or computers until after the fire that guts your office or the flood that sweeps away the business.
Planning ahead and at least getting a handle on how you would approach an online crisis before it happens is key to helping your business survive an incident without you having to have a mental breakdown during a situation. This can cause an enormous amount of stress between employees and management or partners and spouses/significant others. Or if you are not that concerned about a full-scale online meltdown but simply want to be better prepared when you have a review or two that is negative and you need a plan in place for how to handle it this can be useful to at least do the basics.
I wrote this out a few years ago for a client’s use and just recently updated it and thought it may be helpful to post it as I see many reputation management companies out there making suggestions but not many give (or any I could find easily at least) actual step by step guidelines and suggestions for what to do. I would guess they want you to pay for it but it’s an important topic that many small businesses may not and do not have in the budget to employ a company to handle and manage this.
You can download this in (PDF) Social Media Strategic Plan for Crisis or MSWord Social Media Strategic Plan for Crisis, and here is the text to review if you would like to peruse what constitutes putting a plan in place. This is an outline to be modified or tweaked as needed and to customize it to your own business. Be safe and be prepared! (and backup your information too!!!) Please feel free to take it and adapt for use, if you are going to copy it and use it for distribution, some credit would be appreciated, if you are going to copy it for your own and sell it for a fee, karma will come around and bite you at some point and you are not a good human being, enough said.
Strategy for Social Media Crisis for “Your Business“
Date Created:
Date last updated:
Facebook-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Twitter-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Team Member: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Team Member: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Pinterest-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Access to shared boards: Yes No Yes, which specific ones:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Access to shared boards: Yes No Yes, which specific ones:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Youtube-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Youtube Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Communications Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Youtube Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Communications Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Instagram-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Google My Business-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• GMB Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Site Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• GMB Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Site Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Yelp-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Other Social Media Channels-Who has Access? For Lodging Add Tripadvisor and OTAs, for other hospitality, any other specific platforms that take reviews.
Cut and paste and put the level of access in if applicable:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
What channels and programs are being used to monitor company reputation online? (Be specific) include costs if applicable.
How often are those channels be checked?
Who is responsible for company online monitoring?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
Define what a crisis is
Single Event VS Massive Online Meltdown: (Define)
Single Event (i.e. a comment) VS Single Event that Snowballs (i.e. it keeps getting larger): (Define)
What constitutes an online crisis to your company (be specific if possible)?
What are some of the repercussions your company can face in the event of an online crisis?
Who will be the point person in responding to online crisis events? (Add contact information here)
Who is a secondary person (in the event the first is not available or additional help is needed)? (Add contact information here)
Who needs to be informed of an online crisis? (Add contact information here) Add secondary people who can make recommendations and directions in the event the key people are not available.
And what are the steps and procedures point people need to follow in order to inform the above?
Who should an employee or company contact get in touch within the event something is seen online that the company needs to address? (Add contact information here)
What steps should a point person take immediately if they are unable to get a response from a key person in charge of decisions?
Examples: Unpublish the Facebook Business Page, Deactivate Twitter account (you have 30 days to recover it), Instagram: temporarily deactivate account, Pinterest: temporarily deactivate account, Youtube: turn off commenting, etc. (major crisis)
Or
Delete posts, pins, boards, videos etc. (minor issue)
++Keep in mind people screenshot, so just deleting something doesn’t necessarily mean the problem will go away if someone saw it and took a screenshot or more it can resurface.
Who is responsible for company online monitoring?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:
What are the goals you want accomplished?
Examples: minimize publicity etc.
Damage control doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and attention to it.
Who can your company reach out to to minimize impact and even out bad reviews or other bad publicity?
Examples: employees, past customers, business supporters, press.
If you have press contacts, who are they and how can a company contact them?
What message in a crisis do you want to be conveying?
What can you put out there to promote and reinforce your brand’s core message?
What are your company’s values?
What is your company’s value proposition to your customer base?
In the event of an online crisis, what guidelines for each platform should your point people be following?
For example: Facebook-delete post or respond (outline a standard response)
Yelp reviews- respond (outline a standard response)
Google My Business reviews- respond (outline a standard response)
What follow-up and addition steps can be taken to mitigate an online crisis?
Press Releases-Who will write, who will have input
Website Statement-Who will write, who will have input
Social Media Statement-Who will write, who will have input
Response templates for reviews: Customize to suit the platform, a Facebook response may not be worded quite the same way as you would word a Google My Business review or post:
Facebook:
Instagram:
Twitter: (keep in mind the 280 character count)
Google:
Yelp:
Other channels:
-Write up an initial response for each, a brief response acknowledging and the situation. This needs to go out as soon as there is a problem.
-Write up follow up responses, there will be two main types, responses to worried concerned people and responses to very unhappy/mad people.
-Create responses for key people as well. A moderator may be posting on behalf of the company owner or manager but it needs to be labeled as a response from that source.
What are some questions that might be asked by people in the event of an online crisis? Write some template responses in how to address these common questions.
What follow-up will you do online and off in the event of an online crisis and for how long?
If a crisis, even a minor one occurs, note what were the results of this, what could you have done differently? What did not go as planned? Did the process for addressing a problem go well? If not what could be tweaked to make it better if something happens in the future?
Reputation Management Checklist for Platforms
Google My Business/Google Maps= Checked Listing
Yes No
No: Check
Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim
Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix
Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up
Yelp = Checked Yelp Listing
Yes No
No: Check
Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim
Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix
Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up
Checked Bing Local Listing http://www.bing.com/businessportal
Yes No
No: Check
Claimed Ownership of listing Yes No
Yes No
No; Claim
Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix
Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up
Checked Yahoo Local Listing/Yext
Yes No
No: Check
Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim
Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix
Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up
++Note about Yahoo listings, the site signup is confusing, this article may help https://localmarketinginstitute.com/yahoo-free-business-listing/
Optional Merchant Circle, Manta, Other directories
Other services and monitoring:
Check to see if your business name is taken on social networks:
http://namechk.com/
http://knowem.com/
-Don’t sign up for the service, just use it check (and be cognizant of the fact that they don’t seem to be right 100% of the time)
Free Reputation alerts:
http://google.com/alerts (put in quotes for better return results)
Real time search (twitter) https://twitter.com/search-advanced
Paid:
• https://mention.com/en/
• https://sproutsocial.com/plans-and-pricing/
There are additonal paid monitoring services out there, use your judgement, get a demo, talk to other companies who have used them. Benchmark any reports and results if you pay for it.
by Heather T. | Oct 15, 2019 | Bed and Breakfasts, Email, Email Marketing
Most Bed and Breakfasts don’t do email marketing, or they do it sporadically with no rhyme or reason behind content, consistency or branding.
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post, Email Marketing for Bed and Breakfasts and I find myself over and over again when asked by B&Bs, what are some things that B&Bs need to do for marketing and over and over again I recommend email marketing, so I thought it was time to revisit this.
Why do I say B&Bs need to Own email marketing? Because until they own up to the fact that it’s one of the best ways to retain past guests and convert lookers to bookers, they will continue to spend time, and money on non-targeted marketing that brings them a fraction of the return on both time and money investment.
Yes, I teach social media for a living, so yes I am a big fan of social media marketing, but I also help create and assist with email marketing campaigns for B&Bs and other businesses and I know without a shadow of a doubt that email marketing is one of the very best investments in time and money that innkeepers can spend time on online doing.
Yes, it can be time-consuming (but so is changing sheets and cooking breakfasts).
Yes, it’s a pain to be coming up with new ideas and content (but so is coming up with the same for social media including blog posts).
Yes, there can be a learning curve learning the online channels for email distribution like Mail Chimp and Constant Contact among many others (but it’s not a huge one and all of the online offerings have extensive help pages many including videos).
Yes, starting from scratch can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a base of legitimately sourced emails to start with, (but with so many places to get emails, asking guests if they would like to be added, adding an email subscription form to social media and to your website/blog among other things it doesn’t take much time to build up a decent list).
Yes there can be an expense, (but even using paid offerings (Mailchimp is free for 2,000 Contacts and 10,000 email sends per month, Constant Contact $20.00 on up per month to start as examples) the cost and return of email marketing far outweigh Facebook ads and Boosted posts and pretty much any other social media advertising as well as Google PPC ads).
Having the mindset (and the time) to sit down and tackle doing email for a B&B is what most innkeepers tell me is the biggest challenge. And so they don’t do them. They almost always say, “we know we should be doing them”, but they don’t do them.
I say this to Innkeepers, put a price tag on your time. If you start out with an email list of only 200 people, if you title the email subject line enticingly and put some decent content in, the odds that someone will book a room or an upcoming vacation is exponentially higher than putting some posts out on Facebook to your page with 600 likes (of which under 3% of the people who have liked your page will see the post unless you pay to play, i.e. Boost a post).
If it takes you an hour to write and distribute your email blast and your time is worth to you $50.00 an hour, even $100.00 per hour, and you get 2 bookings for it isn’t it worth it? Once you are comfortable sending emails out, the time it takes decreases dramatically. Once your email list grows, the amount of bookers you get from hooking them in from an email also increases dramatically. This is your time = incoming reservations.
If you haven’t done email marketing before and you have just dabbled, before you jump in headfirst, do some ground laying.
Looking for ideas? Start subscribing to other email newsletters, not just other B&Bs, hotels have some terrific ones they put out (remember they have huge marketing teams working on them), so do other lodging types as well as many other types of businesses. I’ve seen some excellent emails and subject lines from online retailers, similar to hotels, these guys have huge marketing teams as well working on them, lurk and learn, lurk and learn, and stalk thy competition (if they do email marketing),
When you start getting emails in (and yes I know it’s more email) but it’s also market research so well worth it. Make sure you eyeball these on a smartphone as well, some emails look dandy on a desktop but not so good when you are trying to read it in 3 X 6 format, even mobile-friendly templates sometimes don’t render well if photos or text is too small to read easily.
Step one is categorizing them. In Gmail for example, I have a folder for B&B’s newsletters, I have another for Associations, another for restaurants, another for misc. interesting email newsletters and quite a few more. Pretty much all email programs hosted online and off (Outlook etc.) let you put in emails in folders or categories, but these doesn’t get utilized much for marketing research purposes.
Step two is making some notes. Do you like the layouts, do you like the color schemes, what color schemes and layouts can you do that will be in line with your already developed online branding. Don’t read them one by one as they come in, as they come in, just stick them in the folders and look at when you have more then a few to review. You will start to see some trends, some good, some bad, learn from both.
Step three is writing down and bookmarking Subject lines, they don’t have to be B&B related, start keeping track of the emails you get, especially ones from businesses and jot down “why” the subject line got you to open it if it was a marketing email. Did it pique your interest? Did it make you go, “I want to learn more?” Did it make you want to agree (or disagree) with something? Keep track of articles and blog posts too. Bookmark them. A local spa’s email titled last year, “The Secret to the Best Massage You Will Ever Have,” can easily be revamped and re-tweaked. “The Secret to the Best Vacation You Will Ever Have”.
The subject line and pre-header are the keys to a good marketing email and to good open rates. You can spend hours, nay days on perfecting the perfect content for your email newsletter but if you can’t get someone to open the email in the first place, then all was for naught.
Step four is deciding the content, and by deciding content, figure out what things you are going to touch on, don’t write the content itself for it. Decide whether you are going to feature three topics (maybe four if you wrote a recent blog article you want to draw attention to) or more, I wouldn’t suggest too many more. So an example would be, One: your special offer for the month or a special for an upcoming holiday. Two would be a local event that gets a big draw (coinciding with the special offer you have) and three, a recipe (or another topic). Fini.
Once you have your categories in place, figure out your marketing schedule. 3 weeks to once per month sends seems to work well for B&Bs, 6 weeks between at the very most. Quarterly emails seem to have a much higher rate of unsubscribes because people actually forgot they were subscribed. I’d be cautious with sending out too many emails per month unless they are extremely targeted emails as people get email fatigue and it also leads to high unsubscribe rates unless you have truly excellent, useful content to share every single time. Get out your calendar and make a commitment.
Give yourself a week lead time to put it in your schedule so you can start working on your selected content and portion it out.
The Monday before the date you have scheduled to do the email blast, take 10 minutes and write up your special offer (it may already be written and posted on your website or blog). Make sure you have a good eye catching, legally sourced (or your own or your pbotographer’s) picture ready to go with it.
Tuesday, spend 5 minutes researching that event you are going to include (you may have already gotten the information for your website or blog as well, so you are already done with that aspect), Make sure you have a good eye catching, legally sourced (or your own or your photographer’s) picture ready to go with it, I always recommend buying photos from a legitimate stock photo site is recommended if you don’t have your own to use. I happen to like Dreamstime.com. If you are going to use a photo from the event page, make sure you get permission, preferably in writing.
Wednesday, make sure your recipe (with a photo) is good to go, or whatever other topic you pick. This can change but make sure you have a list of ideas for them in advance (as alternatives) that you can cherry-pick from, sometimes garnering that last idea for an email is what sinks many of them ever getting done.
Thursday, set up your email in a draft and spellcheck it, make sure the links work and send a test draft to yourself, also check the test draft on mobile as many people will be reading it on their smartphones.
Photos with too much detail don’t look great on smartphones so sending a room photo or food photo with too much small detail in it will not get the impact that a simple, clear well lit, uncluttered photo will gather.
Friday, gear up for a busy booked weekend and not have to worry about spending lots of time over the weekend (when you need to spend important time with guests and the actual physical running of your B&B) and be ready to send it out at the day and time of your choosing the following week stress free.
What’s the perfect time to send out a B&B newsletter? That’s a great question I don’t have a perfect answer for, it depends on your guest demographic and geographic bases. If you are an East Coast innkeeper and the majority of your guests (and email addresses) are from drastically different time zones, sending it out on Tuesday at 10 AM may land your email in busy email boxes of people who have not yet started the workday or perhaps arrived in the middle of the night.
A tip when asking for email addresses, get some location information from guests or signup forms (make sure you have a GDPR policy in place too) and segment your mailings.
- A few lodging email titles I’ve bookmarked over years that I just love:
How to Have an Awesome Vacation in 5 Easy Steps
Relaxation Trends for 2020
Tips for Choosing the Right B&B for Your Next Romantic Getaway
Breakfasts that We Love and Why You Will Love Them Too!
Ways to Get Away and Relax Without Breaking the Bank
Wrong Ways to Book a Room and How to Book it the Right Way
Key Benefits of Taking a Vacation in New England
3 Rules For the Making the Most of Your Vacation
10 Point Checklist for Getting Away and Getting Away from it ALL!
B&B or Airbnb, 10 Reasons why to stay at a REAL B&B
How to Create the Perfect Vacation and Remember it Forever
How to Save Yourself from a Terrible Vacation
How to Take Control of Your Time Off
Why REAL B&Bs Beat Airbnbs every time
How a Fabulous Breakfast can Inspire You To Embrace Life
How Our B&B Could Save Your Relationship (this was a hotel originally ?
What No One Tells You About about Vacation Rentals
Where to Find the Secret to Relax and Refresh Your Body, Mind, and Spirit.
Why Not All Vacation Getaways Are Created Equal
The Ultimate Vacation Cheat Sheet
Please innkeepers, go start a regular email blast to past-guests and new ones, you will find the return on it is well worth it.
by Heather T. | Aug 9, 2019 | Bed and Breakfasts, Lodging, Opinion
Yes, this is a bit of a rant and I won’t apologize for it because this makes me quite angry, actually, it totally fries me. I work with REAL B&Bs, and yes we do encourage B&Bs to list on Airbnb, know and utilize thy frenemy so to speak. It takes less of a commission then the OTAs (Booking.com, Expedia, etc.) among other things. A REAL B&B is one that is licensed, insured and yes inspected (at least in the US) to serve breakfast, many having to take Servsafe Courses as well as having many other business licenses to operate as a legitimate business.
I have a Google alert set up for Bed and Breakfasts daily for new Bed and Breakfasts opening, B&Bs in the news, new ideas on specials and packages that I can suggest to other B&Bs, B&Bs closing, a write up about them and other things B&B related. Pretty much every damn day in my alerts, I get at least one “New B&B opening in XXX”, “Bed and Breakfast offers Unique Package to Visitors”, “Bed and Breakfast Burns to the Ground, people barely escape,” “B&B fights new zoning rules”, “Man dies at B&B when using swing, branch falls and kills him,” “Kitten B&B open in New Jersey” and on and on. I have to admit that the last one was super cute but I digress. All of these headlines are NOT about REAL B&Bs, they are about Airbnbs, which many journalists synonymously interchange these words throughout the articles as if it were the same thing.
I have nothing personally against Airbnb or the average person running a small-scale Airbnb, but the industry I work with, REAL B&Bs, are most definitely affected by it. I know way too many B&Bs that have gone out of business because they can’t compete with market and lodging saturation from local Airbnbs.
Why would someone stay at a REAL B&B if they can stay at an Airbnb for cheaper? AH HA, So they think anyway. If one adds up the costs of staying at an Airbnb, plus Airbnb fees, plus cleaning fees, it is generally comparable to what the local B&B costs for the same type of room, but a real B&Bs costs already include those cleaning fees and amenities built-in, plus you get breakfast. AND if you break a leg going down those pocket stairs in the back, they do have liability insurance to cover it (Unlike most Airbnbs).
Not even going there about Airbnbs serving food, aside from the fact that you go to an Airbnb and get deathly ill, do you think their insurance will cover it? Probably not. Enough said (for now). From a long history of food service on my end, I’d get up in arms if a local place opened up its door and called itself a café, but had no inspections, no visits from “the Man”, no legal venue to serve food at. I’d have a cow.
Grandma renting out her spare room because she needs to supplement her Social Security, good for her! Parents renting out their son’s room to help pay off college tuition, I get it! Landlords taking whole rental properties off the regular housing market, in Seattle for instance, I found one apartment building with over 50 units, all renting them out on Airbnb. No, definitely no! For those out there that think Airbnb is the next best thing after sliced bread, ever have a discussion with someone looking for a long-term house rental in New Orleans or Toronto? Please do! It’s very enlightening.
I could go on about the unfairness of REAL B&Bs having to pay all of the things that a regular business has to pay, regular taxes, inspection fees, liability insurance, advertising, having to pay for business taxes including a an actual website to advertise, commissions to the OTAs, ridiculous website accessibility lawsuits, etc, but that’s not the point, it’s that many journalists are helping blur the line and spread the misconception that an Airbnb is the same exact thing as a REAL B&B.
It springs to mind a conversation I had with a friend fairly recently, she had just come back from traveling to the Hudson Valley in New York state. “Oh we stayed at this lovely Bed and Breakfast in the Upper Valley! It was so cute, the lady had a couple of small children who were really sweet and she made this fantastic sausage frittata for us the day we left”. “Which B&B?” I asked, as I know many of them there but none sprang to mind where the innkeeper’s small children were underfoot. “Oh I don’t know, she didn’t have a name, we found her on Airbnb.” It was (after looking it up because I was curious) an actual Airbnb, not a B&B, but my friend didn’t know it wasn’t the same thing, we had a rather lengthy conversation after that about the differences.
Ironically she went on to say that as they were driving back to Pennsylvania, both she and her husband got quite sick in the afternoon (remember that frittata?), she blamed it on the restaurant they ate at the night before. On average food poisoning takes two to six hours to affect someone and while eating contaminated food occasionally can take a few days to affect someone, I’d venture to guess it wasn’t the restaurant food that got her and her hubbie both having to make pit stops every ½ hour on the way home, a 5 hour trip, apparently it was not a fun drive back, can’t imagine why. No comment from the peanut gallery on that one because nothing is needed……..
And people wonder why there is so much confusion about is it an Airbnb or a REAL B&B, journalists are not helping. I am not going to cry fake news, because it’s not fake, it’s uneducated. I’ve had over a dozen conversations with journalists doing articles in the past year about B&Bs, the state of the industry and other topics, and to almost every one of them I had to explain the difference between an Airbnb and a REAL actually living and breathing B&B, and it’s sad that it takes that to have to open their eyes. For those that think I have a hard on for Airbnb, please re-read the 6th paragraph down, I don’t but I do have an issue with them not being differentiated from REAL B&Bs, and for large landlords making money at the expensive of people in tight housing markets.
Please, dear Journalists, read up on the difference between an Airbnb and a REAL B&B, talk to some Airbnbs and REAL B&Bs and educate yourself on the difference so you can help educate others, look into some of the state and regional B&B associations many of which have inspection and other standards for their members, confusing the masses is quite frankly not helping anyone and it’s certainly not helping innkeepers who can actually claim the title of innkeeper legally. ☹
by Heather T. | Apr 11, 2019 | Bed and Breakfasts, Food
This past January one of the sessions I ran was “In the Kitchen Time Savers”, and I had a slide about compound butters. Interestingly enough, most of the questions I got at the tail end of the session were asking about the butters, I had innkeepers tracking me down after the session to ask about them and innkeepers are still emailing me, the one this morning actually is the one that prompted me to write this up.
What I have been asked about primarily is some suggestions and any tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years. So here goes……
Realistically almost anything can be made into a compound butter, aside from the usual types, you can add finely chopped smoked bacon or diced smoked salmon, lobster butter is also quite lovely, especially on top of a nice omelet or poached egg, also quite good on savory waffles as well. Smoked salmon and dill butter on a sweet potato pancake or waffle is a tasty combination. Method, soften the butter, throw into a mixer, whip, add ingredients, roll into logs, refrigerate and serve.
Using a hot knife to cut the logs is suggested (running under hot water or having a bain marie filled with hot water if you are going to cut a bunch makes it much easier to cut) be sure to wipe the blade down to remove any water first. There are cheese and butter cutters with waffle cuts that can make some fun patterns as well when cutting.
The sky and your imagination are all that hold you back. The one rule of thumb is if something tastes good with butter on it (the exception being a steak, I have tried making a compound butter with it, and it’s “interesting”) it’s generally going to taste good as a compound butter mix.
When in doubt, try micro batches. I prefer using my KitchenAid Mixer to make compounds, but if experimenting, I would use a regular small bowl and spatula to test and just do a tablespoon at a time.
Use unsalted butter to start, add Kosher Salt to taste, I prefer Diamond brand Kosher salt as other Koshers tend to be saltier and textured differently. Even with fruit butter, a pinch of salt brings the flavors out. Using iodized salt in compound butter is just gross, sorry, but it is.
While you can use plastic wrap to make the butter logs, I prefer parchment paper as it makes a more even roll, wrap well in plastic wrap after to ward off refrigerator or freezer odors.
You can set the compound butter in a large square or oval dish and use a butter curler to make individual curls as well, just be sure that any compound butters you are using with a butter curler are smooth, chunky butters like nut or chopped fruit will not curl well. I have also cut out shapes with a cookie cutter, like hearts and stars and reused the leftover butter bits for something else.
Compound butters can be cut from the log and served on a plate as an accompaniment, put in small ramekins to serve or placed directly on your entree or side, they are so versatile and I always found it fun to watch a guest in a dining room ohh and ahh over a lovely roasted pepper compound butter strategically placed on top of their stuffed sole melting slowly down over it. Where oh where was Instagram 20+ years ago?
Toasting any spices in a cast iron past before use (cool down before adding to the butter mix) brings out most flavors.
Fresh Herbs are always the way to go when making compound butters, dried herbs, even if rehydrated, never have the same flavor and the color is not a poppy as well.
I also recommend using fresh garlic and ginger, while powdered does work as well, you will get a better flavor from using fresh ingredients. If you are using a recipe, even one you have developed, taste the garlic or ginger first before adding, I suggest this about most herbs as well. One head of garlic can have a hugely different flavor from another head, that one tablespoon of chopped garlic per one pound of butter may be perfect one time, but overwhelm or underwhelm the next.
If using alcohol or liquors for the compound butters, burning off the alcohol in advance is best, let cool before adding to the mix.
If putting citrus in butters, don’t just use the juice, cut out the supremes (the segments) and chop up and use as well. Tip; using canned mandarin oranges (drain well first) makes excellent citrus butters.
For using other fruits and nuts in butter, puree or finely chop in a food processor before adding them to the whipped butter.
I try to keep most compound butters less then a week, the shelf life will vary depending on the ingredients, if you are making large batches, I’d suggest freezing them (very well wrapped to negate odors) for less than two months. Optimally a month is best. I have kept compound butters In the freezer longer with no ill effects, but again it depends on the ingredients used.
Making homemade butter is always a treat to use as a compound. Because compound butters usually don’t keep for long, the normal shelf life of homemade butter (2-3 weeks) generally doesn’t come into play. I personally love Kate’s Homemade Butter, which I think is one of the best butters out there, I prefer it above even Plugra. Please use a good butter, even if a little more expensive, the flavor makes a difference and guests notice, good ingredients are so important. It’s like cooking with cheap wine, your sauce will taste a million times better if you buy that $13.00 bottle of 19 Crimes Red Blend and use half and drink half vs the $6 cooking wine. It doesn’t have to break the bank just up the game a little.
Keep in mind when making compounds you want to think of the end results and what you intend to do with them, are they to compliment a dish you make frequently? Is it to go on every table daily to accompany muffins that may change flavor daily or scones? Experimenting is fun, but think about when you batch compound butters, is this something you are going to end up with a lot extra of, and even if frozen will it languish in the freezer until you have to throw it out to make room for something else?
These are some of my favorites I’ve made over the years:
Sweet Butters
• Dried Blueberry and Lavender Butter
• Honey Grand Marnier Butter (also good with Toasted Walnuts or Pecans)
• Toasted Pecan and Maple Butter
• Orange Honey Butter
• Ginger and Grapefruit Butter
• Chocolate and Black Pepper Butter
• Dark Chocolate and Toasted Hazelnut Butter
• Blackberry and Sage Butter
• Mango and Ginger Butter (Mango puree works the best for this).
• Dried Cherry and Bourbon Butter
• Strawberry and Toasted Walnut Butter
• Raspberry and Chocolate Mint Butter
• Banana and Cumin Butter (with a touch of honey)
• Cinnamon Maple Butter
• Blueberry and Cardamom Butter
Sweet or Savory
• Reduced Balsamic Butter (or you can cheat and use something like Blaze’s Reduced Balsamic)
• Chocolate Balsamic Butter
• Mexican Chocolate and Chili Butter
• Honey Sriracha Butter
• Red Wine or Port Butter (always reduce the wine or port to a ¼ of its original for the best flavor, I like using Port better as it has a somewhat sweeter final taste, also yummy with some dark cocoa power dashed in)
• Blood Orange and Ginger Butter
• Macha Tea and Ginger Butter
• Roasted Apricot and Thyme Butter
• Pink Peppercorn and Grapefruit Butter
• Roasted (or Grilled) Pear and Agave Butter (Puree the pears in advance or chop very finely)
• Blueberry and Thyme Butter
• Roasted Peach and Mint Butter
• Poppyseed and Lemon Butter
• Fig and Honey Butter
Savory Butters
• Garlic and (any herb) Butter
• Lime and Cilantro Butter
• Honey Mustard and Dill Butter
• Roasted Cerignola Olive and Rosemary Butter
• Chipotle and Smoked Paprika Butter
• Jalapeno, Lime and Cilantro butter
• Lemon and Dill Butter
• Chive and Whole Grain Mustard Butter
• Caramelized Onion or Shallot Butter with Cracked Peppercorns (Peppercorn Melange/Mixed Peppercorns are good in this)
• Gooseberry and Ponzu Butter
• Grilled Eggplant and Basil Butter
• Caper and Tarragon Butter
• Roasted Pepper Butter (Red bells will give you a different flavor and color then yellows and oranges)
• Soy Sauce and Lime Butter (I like Citrus Ponzu, Lime and Ginger Butter as well)
• Smoked Tomato and Garlic Butter
• Roasted garlic (and any herb) Butter
• Black Garlic and Rosemary Butter
• Toasted Sesame and Lime Butter
• Kalamata and garlic butter (I like roasting the olives first as it gives an additional dimension to the flavor.
I could go on as there are hundreds, nay thousands of combinations out there, use your imagination and have fun!
by Heather T. | May 15, 2018 | Bed and Breakfasts, Equipment, Marketing
Some quick tips for innkeepers doing DIY photos for websites and social media channels.
- Experiment with height and creating different levels. Use a cutting board or other type of portable surface (cake stands, glasses, trays), etc. Adding some texture, like kitchen towels, napkins and kitchen utensils helps break things up and create visual differences between the focus of the photo (the food) and it’s surroundings.
- Use Negative Space, have spots in the photo where there is “nothing” makes for better photos. When taking closeup shots, add a little space for background or if it’s on china, for the plate to be a part of the picture, ie half a plate, a corner of the plate.
- Use a Tripod For the best photos. If using a smart phone, most full-size tripods or mini tripods now come with, or can be ordered with, smart phone mounts, you just clip your phone right into the mount and shoot away!
- Take a ton of photos, don’t take one or two, don’t take a dozen, take several dozen from various angles including straight down. What looks good on a smart phone may not good on a computer when you see it in large resolution. The more photos you take, the more of a chance you will get a couple of “keepers”.
- The food is the center point of the photo. Props are nice, but they should complement, not overwhelm the food. Taking photos on white plates is best. A colorful prop can be beautiful, but it can easily be the highlight of the picture and grab attention away from the food it’s supposed to be highlighting,
- Garnish is key. Any ingredient can be a garnish and a prop as well, a simple omelet can get “spruced up” by a little chopped parsley or some crumbled cheese and cracked pepper. Simple low prep garnishes are great for food photos. Chopped chives hold up well, as does chopped parsley without browning, crumbled/shredded cheese, chopped or whole nuts, sunflower seeds, ground pepper, chia or poppy seeds, coarse or colored sea salt, chocolate shavings or cocoa powder, coconut flakes, chili flakes, pink peppercorns, dried and fresh berries and fruit. Raid your spice cabinet!
- Do your photo editing on a computer, as mentioned prior, a photo may look great on a smartphone, it will look completely different on a big computer and you will be likely to see imperfections and things you won’t notice on a small screen.
- Build or buy a lightbox, there are a lot of inexpensive ones on the market and they are quite easy to make as well.
Tips for When Just Doing Food Photos (not photos to serve to guests, best when testing out a new recipe, what better way to utilize it when trying it out, use it to play with some photography shots!)
- Use the freshest ingredients, imperfections, even small ones, show up on camera. When specifically doing food “just” for food photos, a leaf of mint “must” be perfect, even small blemishes on fruit show up when in closeups, so heavily eyeball everything.
- Don’t cook it all the way, meat, vegetables and fruit all keep cooking (called carryover cooking) when removed from heat. To keep everything look plump and moist, take it out prior to it just being done to shoot it.
- Aerosol olive oil sprays, as well as spray bottles with room temperate water can liven up dishes and make them glisten in photos, a spray of fine misted water over fresh herbs and fruit gives it that “just picked” look.
Pro-Photographers Food Styling Tip: Capturing steam on camera is always difficult, placing cotton balls (tampons actually work the best) soaked in hot water behind a coffee or tea cup while snapping photos can give you some nice effects.
Free photo editors – lets you edit all your photos online, from one easy place.
Best Apps for Smartphones:
How to build an easy lightbox:
