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202012 Innkeeper Perspectives Shared, Please Don’t Close Maine, Viral Velocity Scenarios
Survey Question: Is Anything Working to Sustain Your Future?
In answer to the above survey question posed to innkeepers on May 5:
35% of innkeepers reported that absolutely nothing was working
13% of innkeepers reported that they have no mortgage.
The majority of innkeepers are hopeful and employing everything they can think of to keep their business viable for the future. Here are a few out takes from last weeks survey of what you are doing:
The 6 months of payments made by SBA is helping tremendously for those with commercial loans.- (Perhaps the single most helpful thing mentioned.) Explained this way by one, “Our commercial bank notified us of the SBA’s intention to pay 6 months of our debt obligation. The peace of mind helps us to focus on our business goals and not cheapen/tarnish the brand through desperation.”
We plan to install 4 kitchenettes and convert from 10 guestrooms to six 1/1 apartments and one 2/2 townhouse.
Being aggressive with social postings and email blasts. Featuring (some complimentary) Zoom cooking classes to past and future guests.
We have opened one room for long term boarding.
Pandemic Unemployment Insurance – We are receiving Pandemic Unemployment Insurance. Since we are owner-run with no staff, this is the only program that made sense. (Not a loan, either!)
We have been doing deeply discounted long term rentals to local families needing temporary housing. We are selling gift certificates with a discount. Without EIDL loan we will have to determine if we invest more personal funds or we will have to go out of business.
More:
I’m taking a job in DC to keep us afloat during the crisis. It will be good in the long haul. Our daughter in law will run the inn in Texas for now.
We are down $70,000 so far from the virus. We got a little lucky and had some long term guests staying with us for a while. Right before the virus shut down, we were doing a Sunday brunch buffet after church services and we were serving up to 80 brunches. Once quarantine hit, we decided to give FREE MEALS on Sundays to those that need them. We gave out 220 meals in just 58 minutes last week.
Football The only thing that will sustain our future will be to get opened up before our football season in September.
Absolutely nothing is helping. Even Eviivo is refusing to let me go, and Card Point refuses to listen to me when I tell them I am out of business. Had to close my checking account out to stop both from deducting fees from it.
Second Jobs If this goes on much longer we will have to get second jobs. This is our only income.
Half our Rooms – Past customers are calling to see when we will be reopening. But we know our income will be half this year since we will be opening only ‘half’ of our rooms due to social distancing and sanitizing procedures.
3 New Websites Finished Last Week
While things are quieter, now is the best time to start that long needed new website.
Just last week, our award- winning website developers finished up 3 brand new websites.
It’s easier to get started than you think – We’ve taken many many innkeepers through the process over the years.
Why now is the perfect time to take great photos:
- No one is at the inn so the photographer will have free reign.
- Gather spring flowers and flood your rooms with flora for photos
- You have more creative time to cook eye candy dishes to photograph for your site
New Website Deal
If you can’t get new photos now OR your photographer is practicing social distancing, don’t let that stop you from starting your website.
Complementary $400 value – we’ll use your current photos or other suitable stock photos as place holders till you can get your new photos. Then, when you get those fabulous new prints, we will replace every photo on the site, optimize and compress them and add the alt tags.
We’ll do all of this AT NO EXTRA COST to you. In the meantime, get working on your new site and we’ll handle the optimization, compression and tagging of your current photos, too. You have nothing to lose.
Talk to Me About a New Website
Or call 949-481-7276
Viral Velocity You Should Know
Fascinating Look at the Velocity of Virus Particles
This article was forwarded by a New York innkeeper and can help you consider how to navigate reopening and your daily life.
It is written by Dr. Erin Bromage a Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
…”Where are the personal dangers from reopening? When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks don’t even land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.
Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.
Some of the biggest super-spreading events are: Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment….
Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events.
As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.
Look at the visuals here for planning breakfast seatings and so much more for your personal decision makings.
Fix My Website, Please
Some websites can be fixed with new colors/fonts/photos and SEO. When we audit a site there are often many unexpected issues that explain why sites are lower on Google searches than they should be.
7 Ways We Fix Your Website
- Target 12 images on a page with alt text
- Add lots of headers and sub headers – (On average, top performing websites have 22 headers and sub headers.)
- Add voice search questions
- Add more opportunities to book (pop ups, chat box, Book Now buttons)
- Add Up-to-Date Rave Reviews, any awards, or good press to build confidence for potential guests
- Increase the attractiveness of your Calls to Action – how they look is as important as how they work
- Speed up how fast your website loads so travelers don’t lose patience and bounce from your site to shop elsewhere.
Our Mission with websites is to remove technology road blocks that hold back some of America’s best innkeepers. We are constantly making ADA fixes, optimizing photos, adjusting for Google SEO, adding new and better photos and blogs, as well as creating entirely new sites.
Show Me a List Of What I Need to Make My Website Convert More Guests
Former Innkeeper Makes a Pitch for Opening Maine
Letter to the editor: Mills should explore quarantine options
Temperature checks, antibody tests, and social distancing in dining rooms are far better than asking summer visitors to isolate for two weeks.
Having been a bed-and-breakfast owner in Maine, and having many friends in that and related tourist-dependent businesses, such as restaurants, inns and charter boats, I strongly feel that Gov. Mills should rethink the plan for our state to require two weeks of quarantine for out-of-state visitors, effective on July 1!
… the alternative is to see the mass destruction of these businesses, as it’s not just a matter of a not-so-hot year! …
Many folks who work in and own these businesses will not only become wards of the state otherwise, but many also risk losing their physical assets (in many cases, everything they have). This will cascade into Maine’s community banks and their liquidity (who hold their mortgages).
Aside from fishing, this is largely all of the businesses there are on our coast! We need to find a way to allow in their patrons from out of state.
Scott Gile https://www.pressherald.