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20192 Ways Inn’s Increase Your Bed & Breakfast Cash Flow and Bookings in the Off-Season
Quick & Easy Increase in Off-Season
Cash Flow
How to Improve Cash Flow Now? – Promote gift certificates.
Selling gift certificates also help others to discover you – as your former guests introduce their friends and family members with a gift experience at your property.
The best way to sell gift certificates is at your front desk and – best of all – via email newsletters.
You’ll need an image and a message such as this one from the Cheshire Cat:
This holiday season, give your loved ones the ultimate gift…the gift of travel. They’ll have the trip of a lifetime in Santa Barbara and fall in love with our luxurious bed and breakfast. You can help make it happen with a gift certificate to the Cheshire Cat Inn.
There’s still time to organize this before Black Friday & even before this weekend. The easy part? Have your marketing team set it up within your booking system or contact iloveinns’ DRingler@iLoveInns.com for a really fast turn around.
Google pushes Expedia, TripAdvisor & Booking.com down $13 Billion
Gogle’s moves to cram the top of its search results with more and more advertising is hammering the online travel industry.
Expedia Group fell the most it has in 14 years just this past Thursday and TripAdvisor Inc. dropped the most in two years.
Both companies reported dismal third-quarter results.
Expedia & TripAdvisor blamed Google. Booking Holdings Inc.’s shares dropped 8%, too, wiping out market value of more than $13 billion from the three online travel agents.
Google dominates the online search market, with at least three quarters of the market.
People use Google to research trips, so for at least a decade these OTAs have worked hard to show up high in Google results.
https://www.hotelmarketing.
Just search for a hotel or inn somewhere in the U.S. and you’ll notice MORE ads at the top and bottom and LESS natural results.
Wyoming Office of Tourism celebrates women
Wyoming is tapping into the contribution of women from long ago. They are using compelling images of wild women then and now skiing, fly fishing, painting in the wilderness.
Jackson Hole has a long history of being the home to fearless and pioneering women. For example five pioneer women made up the country’s first all-female government in 1920.
To mark the 100th anniversary of this groundbreaking moment, Visit Jackson Hole has launched a campaign to pay homage to these women – then and now who keep Jackson Hole wild.
Here’s a video showing why Jackson Hole is holding it’s own to stay wild. visitjacksonhole.com
Dinner’s On Us –
How Innkeepers Attract Mid-Week Visits
From Penn. to Michigan, more and more innkeepers are offering a “Dinner Is On Us” special and increasing their Direct Bookings.
Here’s an example sent in an email newsletter today. “Wine tasting, great shopping and hikes in the dunes await you when you visit us in November.
In the evening, enjoy a romantic dinner…on us! Choose from Everyday People Cafe, Phil’s Bar & Grille or The Southerner.
Stay two or more nights midweek
to receive a $60 Dining Certificate -Offer valid Sunday through Thursday. Expires December 23, 2019.
How to Afford This? – Innkeepers make deals with local restaurants and purchase dinners at 50% off. So a $60 Dining Certificate, for instance, drives midweek business to both the inn and the restaurant where no doubt, drinks, etc. are ordered in addition.
Page Speed Affects Your Search Position
Search Engine Watch Tells How to Fix images so they load fast and don’t negatively affect your search position.
Page speed is a top factor in Google’s SEO rankings. And getting photo optimization right takes the lead in improving your website’s page speed.
The quality and size of an image affects its loading time.
Optimize images on your website to consume as little bandwidth as possible.
“Compressing photos has the potential to have the largest impact on page speed, as on average, images make up a total of 65% of a website’s weight.”
2 Ways to Fix Slow Loading Images
- Install plugins such as jQuery Lazy Load plugin. This plugin allows the images that are only appearing to load “above the fold” or on a part a visitor is currently viewing.
- Use image optimizers such as Yahoo!’s Smush.it or use the WP Smush.it plugin. It compacts images without altering their quality. So you can have the best quality photos that will move site visitors to action but won’t make your photos take forever to load.
Louisiana’s Classic Pecan Pie
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup honey
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped Classic Golden Chef’s Choice Pecans
9-inch pie shell
whipped cream or ice cream
Method of preparation: