Haunted Inns

[Willowpondgj]

Twilight Zone theme song playing in background as you read this post:
Anyone have paranormal activity in your inn? I know I am leaving the door wide open for wisecracks!

Have you had a guest who had a paranormal experience? If so, good, bad?
Do you get inquiries for your inn from people who want these experiences?
Is is a help or hindrance to advertise as haunted, might you lose business because of it?

 

[Morticia]

OK, here's what we have here...no sightings on our part but guests have said we have one room that is not 'welcoming'. One woman said she was up all night feeling very uncomfortable (something she had not experienced on a different stay in a different room).
Another woman said she felt someone was in the room with her (besides her sleeping husband). Because we have a history of the house in the room, she knew the name of the original owner. She said she spoke his name out loud and the atmosphere broke. In the morning, as she was telling this story, the front door flew open (no one there, no wind).
We had a spirit medium do a reading of the house and she had the same response to that room. She said he was a very grumpy person who might not like the idea of strangers in the house.
So, I rearranged the room and the first guest came back (staying in a different room) and I told her what I had done. (This, actually, was the first time she told me she was uncomfortable in the room, said she would never stay in that room again.) She went into the room and said it felt completely different. She said it was the way it was laid out before, it had 'cold' areas.
So, we seem to have fixed that issue.
We're having another spirit walk around Halloween.

 

[swirt]

That's a great question. My guess is it is a crap shoot on whether the numbers you gain outweigh the numbers you lose. My way of thinking on it is if you were in a small town and were the only place to stay, then it might do more harm than good, but if you are in a competitive area where you can't throw a stone and not hit an innkeeper, then it might help separate you from the rest of the herd.
To me it is about numbers. Here's how I would ballpark the numbers. If roughly 20% of people are interested in ghostly stuff then it is a question of whether you can survive on 20% of all people looking for a B&B in your area. So if there are only 100 people coming to B&B's in your area in a year, then you probably could not survive on 20% (20) of them...and barely on 100% of them. However if there are 1,000 people coming to B&B's in your area per year you might be able to survive if you can attract 20% of them (200). If there were 10,000 coming to B&B's in your area per year, you could almost certainly survive on 20% (2,000) of them.
I know there is a winery in this area that has gone heavy with the ghost stories and even market a bottle of wine called "Ghost" that has some cool label effects. It has worked for them but they are in a herd of ~100 other wineries.
We had a few odd experiences here before we opened the B&B but we don't mention them unless some guest brings up the topic.
If I were going to play up the ghost aspect I would probably do two things

1. Bend the ghost stories to play up the love/romance aspect of it (but not the tragic or terrifying lover kills husband in fit of jealous rage kind of thing)
2. Start a separate ghostly blog (separate from the inn website and possibly separate from the regular inn blog) that focuses on the ghost events in your place as well as other ghosts and history in your area.. (ghosts in parks, ghosts in historic buildings, ghostly animals...)

 

[swirt]

OK, here's what we have here...no sightings on our part but guests have said we have one room that is not 'welcoming'. One woman said she was up all night feeling very uncomfortable (something she had not experienced on a different stay in a different room).
Another woman said she felt someone was in the room with her (besides her sleeping husband). Because we have a history of the house in the room, she knew the name of the original owner. She said she spoke his name out loud and the atmosphere broke. In the morning, as she was telling this story, the front door flew open (no one there, no wind).
We had a spirit medium do a reading of the house and she had the same response to that room. She said he was a very grumpy person who might not like the idea of strangers in the house.
So, I rearranged the room and the first guest came back (staying in a different room) and I told her what I had done. (This, actually, was the first time she told me she was uncomfortable in the room, said she would never stay in that room again.) She went into the room and said it felt completely different. She said it was the way it was laid out before, it had 'cold' areas.
So, we seem to have fixed that issue.
We're having another spirit walk around Halloween..

We're having another spirit walk around Halloween.

Do you have to pay the spirits to walk around on Halloween or do they just do it for the fun of it?

 

[Morticia]

OK, here's what we have here...no sightings on our part but guests have said we have one room that is not 'welcoming'. One woman said she was up all night feeling very uncomfortable (something she had not experienced on a different stay in a different room).
Another woman said she felt someone was in the room with her (besides her sleeping husband). Because we have a history of the house in the room, she knew the name of the original owner. She said she spoke his name out loud and the atmosphere broke. In the morning, as she was telling this story, the front door flew open (no one there, no wind).
We had a spirit medium do a reading of the house and she had the same response to that room. She said he was a very grumpy person who might not like the idea of strangers in the house.
So, I rearranged the room and the first guest came back (staying in a different room) and I told her what I had done. (This, actually, was the first time she told me she was uncomfortable in the room, said she would never stay in that room again.) She went into the room and said it felt completely different. She said it was the way it was laid out before, it had 'cold' areas.
So, we seem to have fixed that issue.
We're having another spirit walk around Halloween..

We're having another spirit walk around Halloween.

Do you have to pay the spirits to walk around on Halloween or do they just do it for the fun of it?

.

It's gets them in off the street and away from the kids pretending to be spirits, so they actually do it for free and are thankful...

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

We have dead bodies in our backyard. Some of them famous and some infamous.
I laugh as guests want to talk about ghosts since this is an old house, but they don't want to hear about the dead bodies. We actually have alot of guests to like to walk the cem and search for the orig owners of this place, and read the old markers. Then there are some who are totally freaked out about it, that is why it is not on our website. Historical cemetary. Actors and re-enactors are there twice a year with tours of the cem.

 

[hawley]

We have dead bodies in our backyard. Some of them famous and some infamous.
I laugh as guests want to talk about ghosts since this is an old house, but they don't want to hear about the dead bodies. We actually have alot of guests to like to walk the cem and search for the orig owners of this place, and read the old markers. Then there are some who are totally freaked out about it, that is why it is not on our website. Historical cemetary. Actors and re-enactors are there twice a year with tours of the cem..

Whenever we go on vacation somewhere new, we always walk the old cemeteries we find. My DH always tells people that when he gets asked about his vacation and loves to watch the reactions.
I have worked on genealogy for over 40 years and that is part of what sparked the interest.

 

[Willowpondgj]

We have dead bodies in our backyard. Some of them famous and some infamous.
I laugh as guests want to talk about ghosts since this is an old house, but they don't want to hear about the dead bodies. We actually have alot of guests to like to walk the cem and search for the orig owners of this place, and read the old markers. Then there are some who are totally freaked out about it, that is why it is not on our website. Historical cemetary. Actors and re-enactors are there twice a year with tours of the cem..

We don't have any dead bodies in our backyard....yet.

 

[Morticia]

We have dead bodies in our backyard. Some of them famous and some infamous.
I laugh as guests want to talk about ghosts since this is an old house, but they don't want to hear about the dead bodies. We actually have alot of guests to like to walk the cem and search for the orig owners of this place, and read the old markers. Then there are some who are totally freaked out about it, that is why it is not on our website. Historical cemetary. Actors and re-enactors are there twice a year with tours of the cem..

We don't have any dead bodies in our backyard....yet.

.

We don't have any dead bodies in our backyard....yet.

Just let someone overflow that tub again, tho...