How was 2016

[JBloggs]

Now that the year is nearly over, was 2016 steady or a drop or bump?
Did you do anything major to impact your bookings this year? Dropped a directory,added an OTA, etc

 

[TheBeachHouse]

Thought we were coming up short as compared to last year, but we are only a few hundred off.
Very busy, mostly good reviews.
We improved our breakfast menu quite a bit.

 

[Morticia]

Professionally - better than last year. Changes we made: added TV's, went to menu planning.
Next year should be a lot better as I won't be on the road as much leaving Gomez to operate on his own.
We tried TA business, cannot say it did us any good. Bought a print ad on the state map - first week we had a guest say that's where they found us. Did not cover the cost of ad, but it was promising.
Personally - another crappy year.

 

[gillumhouse]

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit.

 

[Hillbilly]

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit..

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit.

Nice Avatar picture Gillumhouse!

 

[gillumhouse]

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit..

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit.

Nice Avatar picture Gillumhouse!
.

Thank you. It was a wonderful trip that was so because of the wonderful innmates we got to meet.

 

[Silverspoon]

Difficult to compare since out intention was to cut back. With that said, we did better than we needed to do and enjoyed the additional time off. Bills are paid, new car in the garage and a bit of $$ went into savings...for the just-in-case scenario.
We added AC and some kitchen appliances in the cottage, promoted it more as a "guest house" to begin the elimination of breakfast and turned away guests once we felt we would be making what we need to carry this property (and us) forward for another year. Except for tearing my tendon and wearing an air cast for most of July and some of August it was a good year. DH goes in for knee "clean-up" next week and a new hip in Jan. Hopefully we will be ready to roll into the 2017 season which we will delay until April.

 

[Mary at Bridgewater Inn and Cottage]

Bookings are/were up this year. But I had a new site made and hired RealEstate photographer for site ...its paid off well . You have to spend money to make money, as the old saying goes.

 

[Ice]

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit..

With the reservation that is due in Monday, I am a snick better than last year but that is not saying much. All it takes is for the phone to ring or an e-mail to pop in with a reservation. I will still be open in 2017 - too stubborn to quit.

Nice Avatar picture Gillumhouse!
.

Thank you. It was a wonderful trip that was so because of the wonderful innmates we got to meet.
.

Thank you. It was a wonderful trip that was so because of the wonderful innmates we got to meet.

 

[Ice]

Great year cut short because of hips! (still waiting) but it will be soon.

 

[EmptyNest]

Bookings are/were up this year. But I had a new site made and hired RealEstate photographer for site ...its paid off well . You have to spend money to make money, as the old saying goes..

 

[Mary at Bridgewater Inn and Cottage]

Bookings are/were up this year. But I had a new site made and hired RealEstate photographer for site ...its paid off well . You have to spend money to make money, as the old saying goes..

.

THANK YOU Empty Nest.. the new BnB site you made for me is doing the job !

 

[OnTheShore]

2016 was up over 2015 in all categories, including more weddings...

 

[Highlands John]

We've had a busy year, it's been a busy year generally in Scotland from what I read and speaking to others. Turnover wise our best year ever, occupancy top 3 (13th year).
The only OTA I use is Air and at 2 bookings a month it's insignificant, intend continuing not using OTAs as long as I can hold out. Dropped my TA business listing in Feb, made zero appreciable difference, 75% of the people that book with us still say TA reviews is one of their key reasons for booking.
Last winter I put a great deal of effort into getting my availability on as many sites as possible (DMOs including visitscotland, air bnb, etc), joining freetobook was key to this. Has that helped? While I appreciate that free2book is a booking engine only, I thought using them to make availability/online booking available through several sites, including visitscotland, would bring in far more bookings through that route than it has (only a handful in a year).
I'm always dropping listing sites and trying new ones but they seem increasingly irrelevant especially this year. Both DMO sites I'm on are performing pretty poorly these days however I'll continue to support as I think it's good for the area to bring businesses together.
bed and breakfast dot com still generating lots of enquiries so will stick with them too. I need to speak to them because during the summer I was getting 3-4 emails a day most of which I couldn't do, so I need my availability on their site but I'm not paying their gold price if it means having another booking system to keep manually in sync.

 

[Lee2014]

My aunt and I just finished our third season here. We beat every month of last year money wise but Sept. Sept 2015 we had a sailing team that took the house for two weeks and a horse coaching team that had the house for a week. (They are every other year and every three year activities they come here for.) We do not do OTAs except Airbnb. InnRewards.com and all the other ones we are on send them to our website to book. This has worked here for 40 years so far. In the past we were in directory books. That being said, we are in a tourist trap location with colleges and universities.

 

[Momma Smurf]

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!

 

[TheBeachHouse]

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!.

Congratulations! Enjoy the visit!
Can you elaborate on your last sentence?

 

[Momma Smurf]

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!.

Congratulations! Enjoy the visit!
Can you elaborate on your last sentence?
.

Can you elaborate on your last sentence?

I freaked out at the beginning of the year to discover that all but 2 hotels & 3 B&Bs in our area had signed up for OTAs, including our major niche competitor.
Despite this, we had our busiest season ever, without having to give away 15%+ in commissions; control over guest reservations and details, and save for the usual couple of couples, lovely appreciative guests arriving on time or giving us a call if running late.

 

[JBloggs]

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!.

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!

Congrats! You both deserve hugs, Christmas and hot cider with the fam this Christmas. You are a shining innspiration to many of us.

 

[Highlands John]

We've had our best year in all 11 years! So much so, that we are actually closing the doors for the entire week that are West Coast kids/grandkids are going to be here for Christmas! Something, we've never been able to do.
Again, our best year ever, whilst 98% of all other lodging in town was swallowed into the OTA craze!.

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