L
lspiegel
Guest
I have learned a lot today from those of you who took the time to guide me in a caring manner. This is obviously just a "starting off research" kind of thing for us, but if my husband and I do consider doing this in the future (actually in the WAY DISTANT future), I think we will take lots of courses, visit lots of Inns, volunteer LOTS and LOTS of free time to Inns during their peak seasons for free (just to clarify...Inns that do really need free help. We don't want to be a hinderance) and would use those Inns as references. Heck, we may just go into volunteering for a few years anyway!!!! Great way to meet nice people and travel! Thanks all!I am not an innkeeper at a large inn, but I am a "real innkeeper" and that's what you asked for. I hope this info is useful to you.
While coming into this profession with NO experience whatsoever, I did watch friends and family run their inns up close and personal for a few years before jumping into it ourselves. We try to run the kind of inn WE like to stay at in order to attract people like us. So far it has worked well, with the usual bumps and learning curves you would expect with any new profession.
My friends and family that have had inns, (all bigger than mine), have also used innsitters and interim innkeepers. Their biggest beef with sitters is the inability to completey grasp the reservation systems. They each say that they wind up with bookings they don't know about and double bookings. We also had some experienced retired innkeepers that joined our organization, were hired by some inns, and while they worked well at one or two, they were disasterous to others, drinking heavily, stealing food and offending guests. OUCH! They came with recommendations.
If this is what you really want to do, go for it and learn as much as you can, where ever you can, but be sure to get the oppinions from innkeepers to see if they would even use your services. Their may not be enough inns out there to work with..OUCH is right!!! That's just about the worst nightmare one could imagine with an innsitter!aieechihuahua said:They each say that they wind up with bookings they don't know about and double bookings. We also had some experienced retired innkeepers that joined our organization, were hired by some inns, and while they worked well at one or two, they were disasterous to others, drinking heavily, stealing food and offending guests. OUCH!
The thing about references is they're all relative. New innsitters who've been to a class usually come with references: 1 from the teacher of the class and 1 from an inn they interned at. And by interning, they usually mean working a few hours over 1 or 2 days. Not really enough to know about problems like the ones you're describing which just sound absolutely dreadful in every way.
So when hiring certified innsitters, I think it's always a good idea to know whether those references were from real innsitting work, ie. they were left in-charge of an actual inn for more than 1 day, or from a few hours of interning related to a certification class. In my book, there's a very, very big difference but it's not always easy to see that difference clearly from the references given.
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