revenues 25% down

[JerseyBoy]

I need to get a thicker skin.
This happened today, right after looking at my February projections (soft), and doing my monthly calculations on Air revenues in my town (climbing fast). A friend who's a real estate agent posted something on social media about a new Air rental in town, complete with 30+ photos, saying, "If you're coming to [our town], you MUST stay here!
This is a lady who's regularly enjoyed the hospitality of our home, sat with us at our weekly knit night, attending the charity auction we host every year, attended our annual Christmas party, and even hit us up for donations and the like.
I realize she probably didn't think of this as a competitor to us, but the headline, and the fact that we constantly contribute to our community while these Air carpetbaggers do nothing but run unlicensed, uninspected and unhelpful multi-unit rentals just galled me.
In my weakness, I simply wrote one word in the comments section: "Nope"
Later, the owner of the unit wrote me a long message saying at first he was mad and now he just wanted me to know how much he respected our establishment. My friend has yet to say anything.
As I said, I'm not proud of it, and I will work to get a thicker skin. But for this morning at least, I'd had enough and had to say something. Even if it was a single word..

Air charges the guest $18 to stay at our place and charges us $5. If the guest books direct neither of us gets those fees.

There needs to be a national advertising campaign educating the public that AirBnB has nothing to do with a real B&B and that people should book direct.
.

I like the idea of an advertising campaign but it would be hard to somehow coordinate it among such a large number of small and independent properties. I am wondering though if somehow within a group like this or even this group and some of the other groups on facebook that some of us belong to that we could craft some sort of consistent message which clearly depicts why it's better to book direct. Phineas mentioned some great social reasons regarding contributing to the local community. We try to educate every customer they will always get the best price and best service during the booking process if they book direct.
I'm thinking that if we can craft a generally standard and consistent message that instead of trying to collect money from 1000 small businesses and have some sort of advertising campaign, that maybe if we can put the message into the hands of the 1000 small businesses and each one of us consistently and frequently push it out through our email lists, or thank you letters, post it in our check-in spaces, put it on our websites, post it on our facebook pages and any place we can get it, including (until they stop us) responses to Tripadvisor reviews. Hilton is pushing this concept of "book direct" through national advertising and we can piggyback off of that with direct contact to past and current customers as well as those who show interest in our properties. What do you think?
.

AIHP is setting up a 'Book Direct' campaign. If you find them on Facebook, you can get the details. I don't see it on their website.
.

Very weird but the AIHP campaign message showed up on my facebook feed right after I read your message here. The set up a website: https://www.bookdirect.education/

 

[Morticia]

I need to get a thicker skin.
This happened today, right after looking at my February projections (soft), and doing my monthly calculations on Air revenues in my town (climbing fast). A friend who's a real estate agent posted something on social media about a new Air rental in town, complete with 30+ photos, saying, "If you're coming to [our town], you MUST stay here!
This is a lady who's regularly enjoyed the hospitality of our home, sat with us at our weekly knit night, attending the charity auction we host every year, attended our annual Christmas party, and even hit us up for donations and the like.
I realize she probably didn't think of this as a competitor to us, but the headline, and the fact that we constantly contribute to our community while these Air carpetbaggers do nothing but run unlicensed, uninspected and unhelpful multi-unit rentals just galled me.
In my weakness, I simply wrote one word in the comments section: "Nope"
Later, the owner of the unit wrote me a long message saying at first he was mad and now he just wanted me to know how much he respected our establishment. My friend has yet to say anything.
As I said, I'm not proud of it, and I will work to get a thicker skin. But for this morning at least, I'd had enough and had to say something. Even if it was a single word..

Air charges the guest $18 to stay at our place and charges us $5. If the guest books direct neither of us gets those fees.

There needs to be a national advertising campaign educating the public that AirBnB has nothing to do with a real B&B and that people should book direct.
.

I like the idea of an advertising campaign but it would be hard to somehow coordinate it among such a large number of small and independent properties. I am wondering though if somehow within a group like this or even this group and some of the other groups on facebook that some of us belong to that we could craft some sort of consistent message which clearly depicts why it's better to book direct. Phineas mentioned some great social reasons regarding contributing to the local community. We try to educate every customer they will always get the best price and best service during the booking process if they book direct.
I'm thinking that if we can craft a generally standard and consistent message that instead of trying to collect money from 1000 small businesses and have some sort of advertising campaign, that maybe if we can put the message into the hands of the 1000 small businesses and each one of us consistently and frequently push it out through our email lists, or thank you letters, post it in our check-in spaces, put it on our websites, post it on our facebook pages and any place we can get it, including (until they stop us) responses to Tripadvisor reviews. Hilton is pushing this concept of "book direct" through national advertising and we can piggyback off of that with direct contact to past and current customers as well as those who show interest in our properties. What do you think?
.

AIHP is setting up a 'Book Direct' campaign. If you find them on Facebook, you can get the details. I don't see it on their website.
.

Very weird but the AIHP campaign message showed up on my facebook feed right after I read your message here. The set up a website: https://www.bookdirect.education/
.

Same browser? Not weird at all...

 

[JimBoone]

I need to get a thicker skin.
This happened today, right after looking at my February projections (soft), and doing my monthly calculations on Air revenues in my town (climbing fast). A friend who's a real estate agent posted something on social media about a new Air rental in town, complete with 30+ photos, saying, "If you're coming to [our town], you MUST stay here!
This is a lady who's regularly enjoyed the hospitality of our home, sat with us at our weekly knit night, attending the charity auction we host every year, attended our annual Christmas party, and even hit us up for donations and the like.
I realize she probably didn't think of this as a competitor to us, but the headline, and the fact that we constantly contribute to our community while these Air carpetbaggers do nothing but run unlicensed, uninspected and unhelpful multi-unit rentals just galled me.
In my weakness, I simply wrote one word in the comments section: "Nope"
Later, the owner of the unit wrote me a long message saying at first he was mad and now he just wanted me to know how much he respected our establishment. My friend has yet to say anything.
As I said, I'm not proud of it, and I will work to get a thicker skin. But for this morning at least, I'd had enough and had to say something. Even if it was a single word..

Air charges the guest $18 to stay at our place and charges us $5. If the guest books direct neither of us gets those fees.

There needs to be a national advertising campaign educating the public that AirBnB has nothing to do with a real B&B and that people should book direct.
.

I like the idea of an advertising campaign but it would be hard to somehow coordinate it among such a large number of small and independent properties. I am wondering though if somehow within a group like this or even this group and some of the other groups on facebook that some of us belong to that we could craft some sort of consistent message which clearly depicts why it's better to book direct. Phineas mentioned some great social reasons regarding contributing to the local community. We try to educate every customer they will always get the best price and best service during the booking process if they book direct.
I'm thinking that if we can craft a generally standard and consistent message that instead of trying to collect money from 1000 small businesses and have some sort of advertising campaign, that maybe if we can put the message into the hands of the 1000 small businesses and each one of us consistently and frequently push it out through our email lists, or thank you letters, post it in our check-in spaces, put it on our websites, post it on our facebook pages and any place we can get it, including (until they stop us) responses to Tripadvisor reviews. Hilton is pushing this concept of "book direct" through national advertising and we can piggyback off of that with direct contact to past and current customers as well as those who show interest in our properties. What do you think?
.

I think we all support the general idea, but perhaps all have slightly different ideas on the route to take. Just a start at this point, but have created a page on my site https://hiddenvalleymotel.com/going/ listing links to other smaller properties and suggesting folks book direct with those properties. My thoughts are that if we all made it easy to find similar small properties by listing links it might help.
You (anyone) want to be listed, send me a PM or send an email and don't share the connection with your forum name if you prefer, list me or not, I'll still add you to my list, it's a step in the direction you are suggesting.
There is also an existing website listing smaller independent properties and promoting direct booking, you may be already listed, a guest told me about the site and I found I was listed folks were happy to update my information. Again it might not send us a batch of new reservations tomorrow, but if we all promoted their site on our own sites I bet word would get around.