Kathleen,
No, we do not offer the rebate credit on annual payment plans, only monthly. Sorry to see you turn a creit porgram for somethign that helps innkeepers sell more rooms, into a negative...
Why do you feel our pricing is not fair? I understand we are the most expensive, but when we look at basically every metric that is available to us such as: innkeeper's Extremne Tracker pages, the Google analytics for the sites we host for innkeepers stats from companies like Moriah and INsideOut, or even to simply comparing us to other directories on independent third-party sites like Quantcast - they seem to unanimously support our pricing as fair. If you do the math on traffic, conversions, reservations or dollars - we deliver an order of magnitude more business to our member inns than other directories, and we do not charge an "order of magnitude higher price". So we are actually a better deal than most if not all other directories when you look at ROI. You seem to be solely looking at the cost. Why do you not look at the return? I do not understand, but would like to understand the logic behind this reasoning
You also make it sound like it is bad that we have acquired other companies in this industry that we are going ot force innkeepers to "Pay up or go out of business". What the heck are you talking about??
If we wouldn't have bought BBCOM back from WorldRes, who knows what would have happened to it since WorldRes basically went out of business. WorldRes also owned Guest Tracker and made us take them with our purchase of BBCOM back from WorldRes. Had we not done that, Guest Tracker would probably also be out of business. We just acquired Webervations and while it is a greta product that many innkeepers love, it had one programmer that basically worked his entire live on maintaining this product to keep it from crashing, add functionality, etc. (David Swain). The man had not had a vacation in 10 years and had a cot in his office... You think that is a good way to run a company? It certainly is not fair for you to expect David Swain to not have a life so you can save a few bucks. His business was not sustainable. You cannot run a business long-term without a family or personal life. THAT IS WHAT IS NOT FAIR. Now that we have acquired it, aside from a few short0lived issues with transitioning an entire website and database - which should be expected), we have made a lot of improvements to the back-end that will protect innkeepers using the product with things a core piece of any innkeeper's website should have that were lacking. Things like security, redundancy, back-ups, exception reporting, etc.). Had we not acquired it, at some point David would have thrown in the towel - and he was close. Then if you look at the actual facts around Property Management Software - since acquiring Guest Tracker, we have brought the price down from $599 to $199 (and many times it is completely FREE) while becoming Microsoft Gold certified, spending 6 months and lots of money to become security certified (soon), created an agreement with Intuit (industry first) to integrate with Quickbooks, moved to a much more robust SQL database, added much morte online support (videos, FAQ, Wiki's, etc.). We have also led th eindustry in dropping the price of our real-time online booking engine product from 5% er reservation to a flat monthyl fee that saves innkeepers 80% over what they use to pay for this product. And you say we are forcing innkeepers to "pay up or go out of business"..??? The ONLY thing we have increased pricing on is for listings on BedandBreakfast.com and we have already clearly explained by how much per average per year, and why we did. So how on earth are you saying it is bad that we kept these comapnies alive and continued ot invest in and improve them and dropped prices for many things.???
To answer your question about the Bronze level, it is for folks to get a listing on our wesbite. Not everyone wants a link. So we offer those that don't a level without a link. Again, I don't see where that is bad...??? It is our lowest number of members by category, but these folks get business or we would not see the renewal rate as high as the other levels and these folks would drop off.
If you really wan tto be helpful to aspirings, tell them all of the directories, their cost, the amount of traffic they get (check Quantcast or something), their page rank on Google, and an estimated ROI. Otherwise that is like saying that newspaper A cost X, newspaper B cost Y, and newspaper C cost Z. Without knowing their circulation, the information is not that useful/meaningful. The prices are based on their reach (number of eyeballs).
Man, I really thinnk this group is full of a bunch of "glass half empty" folks. HappyJacks - Our new offer for international members is less for international members because we drive less traffic to them - and therefore provide less value - and therefore charge less. It really is pretty simple and straightforward. It is not because we are trying to screw anyone...?
The free 3 month membership is for ANY new member, not just international. So now we are bad guys for offering innkeepers 3 months up-front with absolutely no risk?????????????????
There is never a "devil-may-care" attitude here about our rates for ANY product. We spend lots of time making sure we price our products and services fairly.
How is it HappyJacks, that we have over 7,000 members with a 90+% renewal rate if we have "poor customer relations"?? I seriously cannot figure out where you are coming from unless since this board allows people to post without identifying their true indentity, you are from a competiting directory.
So we realize we do not have a smuch traffic in Europe as we do in the US, so we offer discounted rates, free trial, invest in SEO and SEM, and you feel we are bad for doing it. Hmmm... Sorry, you lost me...
We launched a program to offer innkeepers an opportunity to earn a $60 credit per year and you say it is "slimy"...? We raise our rates every year. We were not hiding anything. The "credits" starting applying immediately to all monthly paying members regardless of if they are on the new pricing or not. It is not only working for folks on the new pricing. So how exactly is it slimy?
Kathleen - If you can put your money to work somewhere else and get a better return, we have advocated that ALL ALONG (even on this board). But what is up with such negativeness? I am sorry if our ROI is not enough for you. But just as innkeepers have to price their room and cannot price so every single perosn that wants to stay there can stay there, we also have to price our business at the level that gives US a fair ROI on OUR investment. I promise you though that if I come across a B&B/Inn?Hotel that is charging more than I am willing to py, I won't begrudge them. This is capitalism. They should charge a fair price for the value they provide. I am not going to throw them under the bus for it...
Have a nice weekend folks.
Eric
PS. Here is a comment I JUST got from an innkeeper. a BRONZE innkeeper. Maybe this will help you understand that we have to meet the needs of many differnt types of innkeepers and as I stated above, some of them only want a Bronze membership with no link - so we offer it. You don't need to beat us up for it because you don't need it or you think it is a rip-off. It works or innkeepers would not buy it and we would not offer it.
"Thank bedandbreakfast.com for all of your help and quick responses to my questions. A huge percentage of my guests the first year of membership have been from bedandbreakfast.com and I'm thrilled! I love this site.
Carolsue McCue
THE HERB COTTAGE".