Submit Your Best Dish for Our Breakfast Tournament

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It’s time to get ready for our second annual Best Breakfast Tournament! This Facebook contest launches on March 25 and works in brackets, just like college basketball’s March Madness.

How does it work?
Submit your best breakfast recipe, and our Facebook fans will vote on their favorite. They will be narrowed down in a bracket of sweet vs. savory until we have one winning recipe. The recipe must be for one dish, like a French toast dish--not a full plate with multiple dishes. Recipes will be judged on uniqueness, creativity, and appeal; we will factor in the recipe itself in addition to a photo of the dish.

Pictured is last year's winning dish, bittersweet chocolate waffles topped with mint buttercream and strawberry sauce from Lyttleton Inn in Littleton, MA.

What is the prize?
One lucky voter will win a $500 BedandBreakfast.com gift card, and the winning B&B will win bragging rights and publicity! Last year, we scored our winner and runner-up stories in several publications, including USA Today and Budget Travel.

This year’s guest judges are Anne Banas with Smarter Travel, Adrien Glover with Travel + Leisure, and Susannah Chen with YumSugar (and possibly another writer from a large publication), so we expect that the winner and possibly runner-up will also get great publicity this year.

How do you enter?

1)      Add your recipe on BedandBreakfast.com. To do this, first log in to your Home Base.

2)      Under the ‘Listing’ tab, select ‘Recipes.’ Then click ‘Add New Recipe.’

3)      Add the ingredients and steps. Our system currently only allows for five steps, so if your recipe has more steps than this, please combine some of them (we hope to have a better system next year!). It may not appear on the site immediately, so don’t worry if it takes a little time.

4)      Once added, please email Emily Gerson at EGerson@BedandBreakfast.com with this information to enter:     

a.       Your inn’s name and location

b.      The name of your recipe

c.       Whether your recipe is classified as sweet or savory

d.      At least one great photo of the dish; it must be well-lit and high-resolution since it will be presented on our Facebook page

The entry deadline is January 31, 2013. The BedandBreakfast.com marketing team will narrow the entries down to 32 finalists, and a group of guest judges will narrow it down to 16. Starting on March 25, our Facebook fans will vote on each bracket until we have a winner! We hope you will participate.

By Emily Starbuck Crone

How Do You Know if a Travel Writer is Legitimate?

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Many inns are approached by travel writers and bloggers who want a free stay in exchange for writing about the property. But how can you know if the person is a serious writer or someone just wants to score a free trip?

Here are a number of steps you can take to determine if a travel writer is legit:

1. Check on the writer's credentials via a Google search. Your CVB or chamber of commerce may be members of a travel writer's association and can check to see if a writer is credentialed. If possible, sign up to provide lodging for visiting writers whose credentials have been established.
2. Ask the writer for a letter of assignment from the publication they claim to represent.
3. Ask for copies of previous articles or clips.
4. Ask when the story will be published.
5. Most importantly, ask if your property will be included in the story and how. Be sure to mention that your phone number and/or website should be included.

Other important things to know:

Stuff happens: Sometimes a writer will research and write a story, it’s accepted for publication, and then it gets canceled or postponed due to breaking news or budgetary concerns. Even to the writer, this is a huge disappointment. Please understand that there is no guarantee that if you host a writer the story will definitely appear. Circumstances out of the control of the writer can occur to preclude the story from appearing.

Media policy: Establish a media policy that you can fall back on when questionable requests are received. For example, decide that a writer may bring only one guest and rooms will not be available to travel writers during peak times. You can always make exceptions, but it will give you a baseline to work from.

Comps: We encourage you to offer free rooms to legitimate travel writers on a space available basis. Although paying guests are always the top priority, putting a travel writer in a room that would otherwise go unsold is a risk-free way to get publicity. Only a tiny number of writers are prohibited from accepting comps, and they won’t be insulted by your invitation. Professional travel writers will never ask for the whole inn, and will usually be flexible about staying when you have openings. Only a handful of writers have expense accounts that enable them to travel anonymously – they are prohibited by company policy from accepting free or discounted rooms. Best to remember this advice from Monty Turner (Run of the River, Leavenworth, WA): “Treat all guests like travel writers; treat all travel writers like guests.” If you can't take the financial hit, consider offering a discounted media rate instead.

Rule of thumb: If you have an available room that you’re unlikely to sell, host a travel writer. While nothing may come of it, many times a story will eventually appear that will feature your inn.

Updated by Emily Starbuck Crone