Do you need more business this summer and beyond?  Properties participating in BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations are able to run promotional offers specific to Expedia.com and hotels.com.  This is a great way to get extra exposure because inns that run promotions often receive higher placement on these sites.

In this challenging economy, more than ever, hotels, motels, resorts, and even B&Bs are competing with each other for business. Because of the increased competition, special promotions help encourage demand at properties. Here are some examples of some of the promotional offers that some of our participating properties are offering:

·         Stay two nights, get 20% off your stay.

·         Stay three nights, get 30% off your stay.

·         Stay three nights, get the third night free.

·         Stay four nights, get the fourth night free.

Running one of these offers gives your property additional emphasis on Expedia.com and hotels.com. Below is an example of one property’s additional exposure on Expedia.com.  Notice the property’s normal price with the strike through it, along with the promotional price.  Something this simple can make a big difference in a traveler’s perception and can increase bookings!

It really does work! The following example is from a property running a promotion for 30% off.  During a period of nearly four months from February 21, 2009 through June 10, 2009 – which is an historically busy time for this property – “Property A” received five reservations. 

On June 9, realizing that their summer (slow season) bookings were looking soft, the property decided to run a 30% off promotion on stays of two to six nights; on stays of seven nights, they’re offering the seventh night free.  We got this promotional offer loaded onto Expedia.com, and almost overnight, the bookings began to increase dramatically: from June 11 through July 21, the property received 13 bookings.  Every single reservation has been for June and July dates, historically very slow times of the year for this property; not surprisingly, Property A is very pleased to be getting all the extra business!

To run your own promotional offer on Expedia, contact your regional manager – Tim, Tom, Sara or Andrew. We’ll forward you a form to fill out and will be pleased to answer any additional questions you might have.

Cheers to a busy and prosperous summer!

The Online Reservations Team at BedandBreakfast.com

As any holiday or peak time approaches, if you haven’t sold all the rooms that you’d like to have sold, open the rooms up in the BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations program.

Many properties allocate their room availability to our system with the expectations of getting two- or three-night stays on some of the peak weekends. We would love for our members to get these length of stays. However, as you near those peak times, if your rooms haven’t yet sold, open your dates up in our system if they are blocked out, and remove any minimum stay requirements you have set. You’d be surprised at the last-minute bookings you could generate as a result of these simple changes in our system. We see a lot of properties with weekends like 4th of July blacked out, only to see on their own availability calendars that their rooms are still available. This program can be great at filling in the gaps and vacancies on weekends or other peak dates when you would rather be completely sold out!

You can change your minimum stay requirements right on each room’s availability screen in our system. Simply change the minimum stay from a two or three to a one, and click “Save Changes” as seen in the image below.  If you need help with this, please call us at 1-800-462-2632 ext 4, and we will be happy to assist you.

Many properties using the BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations program have requested that they be able to receive text messages to their cell phone when reservations are booked and/or cancelled as a result of this program. 

We’re delighted to report that we have just added this functionality for the United States, and are pleased to provide participating innkeepers with more flexibility as they’re out and about doing the things they have to do to run their inns. If you would like to sign up for this additional FREE notification for BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations reservations/cancellations, simply follow these steps:

1. Log in to your BedandBreakfast.com Home Base using your property ID and password.
2. Once logged into your Home Base, hover your mouse over Listing in the top left corner and select Address/Phone.

1. Under Phone Numbers, select Text Alerts from the dropdown menu.
2. Enter your cellular phone number into the spaces provided.
3. Last, click Submit at the bottom of the page.

Once you have entered and saved this information, going forward, any time you get a reservation or a cancellation as a result of the BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations program, you will be sent a text message with the details. Although BedandBreakfast.com does not charge for this service, your cellular provider may charge a fee. Please be aware of any charges that your cellular provider might apply to your bill before setting this up to avoid any unexpected charges.

BedandBreakfast.com will not use, distribute or display your cellular number on our website if it has been entered for the purposes of text alerts.  If you have chosen to enter your cellular number in your Home Base under the Cellular option, then your cellular number will indeed be displayed.

Please free to contact us if you have any questions about this new service, and to share any comments by clicking the comments link below.