#THE INNKEEPERS PARENTS GUIDE SERIES#
Sadly, we’ve seen many inns fail, with two brilliant corporate types at the helm, simply because they “did not know what they did not know” and made a series of poor decisions, based on their personal instincts. Be proactive and ASK QUESTIONS! Better yet, go to your next conference with a short list of questions to be answered by various colleagues, i.e., what was the best decision you ever made? What was the worst? Did the addition of a soaking tub increase occupancy? How about king size beds? Spend more time listening and less time talking. Our advice: Go to conferences such as the annual AHIP Conference or at least to your local association meetings. We see this all the time: “I love an early breakfast, so we do breakfast at 7:30!”ĭon’t Underestimate the Complexity of Your New VentureĪ common and disturbing trend we’ve seen is successful “corporate types” believing that general business experience directly translates into hospitality know-how. You may take only showers, but remember many vacationing folks prefer a big soaking tub. You may not care for oatmeal for breakfast, but to some, it’s heaven in a bowl. Yes, a successful innkeeper expresses his or her passion, but there’s a fine line between expressing your passion and assuming all your guests like exactly what you like. Those like-minded guests will return to your property, rave to their friends and share their opinions on TripAdvisor or Google. Having a passion or point of view makes your property stand out, and attracts like-minded guests. If you are enthusiastic about baking, gardening or decor, be sure to make it part of your theme. It’s much more fun-and has a much better chance of success-if you wrap your personal passions in the inn’s concept. Let’s face it: innkeeping is a tough job. If you have fewer than 8 rooms, you may fall into the lifestyle category whether you want to or not.
Running a lifestyle business is a viable path, but your intentions should be clear at the outset.
#THE INNKEEPERS PARENTS GUIDE PROFESSIONAL#
Likewise, our photography clients tend to be very serious about the business (hence their investing in professional photography) they rely on this business to produce income. Lifestyle or Profit? Clarify your Intentionīy necessity, we ran our inn as a business, not as a lifestyle proposition. Young, eager…and looking a lot like undertakers. Mark, Carolyn and Matthew, newly-minted Innkeepers circa spring 1999. We’d like to share some patterns we’ve witnessed resulting in either success or failure. We hear a lot of stories-about things that worked, and things that didn’t. During the past 12 years, we’ve worked with hundreds of properties, from new and relatively clueless innkeepers to veteran innkeepers looking for a “business reboot”. We soon pivoted to photography services, realizing this was a vital element lacking in most marketing efforts at the time and professional hospitality photography services were quite limited. Upon leaving the inn in 2004, we started a consulting business to leverage that innkeeping knowledge and success. When it was time to sell, we were fortunate to be looking at a nice profit. We sold our interest in the inn a mere 5 years later, having driven occupancy from 29% to over 70%, and more than quadrupling our gross revenue.
Like many new innkeepers, we left our comfortable corporate jobs, and moved-in our case to the Delaware River Valley near the tourist hub of New Hope, Pa. You may ask “why the heck is a photography company giving advice to new innkeepers?” Well, exactly 20 years ago, we (along with our friend, Carolyn) purchased our “dream inn”, The Woolverton Inn in Stockton, New Jersey. Congratulations on your new innkeeping adventure! If it’s okay, we’d like to share some pieces of advice with you.
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