What I mean is that you cannot hope to be a successful innkeeper unless you’ve left your here and traveled to there (just like your guests). For example, unless you’ve been to Savannah, Georgia, in the late spring you won’t appreciate California’s absence of biting insects and low humidity. You also won’t have experienced true Southern hospitality and one of America’s truly beautiful cities. it was through travel that we first experienced the then new concept of bed and breakfast inns. Before we became innkeepers, we checked into a Mendocino inn late one stormy evening after a harrowing drive from our home in Reno, nevada. Coming from Reno meant that we had to brave Donner Summit in a blizzard. By the time we got to mild Mendocino it was just a howling rain. We found our key and quietly snuck into our room. The innkeepers had the fire laid and ready to light. We were hooked. For life. Travel: the training wheels for innkeepers Travel to Europe took us to Zimmer Frei in Germany, B&Bs in Britain and pensions and boutique hotels in italy and France. We didn’t know it then, but we were already in training to be innkeepers. In the days before the Internet, guide books were all we had to hunt down and find lodging. It was a slow and uncertain process. Travel plans needed to be fluid because the place you had so carefully research might not have availability when you arrived. With the early use of the fax machine, one could at least check on availability, provided your destination had a fax, answered it and 12 California Hotel & Lodging Association FALL 2015 spoke your language. Oh, and there was the time difference, too. Computers and the Internet next to the invention of fire, the computer, quickly followed by the internet, were the most profound inventions for the innkeeping profession. Frankly speaking, we could not run our 11 room inn to the level of service we now employ if it weren’t for the computer and internet. These tools are the great equalizer when it comes to competing for guests with the big hotel chains and deluxe properties of the world. Soft sheets, software and super service On our website, guests can see our gorgeous rooms, learn about our 52,000 thread count butter soft sheets, and read guest reviews. They can book rooms with availability guaranteed in real time, pay for the room, get a receipt emailed, and do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from Moscow, Idaho or Lessons Learned Over Time and Distance By Jim Beazley If there’’’’’’’’s one thing I’’’ve learned after 35 years of innkeeping, it’’’s “““You can’’’t get there from here.”””
CH LA Lodging News Fall 2015
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