Next, please.

Today I would like to speak about a topic that is a bit different from that of “attracting customers”. I'd like to talk about the right personnel. B&B's have different sizes. Yes, it can be just a small family business when you don't even need any extra people. In the worst case your cousin takes care of the inn while you are on a vocation.

Dilemmas in Social Media. Are we ready to meet them?

It is easy to make a mistake in the social media. Øyvind Kvalnes at Handelshøyskolen BI in Bergen, Norway, has identified in his recent research five dilemmas that can come up. While social media give a fantastic opportunity to discover and create network with other people, it also gives us challenging situations. As Mr. Kvalnes puts it, one gets a chance to discover oneself just as the Greek philosopher Socrates suggested. Mr. Kvalnes himself is a philosopher and professor at the Trade University of Bergen.

Do's and don'ts on Facebook. Learn from the biggest.

Recently my friend had a trouble with her flight with Norwegian, one of the biggest operators in Scandinavia. So I went to the air-company’s Facebook page and found the Discussion Board where I could share my (in this case) her experience of their nonexistent customer care. But this post is not about the complaints, it is about how the air-companies handle the Facebook communication.

Best Practices for Responding to Reviews

Webinars is a fantastic way to learn. It is much more fun than just reading.
That is why today I suggest you spend 35-45 minutes of your time on following this interesting webinar about responding to guest reviews.

Best Practices for Responding to Reviews

Guest reviews are extremely important in the age of Social Media and Web 2.0. They tell us about what is good, and what we should improve. The last are probably the most important for the hotel owners and they show the flaws and problems that one can improve. To learn more, follow the webinar.

The famous Daniel Edward Craig is the guest expert and he talks about:

- what reviews should be answered
- how to answer the reviews
- when to answer the reviews

Interesting cases are presented and revised. You can also download the PDF version.

Facebook and B&B

I have noticed that our post named "Facebook" attracts attention. It is of course not because all our readers want to join us on Facebook, but as I estimate it, because people want to know how to use Facebook in their business.

There have been a lot of excitemenet about Social Media and Marketing in Tourism. There are even conferences devoted to this topic: take for example EyeforTravel’s upcoming Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2011, EyeforTravel's Online Marketing & Social Media Europe Summit, Enter2012, Social Media Strategies for Travel North America. I did have a pleasure to be present at Enter2011 in Innbruck, where a lot of information was shared both from scholars and industry representatives. But one does not have to attend all the events to have a success in Online Marketing.

Bed&Breakfast and the development of the Internet

I am getting exciting updates from LinkedIn, the group of  "Hotel Marketing + Distribution + Revenue Management ". The recent post was from Seth's Blog, something about the best customers. Scrolling down to January, 18, a post about Internet attracted my attention. The thought of how does the Internet develop in the case of small hotel businesses came up. Are those stages realised and used by modern inn-keepers?