Bed & Breakfast Owners Blog
Guests, travellers, visitors, bookings, tourism, DIY repairs, bookkeeping, suppliers, and other headaches encounterd in my B & B business. Insights, thoughts and commentary from an owner and operator of a Bed and Breakfast business, based in Helmsley in the North of England. Need to send me a comment? Try here
Budget cut for VisitBritain?
Englandnet to be Marketing Agency?
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Sunday, Oct 21, 2007
Read all about it!!
Budget cut for VisitBritain?
Englandnet to be Marketing Agency?
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Waking the Dead!
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Tuesday, Oct 16, 2007
Now I once had a bad experience in a hotel I worked in when a person died. This chap seems to be targeting that type of clientele
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Should have done a Risk Assessment!
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007
A hotel in Mickleham, Surrey has been fined a total of £12,000 for failing to protect its guests after an elderly customer fell and fractured his hip.
Hotel management had failed to fit adequate handrails, step edges were not marked and flower pots on the steps added to the hazard. The hotel was fined £10,000 for failing to protect the safety of the public and a further £2,000 for inadequate risk assessment.
The council said that these accidents were easily preventable with some very simple measures and employers examine their sites and procedures to ensure they were protected.
How to avoid things like this here
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Stop thief! You have been warned.
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Friday, Oct 05, 2007
A salutary tale.
The proprietor of a bed & breakfast business in North Yorkshire received a telephone call purporting to be from a company based in London. The telephonist claimed that another local B & B was selling up to a new owner, and unless the proprietor protected her websites immediately, then the new owner could take her customers' details and use ideas from her website to re launch the other B & B's website . The telephonist said that "for £25 per site each site could be protected by her verification department". The proprietor agreed to protect each of her six websites and expected to pay a total of £150. However, when she checked her bank account she found £1500 had been taken. Bandbowner Advice:
Always treat such calls with extreme caution. Any business offering a legitimate service is unlikely to try and place such pressure on a potential customer. If you have any doubts about any unsolicited approaches made to your business but think you may be interested, you should ascertain as much information as possible about the service on offer so you can research alternatives. Finally report any suspicious approaches or contact to us and your local Trading Standards.
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Why are UK hotels so expensive?
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Thursday, Oct 04, 2007
Are you expensive? Do you try and fleece your guests? Judging by the report here we're nearly all rogues and vagabonds! There are actually some quite interesting replies here to an article written I suspect to sell the Good Hotel Guide. Any thoughts? Post them on our discussion board if you have.
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Quality in Tourism
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Wednesday, Oct 03, 2007
I attended my local tourism association meeting yesterday when we were addressed by the Area Manager for Quality in Tourism. I did not go brilliantly I am afraid as the speaker was sidetracked by a couple of domineering members of the audience. Its not always easy to speak at these types of meeting especially when you have said you will allow questions during your presentation. I think a better route is to say 'we'll have question at the end as my remit is to deliver this presentation to as many as possible'. You then get the whole presentation out to satisfy everybody's interest and take business specific questions at the end when people may wander off if the information is not for them. Anyway we had a debate about the Fire Regs and we chose to differ at the end. We both agreed that every business needed to do a Fire Risk Assessment but I was and still am of the opinion that businesses not registered for Quality Assurance do not need to write down the Risk Assessment. Having said that you'd be MAD not to!!
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An extra £20K p.a. for your B&B?
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007
Could you do with an extra £20K a year?
Let's face it an extra amount of that size would be welcome in most B&B's. Well if you fancy going for it you already know the telephone number to call its probably the most famous in the UK!
You'll have to put up with a few extra cars in your car park but rest assured you will never be bothered by the criminal fraternity, honestly!
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The Political Scene
Posted By :Chris
Posted At : Friday, Sep 21, 2007
The Political Party Conference Season is in full swing with the Liberal Democrats having just finished theirs. Whilst it is nice to see Tourism get a mention in their policies I'm not really sure whether what they are suggesting is the right move. Judge for yourself here. But perhaps more importantly read the comments at the bottom of the news item some of them are quite thoughtful.
Have a good weekend.
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