Who sends guests? That was the question innkeepers wanted to know when Scott spoke recently at the Bed & Breakfast Association of Virginia 2014 annual conference. In two Google Analytics sessions, Scott began by asking what the innkeepers wanted to know. Answers ranged from “How long people stay on my site” to “What do people do on the site” but the number one question was “Who is sending me guests?”

Last week we looked at a survey by BedAndBreakfast.com, apparently designed to help it determine new prices for its online booking software products. Depending on the number and kind of bookings you take, the proposals could be better, or significantly worse, for your property. This week we’ll look at other ways vendors set online booking software prices. One thing is for sure – no matter how the survey BedAndBreakfast.com is conducting turns out, the results will be very suspect.

Just over 2 years ago we posted instructions for creating a booking form app for Facebook. That method used Facebook’s FBML app as its base. Of course, as some readers have noticed, Facebook later discontinued the FBML app (existing apps based on it continue to work, but no new apps are permitted to use it), so it is time (past time, some might say) to update the steps using newer methods that Facebook allows (at least as of this writing!

In our prior post on Measuring Social Media Impact we briefly mentioned Multi Channel Funnels and promised to discuss them soon. This post will discuss Multi Channel Funnels and what they can tell innkeepers about reservation sources. What are Multi Channel Funnels? A significant number of visitors make multiple visits before booking. That, alone, should make us pause before we draw conclusions about the value of a referral source only from the number of visitors it sends.

Our review of the current version of RezOvation GT was published January 24 (during the 2012 Innkeeping Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas). At the conference, RezOvation invited current users to see a preview of the upcoming release, and to provide feedback on some of the anticipated features. We attended that preview, spoke with some of the RezOvation staff, and have some notes to share here. At the outset, the staff stated that the goal with this release was to give it a feel that would be very familiar to existing RezOvation GT users, while making it much more intuitive and much easier to use.

Book At Onceprovides a powerful and innovative approach to their software for managing bed and breakfasts and other small lodging properties. For many, their power and innovation will be very attractive – especially in the free version. For others, it just may not be their cup of tea. Overview Book at Once is a German booking system, reaching out to become a worldwide provider, and particularly to reach the American, market.

Our B&B, Brewster House Bed & Breakfast, was recently in a position to re-evaluate its guest management software choice. You would think that the frequent evaluations (and upcoming reviews!) of various systems (we’ll call them guest management software, though some call them property management software) would make this an easy thing to do, but it never works out that way. You see, while we did a careful study of the available software before our initial purchase, every time we have to review that decision, there are new players, with new products, and the older players and products have changed, and their pricing has changed.

This post describes a Facebook app that uses FBML, which is no longer permitted for new apps on Facebook. The updated post, using static iframes, is located here (posting June 5, 2012). Some innkeepers frequently question the value of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, as being too time-consuming, all entertainment, annoying, or simply not producing any return on the time invested. We recently came across an idea from a large hotel chain that many bed and breakfasts can put to work immediately.