What are the functions that encompass being a really great Innkeeper? (I know, walking with me through our woods hearing the Spring- birds jubilee, and facing into the warm rays of sunshine as I stroll along, following Chocolat’s jaunting nose-to-the ground path, taking us home again!) Taking you through my woods, that would be it [...]
Recently I had the assignment of discussing and defining location for some 40 aspiring Innkeepers. It turned out that my perceptions were not needed. Without exception all 40 had fantastic locations. The most interesting may have been the young man who planned to develop three room spa inn at the terminus of a several mile [...]
Sometimes it is hard to yield to long held prejudices. Looking at Bed and Breakfast models is one of those areas where I have resisted recognizing an emerging (or emergent) mode as a viable route for aspiring Innkeepers.
For many years we have preached that an Inn or Bed and Breakfast with fewer than eight rooms [...]
We are currently observing radical change in the Middle East. But in fact, most change is evolutionary. It occurs quietly, often unnoticed even by active participants. In fact, active participants are often less aware of the constant but minuscule changes taking place.
The Bed and Breakfast world does not escape the evolutionary changes in taste and [...]
March 18, 2011
As you know, it’s that Morning snow-shoe trek through our woods that makes me reflect on things! I do that walk every Morning with my favorite dog, Chocolat! Guess what? Today we had snow to accompany us! That is Vermont for you!
Last week we attended the Mid-Atlantic Inn-keeper Conference in Lancaster, PA. [...]
When don’t I love walking in the woods? Each time as the early rays of sun trail through the thick forest array I say “This is the best morning yet!”
I cherish these morning walks with my Weimaraner, Chocolat and naturally, I have thoughts and more thoughts, that surface and sometimes I feel [...]
I try to keep my perceptions open to concepts that, developed in another context, apply to my primary interest in Inns and Bed and Breakfasts. Such as the case when reading a “Talk of the Town” piece in the September 6, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine. “Are You Being [...]
June 11, 2010
Why stay at Inns? I can’t believe when I stay at an Inn that I have never been to before, that there is yet one more way, that the Inn-keepers can be different, and running their Inn uniquely from any other place that I have been. Yes, it is partly the setting, it [...]
Here we are, after a 7 hour trek from Vermont, on a mountain top at 2100 feet. A pristine lake, deep and clear, in the middle of the town, with huge Victorian mansions built around the lake; some as early as 1850. The banks of mountain laurel and rhododendron garner the immediate path around the [...]
Here’s a thought provoking idea gleaned from the Seth Godin www.sethgodin.typepad.com and passed along to me by Gary Muller, who with his wife Sylvia owns and runs the superb Mill House Inn in East Hampton, Long Island.
Seth writes that “in tough times marketers fret about price. We think people care only about price”. Actually, in [...]