Foreign Perspectives

It might sound like a silly question but what you’re selling at the moment might not be what people think you’re selling.

For example, we consider our place a hotel/restaurant ie a place that has accommodation that you can stay in plus a restaurant that you can eat in. However, we have had people staying who consider it a B&B and others who consider it a hostel. Someone today even let it drop that it’s a pub-restaurant which, argueably, is exactly what an inn is.

Those differences should, of course, be matched with corresponding marketing campaigns as there are at least four different types of people who would consider staying or eating with us:

1. As a hotel/restaurant, we should expect to have a fairly high proportion of overnight bookings and individual stand-alone meals sold;
2. As a B&B the expectation is that the owners are there to chat to the guests over meals;
3. As a hostel, it should be cheap with no limits on the number of people per room and perhaps with cooking facilities for the guests (none of which we provide!); and
4. As a pub we should provide “pub grub” at lunchtime and a bar in the evenings (neither of which we currently provide, though we’ve considered them).

There are entirely different ranges of websites that we should be listed on to match each of those views of our product. We’ve largely got the hotel side covered, but don’t run to a lot of B&B listings really. As for hostels? Well, the main problem we find is that hostels are “supposed” to be in the city and we’re not which makes for a divergence in expectations compared to reality that isn’t good.

If you want to avoid unpleasant surprises on the feedback front, it’s best to ensure that what you’re selling is the same as what people think they’re buying!