You may find this interesting. Being a struggling little motel half way to everywhere we get peppered with lots of ‘junk mail’ on how we could be doing so much better business if only we use xxx services etc. Usually they drown us with the sort of rubbish that the ‘delete’ button is designed for. But occasionally we read one just in case we are missing the aim – which at TRM is quite normal.
So this week something called ‘SiteMinder’ sent us info on how to boost our bookings, occupancy and revenues. Before implementing their suggestions we thought we should bounce them off you first.
They start by suggesting:
“It can be easy, and very tempting, to think that slashing rates to virtually nothing will sell more hotel rooms and increase room revenue during the week.
(We know you would not want us to slash room rates so we read on…)
While it may sell a few rooms, the discounting strategy rarely sells enough to offset the reduced revenue.
It’s important to keep in mind that lower rates don’t create demand; they can set the wrong expectations for guests and erode your price integrity. Instead think of adding value to beat the midweek blues.”
They suggest TRM need to offer special packages to mask the room rates with added value features like fitness classes, packaging them together for a really great deal that encourages guests to use services they may not have previously thought about… like free bikes? Free laundry? Free wifi? Free doggy walking? Or what about a competition to see what SWMBO really means?
(Images below on right may have been previous poetry reading seminars)
In no particular order they suggest effective ways to lure you to stay are to use our imagination more with special one-day conferences for poetry readings? (and other cultural events?) So I thought you should be warned that SWMBO is practising her best Pam Ayre impressions in preparation with Her first entry below.
Another is to promote mid-week weddings? They advise mid-week weddings are becoming more popular for second marriages (By the way, SWMBO is my first wife).
Another is to holding exhibitions of students’ work for a cultural experience? Plus fitness classes, etc.? SWMBO’s idea of a fitness class is to get me weeding the garden or mowing the lawns or cutting the hedges – so you have been warned.
So here is SWMBO’s first entry for the poetry reading weekend:
(Warning – it is impossible to read her comic poems without hearing her …)
THEY SHOULD HAVE ASKED MY HUSBAND
by Pam Ayres
You know this world is complicated, imperfect and oppressed
And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed.
It seems that all around us tides of questions ebb and flow
And people want solutions but they don’t know where to go.
Opinions abound but who is wrong and who is right.
People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light.
Someone they can turn to as the crises rage and swirl.
Someone with the remedy, the wisdom, and the pearl.
Well, they should have asked my ‘usband, he’d have told’em then and there.
His thoughts on immigration, teenage mothers, Tony Blair,
The future of the monarchy, house prices in the south
The wait for hip replacements, BSE and foot and mouth.
Yes, they should have asked my husband he can sort out any mess
He can rejuvenate the railways he can cure the NHS
So any little niggle, anything you want to know
Just run it past my husband, wind him up and let him go.
Congestion on the motorways, free holidays for thugs
The damage to the ozone layer, refugees and drugs.
These may defeat the brain of any politician bloke
But present it to my husband and he’ll solve it at a stroke.
He’ll clarify the situation; he will make it crystal clear
You’ll feel the glazing of your eyeballs, and the bending of your ear.
Corruption at the top, he’s an authority on that
And the Mafia, Gadafi and Yasser Arafat.
Upon these areas he brings his intellect to shine
In a great compelling voice that’s twice as loud as yours or mine.
I often wonder what it must be like to be so strong,
Infallible, articulate, self-confident …… and wrong.