Thursday, September 11, 2008

Desperately Seeking Green Guests


I checked Plenty Magazine's “State by State Guide to Green Hotspots” and was delighted to find Chez Sven under Massachusetts. We hope this listing will bring us more green guests. We do not receive as many as we would like. They are certainly lurking out there in Cyberspace, but where?

Oh, how we do love our green guests! They recycle water bottles and turn lights off while they are out. They spend special care reading past issues of The Green Guide. They walk to town and back. Then go out again to eat at Wicked Oyster, five minutes away. Many of them hail from England or Germany, which makes me wonder why we receive so few from my own country. Why do Americans who care about the environment not come?

We tried membership or advertising at:

• Greenhotels.com
• Environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com
• Mother Earth News
• Greenvacationhub.com
• Treehugger.com
• Ecobookers.com

I have come to the conclusion that although more people worldwide care about the environment, should they want to spend a few days at an intimate bed & breakfast run by green innkeepers, considerable effort is required to find us. Once we are found, however, our green guests tell all their friends. Apparently, the best green advertising remains word of mouth. They go home to Leeds or Liverpool with happy memories of Wellfleet, a place where beauty greets you in the most unexpected places, as illustrated by these photos of Duck Creek, taken yesterday, from the far end of the Mac's Shack parking lot.