Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Advice for Innkeepers: Avoid Complication!


I was already in bed last night when the phone rang shortly after ten p.m., 10:13 to be exact. “Got any availability next Monday and Tuesday?” an impudent voice demanded. “Do you know what time it is?” I answered back. Innkeepers, beware of such behavior! If a prospective guest does not care about waking you up, he or she will be the type of person, who will make life difficult once a room is booked, canceling or showing up late, for instance, drinking wine in the room and spilling it, clogging drains, etc. I run this business according to rules I establish myself and one guideline is “Avoid complication.” We do accept reservations by phone during the day, but prefer not to have the phone ring at night, for obvious reasons: most guests are sleeping. The caller had probably not taken the time to read we prefer initial communication via email, stated clearly on the Web site. The fellow made some crack about the way I run my business before hanging up. I felt like saying, “Yes, and today we made four different bookings, via email, so our business is doing just fine, thank you.” There are very few openings left until mid-August. Availability can be checked here.