Ten Tips for Innkeepers

Happy July! We have guests from Sweden and France right now. The Swedish woman told me she is so glad she kept looking until finding Chez Sven and Wellfleet. The Frenchman, married to an American, told me he used to say he had never met an American who spoke French as well as his wife, but he cannot say that anymore!!! Hem, hem. This being said, bilingualism is not really necessary for innkeepers, but it doesn't hurt.

Check out these tips for innkeepers in 2012:

1.) Give your new sheets to older couples and folks staying alone.

2.) Clean as if all your guests hailed from Germany. They will leave the room just as spotless.

3.) Freeze extra coffee cake. That way you always have some on hand.

4.) Don’t book weekends until summer because if weekends are booked early, you will not be able to accommodate guests who want four or five nights, including a weekend.

5.) Don’t book an efficiency cottage with kitchen to a father with two teenagers unless you have a whole day for cleanup after their departure.

6.) Don’t mark off days as booked on the availability calendar until you have received payment.

7.) Carve out periods of down-time and treat yourself to the occasional funky restaurant, like The Juice, above.

8.) Look upon guests not as an invasion of your personal space but rather the opportunity to meet and get to know new people.

9.) If you eat an early breakfast, don’t eat anything while guests are having breakfast or you will end up overweight.

10.) Take on only as much work as you can handle. If you do everything yourself, three rooms of guests at one time is quite enough.