1906 pine crest inn cabin

Client Spotlight: 1906 Pine Crest Inn

This historic Inn offers 36 guest accommodations of various types – rooms & suites, cabins & cottages, each uniquely appointed. Visitors can enjoy romantic, intimate lodging for two, or larger lodging for families, groups of friends. All stays at 1906 Pine Crest Inn enjoy breakfast included, either in the onsite restaurant, or delivered to you room for breakfast-in-bed.

recommended bed and breakfast directories

Recommended Bed & Breakfast Directories

In days gone by, Internet Directories were a popular and effective tool for online marketing, but in most cases that’s no longer true. As Search Engines have improved, paid directories have faded into the past, becoming largely irrelevant.

There are, however, some exceptions in each industry. The following resources still offer value for bed and breakfasts and inns.

7 ways to market your small business by thinking outside the box

7 Ways to Market Your Small Business by Thinking Outside the Box

When marketing a small business, having a limited budget can sometimes prevent you from using some marketing strategies. But, there are plenty of alternatives.

If you don’t have heaps of money to spend on marketing, here are seven outside-the-box ideas to reach customers that are cost-effective and highly effective.

Bed and Breakfast Industry Statistics

These Bed and Breakfast Industry statistics from PAII makes clear that innkeeping is most often a couple’s venture, and they live on site in primarily rural or village locations.

Client Spotlight: Jeweled Turret Inn

The Jeweled Turret has been with Keyhole since our beginning – 10 years ago! In this time we’ve been through 3 iterations of their website, with the most recent responsive Wordpress site going live in 2018.

local travel websites links traffic bookings

Local Websites: Links, Traffic, & Bookings

Google has 90% of the Search Engine market share, and most see Google as their top referrer of traffic, far above any other resource – so the 800lbs gorilla gets all of the attention.

The problem is that so often business owners forget (or don’t know) that other resources play a huge role in how highly a website will actually rank in Google. This is a difficult to quantify, but very import benefit in seeking out and being listed on other websites. Your presence in secondary, oft-overlooked resources can heavily influence your presence in the primary Google race.

five breakfast wins

5 Inn Wins for Best Guest Satisfaction

What do guests really want from an inn or bed and breakfast?

This is the most frequent and fundamental of all questions asked by innkeepers everywhere – at seminars, association meetings, and during offseason sleepless nights. Studies examining the innkeeping industry conclude again and again that service comes first.

capture the group market

Capture the Group Market: 6 Things to do

When marketing to the lucrative group, meeting, and conference markets within the greater travel industry, it is paramount that you cater to the needs and preferences of the professional meeting planners. These are the individuals who need to be convinced, and they are generally very busy. Therefore, whatever information they are presented needs to be fluid and transparent. Most planners are very focused on…

sell your region

Sell Your Region

Every vacation begins with a mental image of warm sandy beaches, snow capped mountains, bright city lights, or the rolling hills of wine country. Each vacation starts with the dream of a destination. It is a destination, or rather the impression of a destination, that people are seeking as they plan their much needed escape. In general, it is not the lodging that travelers are drawn to, but…

peabody ducks

Peabody Ducks: Branding with Feathers

In 1933, the General Manager of the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis placed three ducks in the Grand Lobby fountain of the hotel. What was intended to be a silly prank became an instant sensation with guests, both young and old. “The Peabody Ducks” were there to stay.

In 1940, Bellman Pembroke, a former circus animal trainer, joined the Peabody Hotel staff as the official “Peabody Duckmaster”. Pembroke went to work training the ducks to…