2009 was the year of cutting
things back.... making life a little simpler... taking a little more time
for ourselves...have taken several little "escapes" to the
Lake Cottage...
more planned... also looking for more time with family and friends... must
say it has worked out so well that we are looking at other ways to make life
simpler and easier... :)
We were having another record
breaking year in '09... in spite of the economic turndown.... and... we were
just getting plain old tired out..... :)
So we began our cutbacks with
the decision to stop burning the candle at both ends of the day.... we
stopped cooking dinners which we were certain would help a lot. It did. No
more cleaning up at 10pm... going to bed wired... and getting up at 5:30 to
start all over again... :) That was a good start.
We found a new online booking
engine and made the switch from the folks we had been with for 10 years....
I cannot tell you the hours of "paperwork" that has saved as it spits out
automatic confirmations... really neat... and it is a much better... simpler
presentation from our web-site for all our potential guests.... even costs
us less than before... it has been a win/win change.
We also decided to have just one
basic season all year and simply add $20 for foliage and holidays. This too
has saved countless hours and expense as we constantly had to update our
rate page with all the different dates/rates for the different seasons...
our rate page is very simple now... easy to understand. The same thing was
true for entering our online inventory.... not only on our site... but
through B&B.com which has exposed us in a major way with the big hotel
guys....Expedia/Hotels.com/Kayak... that has opened up a whole new world of
travelers... the hotel/motel folks who are making decisions to try out this
B&B thing at.... little old Village Victorian Bed & Breakfast up there in
beautiful downtown Morrisville VT.... :)
This is a bit risky having two
real-time online booking engines... no one wants "double bookings".... but I
figure if we have two parties at two different web-sites that are booking
the same room on the same night at exactly the same time... I might just try
playing the lottery..... :)
So far we haven't had to do
that.... so I still haven't played the lottery... the exposure and results
have been great... the good news is that the next time they come to Village
Victorian... they book directly with us.... which tempers the cost of that
first booking with the big boys....
The next thing that happened....
that helped cut back our activity.... was changes with our marketing of the
Annex... the owners decided to sell because of the economic disasters of the
past few years... they put the place "on the market"... so... anybody out
there want to buy a marvelous old beautifully restored Victorian right
across the Street from us?
We stopped selling it as extra
"rooms" at the B&B which immediately stopped the extra 6 - 8 - 10 breakfasts
every day... we had sat as many as 22 for breakfast during foliage in
2008.... :) We started to market the Annex only as the "entire house" with a
2 night minimum.... this took much of the work out of it since it also
greatly reduced the number of reservations.
This year we are going to
re-direct all inquiries directly to the owners which will bring our
involvement to a minimum.... that will continue until they are able to get a
contract for the sale of the property.
We keep tweaking and refining
what we do.... how we spend our time. We have had more time for yet another
"year of the family" kind of year in 2009. Many visits from family and
friends... our daughter and family were with us for 6 weeks prior to their
move to Rwanda and our son got married! That will require yet another
newsletter... it will be our "family newsletter" version...... hopefully
soon...
All our busyness kept our
newsletter updates from happening at all last year. Hope to do better this
year. One of my priorities this year will continue to be my
personal blog.
Really love doing that... kind of like writing your memoirs as you go... the
book you have always been told that you need to write... there are now some
500 postings more or less ... which is actually more like several books...:)
On the other hand... it isn't
like things have slowed down here at Village Victorian... regardless of the
further turndown on the economic front... and even without the extra room
night count from the Annex... we had 59 room nights in January to start off
2010... the largest number of rooms occupied in January in all our 11 years
in the business.
Philip & Ellen Wolff
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