We have our first group booking today, the Carhaix festival, Vielles Charrues is on and 4 girls have booked in for the 4 days. These are an important booking as these were the ones who were fist to ring and book over the phone on the day we opened.
When they arrive we realise it is not 4 girls but a mum, her friend, a daughter and her friend.
They are all happy with the rooms which is a relief and the girls are very happy with the sheep, they go to feed them every day, which is nice to watch.
The fist night goes well and the 2 women get up for breakfast, we do not see the girls, we say it's no problem, by half past ten the mums are a bit embarrassed as the girls will still not wake up, again we say no problem and they can eat whenever they get up.
The girls get up later and seem very happy that they have the dining room to themselves.
The four days go very well, and the festival sounds amazing, we are so jealous, this is the first year since we have met that we have not been to any festivals, and festival season is well and truly upon us. But we need to make the B&B a success, next year we can do or normal tour (maybe!).
I'm not sure that this is how a B&B should be run, breakfast available until 1pm, bathrooms cleaned at any time during the afternoon, but this is the beauty of having a B&B so small that one family can have the entire house, there are no set rules and the B&B is run too suit the needs of the guests rather than the needs of the owners.
On the last morning I feel really guilty saying that they will all have to get up and check out by 11 am, but we have more guests arriving.
They are more than happy and say that it was great that we accommodated them so well without asking them to get up and vacate the rooms during the day.
They ask to have their photo taken with the sheep and we have one for our face book page as well. Goodbye and have a safe journey home.
John has had to go out early as he is picking one of our next guests up from Roscoff ferry port. This is a new service that we have started to offer, a collection and drop off service, today’s guest is our first to use it!
There is so much to do and learn once you have opened your B&B, it's up to you how you want to run it and I want to make sure that it is based on the needs of our guests and give the best service possible. So far it seems to be working.
Top tips
- make sure you run your B&B to suit you and your guests
- adapt and look at new ways to provide additional services
- remember you maybe competing against established B&B's, so you need to make sure you offer something extra
Great that your group booking went so well. I think the collection and drop off service is a really good idea and saves guests having to worry about taxis, trains, hire cars etc. X
ReplyDeleteThanks Maggie, the drop off service is a great idea and was really appreciated x
ReplyDelete