Drive up to Lookout Point Lakeside Inn in Hot Springs, Ark., in a hybrid vehicle and you’ll get a $10 discount off your stay.
Seattle’s Sleeping Bulldog Bed and Breakfast is handing out $25 vouchers for the light rail and bus systems to guests who stay three nights and keep their cars idle.
And, if you show up at the Ocean Wilderness Inn in Sooke, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, pedaling a bicycle, you’ll get $25 off a two-night stay.
It’s all part of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International’s B&Bs Kick Gas campaign, which is part of what might be considered as an online rebranding campaign for the B&B industry.
Jay Karen, the assocation’s president and CEO, says the group has embarked on a Better Way to Stay marketing campaign to place B&Bs higher in travelers’ lodging consideration set and to transform the public’s perceptions about the industry as some sort of relic of the Victorian past.
B&Bs want to appeal to the Gen X and Gen Y crowd, Karen says, by informing them that the 16,000 to 17,000 B&Bs and inns in the U.S. are a diverse group that can cater to their needs.
As part of the Better Way to Stay campaign, the association has engaged Brand Pandemic to create a series of videos to poke fun at B&B stereotypes and to ensure travelers that the industry has “transcended the doily,” Karen says.
The videos, which will be published in the usual social media outlets this spring and summer, will point to the competitive advantages of B&Bs over hotels, he adds.
Karen acknowledges that a survey the association conducted with TripAdvisor a couple of years ago showed that B&Bs “are not top of mind. And, we are not front of mind, when people are thinking about lodging.”
The association wants to kick some, well, gas, and change perceptions about the industry through its social media campaign.
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Smart move given that new research on the drive-to market shows the #1 concern of this segment is high gas prices.
I am an innkeeper and wrote an article titled “End Doily Discrimination – Battle of the Doilies” in other words, what did a doily ever do to you? It is just tongue in cheek and lets the world know that not all innkeepers are grannies!
http://claibornehouse.blogspot.com/2009/11/battle-of-doilies.html
…and also “Park it and save!” instead of encouraging spending gas by discounting or giving gas, how about encouraging hiking, biking, kayaking, and relaxing at a B&B! This article is a joint article from InnteractiveInns http://innteractiveinns.blogspot.com/2011/03/park-it-and-save.html
Most of us also adhere to B&B’s a “Better way to stay!” and this promotion. CHEERS FROM VIRGINIA!
very nice. a discount off the stay would definitely make me come riding up on a bike. plus i’ll save on gas and public transport. if the bike rental charges remain low, then why not?