Frictionless Innkeeper Podcast

A major component for developing a brand vision for any inn comes down to determining your ideal guest demographic. While it may sound cliché, different generations have personality traits, spending power, and guest preferences when they stay at independent properties.

Elaine Herbert finds that Millennial guests at the Yelton Manor Bed & Breakfast are ideal. She feels that these guests are trouble-free, respect policies and boundaries, and are warm and friendly overall. Conversely, she feels that Baby Boomers are not a perfect fit for her property, and have more specialized needs and demands.

In this podcast, Elaine shares her candid insights into why Millennials are the perfect guest for her property.

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.

The impact of Airbnb on both innkeepers and their communities is not always apparent to most people, since much of the media focuses on how larger hoteliers deal with this competitive landscape.

The reality is that Airbnb can negatively affect innkeepers and communities throughout the world. As Elaine highlights in this podcast interview, the home-sharing provider has both challenged her B&B's ability to thrive and had dire consequences on her community of South Haven, Michigan, where she and her husband have lived for more than 30 years.

The arrival of Airbnb has impacted South Haven in many ways — incentivizing long-term residents to sell their homes to investors, decreasing tax revenues in various forms, creating a tenuous and sometimes threatening local political atmosphere, and causing overcrowding by visitors with a penchant for partying — ultimately resulting in what Elaine describes as a true "battle for the soul of the town."

In this podcast, Elaine shares her candid insights into how Airbnb's home-sharing approach has changed the face of South Haven and impacted tourism-based communities around the world.

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.

For many innkeepers, dealing with OTAs can be both a blessing and a curse. While these channels can help provide more booking opportunities, they often come with a price, which includes high commissions, lack of direct access to guest information, a slow payment cycle, and bookings coming from fraudulent credit cards.

On a more positive note, OTAs have the marketing resources and guest search traffic to help enhance overall bookings – especially during slower times of the year. Debbi has a great amount of experience dealing with these issues and opportunities since 2010.

In this podcast, Debbi shares her candid insights on utilizing OTAs to the maximum benefit of innkeepers.

Innkeepers are often very interesting people, with many having previous careers that make the most exciting of corporate jobs seem mundane.

Tom Werman, the owner and operator of Stonover Farm in Lenox, Mass., is a prime example of this type of innkeeper. He is a former A&R record executive – who produced 52 albums – and is associated with some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll that include Cheap Trick, Boston, Ted Nugent, Mötley Crüe, and REO Speedwagon.

In the early 1990s, the music landscape changed, and Tom found himself at a crossroads. Rather than embracing the new Seattle grunge sound at the time, he decided to leave his life as a record producer in Los Angeles, and moved to Lenox to establish and run a luxury B&B.

Today, Stonover Farm is an award-winning property that is less than a mile from Tanglewood and other attractions in the Berkshires. The property offers all of the beauty and serenity of a country inn, while providing all the conveniences of a first class urban hotel.

In this podcast, Tom Werman shares his story about moving from being a music producer to being an innkeeper.

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.

Being named one of the top B&Bs in the U.S. is an accolade that most property owners strive to achieve. The Beall Mansion, an Elegant Bed & Breakfast Inn, is the prime example of a B&B that continually tops these types of annual lists.

Recently, HotelsCombined awarded the property the 2018 HotelsCombined Recognition of Excellence, which is based on achieving the highest rankings on customer satisfaction through customer opinions online.

Based on an analysis of more than 1,000,000 hotels worldwide, The Beall Mansion scored a 10 out of 10, representing the top 3 percent of accommodations worldwide for customer satisfaction.

Previous 2018 Beall Mansion honors and awards include the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, TripAdvisor Hall of Fame, 50 Best B&Bs in America, and the Best B&B in Illinois (according to The Daily Meal).

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.

Many innkeepers have backgrounds in the corporate world and make the leap to owning a B&B as a means to finding a more fulfilling way to make a living. The idea behind the 80s hit TV show Newhart follows this very premise.

Christine Boeke, the owner of the Westcott House B&B in Hudson, NY, fits this bill perfectly. Coming from a high-profile career in media and marketing with Newsweek and CBS, she decided to make a career-switch to being an innkeeper about four years ago. This has enabled Christine to follow her true passion, which is all about helping guests and travelers make memories in the Hudson region.

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.

Living the dream of opening and operating a B&B comes with many exciting challenging and life-changing opportunities – many that are completely unexpected.

As the owner of Lamberson Guest House, a bed and breakfast in Galena, Illinois, a historic town with 32 B&Bs and a large Main Street area that has a diverse offering of local restaurants, shops, and other attractions, Michelle Heurung's story is truly remarkable.

Having opened her B&B about 18 months ago, Michelle is relatively new to the world of innkeeping. She and her husband, Brian, fulfilled their decades-long dream of owning a B&B in Galena when they purchased the home that ultimately became the Lamberson Guest House.

After a whirlwind renovation, they opened their doors to guests just 4 months after they bought it. Then, only 6 weeks later, Brian – Michelle's husband, partner, and the love of her life – passed away unexpectedly. Her story is one of passion, tragedy, community support, perseverance, and triumph, which she has been kind enough to share in this podcast.

Our podcast is presented by the Frictionless Guest App, the digital concierge that helps your guests live like locals. To learn more, visit frictionlessguest.com.