Re: innkeeping: website/'own'domain name justified?

[Dennis Cormier <kwman@keys.4ez.com>]

I think that the first thing to consider is whether a domain name will
do any good for you in the marketing of your guest house/inn.

Unless people are specifically looking for your property, the domain
name is useless... perhaps a nice professional touch, but not very
profitable in the long run.  The cost is fairly minor sometimes, but
other times the money could be better spent.

Probably more important to hook up with a very good list of travel
resources so that when people look for bed and breakfasts in your area,
they find you.  This seems to be the normal way to be found.

It would probably be better to spend the money on a unique web
presence.  Many b&b's are trying to develop more creative web sites.
Most large online guides have a similar (if not exact) advertising
presence for each of its members... imagine the poor consumer looking at
100 or more similar web pages on a single site... what makes yours stand
out? Virtually Nothing!

We have created our own site with multiple pages which tells our story a
bit better than the local provider can tell it... clicking our link on
the Key West provider's site brings the consumer to our multipage site
instead of the homogenized site that was offered by the provider... we
pay very little extra for this...

There are many Web Page generators on the market... some are even
available free of charge... ie AOLPRESS  (http://www.aolpress.com)...
some of us can learn to generate our own sites... the cost of storage of
our multi-page site runs about $20 a month... most b&b guides will
include a link to your personal site for a nominal fee and the fee is
often less than the monthly service charge assessed for their
homogenized web presence for you.

just some ideas... would be happy to elaborate in detail....

dennis cormier   key west