Newspaper promotions - do they work for you?

Have you taken part in a newspaper or magazine promotion for B&Bs and hotels this year?  If so, we'd like to hear your experiences - good and bad.

We're keen to know what works and what does not, so we can help newspapers who approach us in future to plan their promotions to maximise their effectiveness - and help our members fill their rooms and achieve incremental income.

Give us your comments on promotions at comment@bandbassociation.org

The Ad Regulator Raps TripAdvisor

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld industry complaints against TripAdvisor, and ruled that it cannot claim to offer trustworthy reviews from genuine travellers.

Chris Emmins of KwikChex, which made one of the complaints, said “real people and their livelihoods are unquestionably being hurt very badly”.

Fake reviews have forced restaurants and hoteliers out of business and caused “great distress” to bed and breakfast owners who “ take it very personally”, he said. Mr Emmins said that he was aware of numerous agencies offering glowing reviews for a price.

“Some of them have hundreds of TripAdvisor accounts and they use proxy accounts [to disguise their identity]. TripAdvisor has absolutely no way of detecting them.”

The ASA upheld complaints that TripAdvisor’s claims to offer “trusted advice from real travellers” was misleading and could not be substantiated.

TripAdvisor argued that it had “advanced and highly effective fraud detection systems” and that the effect of “small numbers of fraudulent reviews was effectively negligible”.

As members know, this is something we have long been concerned about, and will again report on in the next issue of Bed & Breakfast News, due out on Monday (6 Feb).

British B&Bs are "the best on earth"

Great news to hear this week that according to tourists worldwide using TripAdvisor, British B&Bs are "the best on Earth".
British B&Bs took the first three places in the world's best B&B table compiled by TripAdvisor from tourists' reviews. The UK domination was shown by the fact that six English and two Scottish establishments were in the top 10 B&B world table. TripAdvisor spokeswoman Emma Shaw said: "These awards celebrate the best B&Bs in the UK and beyond according to those that really matter - travellers themselves. "The UK performed extraordinarily well in the B&B category, laying claim to eight of the top 10."
Our members will be delighted to hear it but (at the risk of being immodest), we are perhaps not surprised! As I told Radio 5 Live this week, British B&B owners are the "unsung heroes" of the British tourism industry.