The winter holiday season has just come to a close and we’ve begun a new year. What will you do differently in 2020? Start holiday shopping earlier? Get your decorations out sooner? What about inviting holiday guests? Will you host again this year or be traveling?
If you are one of the millions of holiday travelers, consider staying in a bed and breakfast the next time you’re out of town visiting family and friends. Here are the top 3 reasons a bed and breakfast is perfect for holiday visits and how to encourage your guests to stay there:
1. Entertaining for the holidays can be stressful and chaotic for your host. Nowadays, not everyone’s house is set up for accommodating house guests. Condos, apartments, and townhomes can be small just for the family that lives there, let alone all the holiday decorations, gifts, and food. This way you can hang out until your heart’s content but still give them some living space and private time.
2. If you’ve ever traveled to a different city or town and stayed in a hotel/motel, you know that foreign feeling you get that it’s just not home. Not intensely unwelcoming, but a little uncomfortable. No one wants to feel that, especially around the holidays. But bed and breakfast accommodations have that home away from home atmosphere down to a science. And there’s no better place to feel cozy and nestled all snug in your bed, even if it’s not your bed at home.
3. Breakfast obviously! What’s better than a homecooked meal filling your belly? Not having to clean it up or in this case, offer to clean it up! And that goes for tiding your living space as well. Whenever I stay with family/friends I always feel it’s my duty to clean my bedding and areas I’ve used so as not to put an added burden on my hosts. Next time, I think I’ll look for the closest bed and breakfast.
So, you have guests coming for a visit next holiday season, but you just don’t have the space to house extra people. The last time you had guests it was so disruptive to the family’s normal routine and you were tripping over each other constantly. The chaos was more than you can take. You don’t want to cancel the visit, so here’s how to invite them to your local bed and breakfast.
First, find the closest and most convenient bed and breakfast and inquire about prices and style of accommodation. Make sure it’s a good fit for your guests. Second, the delivery. Open up a conversation about the next visit and remind them how much you love spending time with the whole family but space is incredibly tight for them and you. If space is not the issue, then put a positive spin on it and talk about the freedom they’ll have to come and go as they please and the personal space to relax as they see fit. Tell them about this blog! And that a bed and breakfast might be the answer to the logistics of space and private time. If possible, offer to pay half of their accommodations.
The most important part of this interaction is open communication. It’s pertinent that you clarify the arrangements before the visit so this next holiday season can be filled with lasting memories where the visit is comfortable, merry, and bright.
Author
Lisa Brooks
Superpowers include packing a car