Brainstorm

[Ankesh]

Few ideas:

1. Contact the local pizza place. Ask them if they would like to place their pizza ads in all of the rooms for a fee. You could either charge them a monthly fee or a fee per pizza delivered to the motel.

2. Make extra beds available for free. This will attract families to your brothers motel.

3. Send a postcard to all the locals explaining how the motel is a great place for one of their guests to stay. And if they refer someone, the motel will give them a gift. (Could be a t-shirt or a mug or something - which wouldn't cost more than $5 to make.)

Have them contact the local SCORE group (Service Corps of Retired Executives) through their local college or county extension office. They'll get EXPERT help, totally free, that may just turn the tide for them.

Best of luck to all.

Sandi Bowman

I worked briefly in the hospitality field (reservations etc) and some of the extras there that could be tried, once the basic service is on solid ground, are co-op with local florists and fruit vendors to supply custom baskets and arrangements for special occasion guests celebrating anniversary or birthday etc.

Provide a resource book of other businesses such as dining facilities, meeting rooms, entertainment, even a resource to find other accommodations when they're filled. If there aren't any referral co-ops among the hotels/motels, why not set one up? It's a great way to fill up those last minute cancellations.

Co-op with bus lines and tour lines to use their place as a resource. Lots of ways to handle that...just make sure there's no snafus and the word of mouth will keep the ball rolling.

Provide postcards that feature the motel as part of the 'scenery' selections.
Make the card attractive and offer as a complimentary gift to the guests.

Lots more but this should get things rolling along for guests.

Now to the workers: make their place THE place to work by offering WANTED extras and incentives that other employers don't. This could be anything from complimentary entertainment tickets to meal discounts, a customer comment reward system with a nice gift (or cash) to the one with the most positive feedback in a week or month etc...

Sandi Bowman