Brainstorm

For too many years I travelled the highways and stayed in the lower end motels.

One of the worst things about them is getting up and there is nothing there....no coffee, tea or juice....nothing to curb the morning hunger until you can drive to find a restaurant to have breakfast.

They could easily raise their price by $5-$10 per night by adding this to their service.

Now they don't need a full blown kitchen for this....simply a call to the front office and then the ordr delivered to the room.


I stayed at a few that offered this service and it made all the difference in the world.....here's how it worked.

A small two cup coffe maker, packaged coffee, packaged tea bags, individual packs of sugar and coffe creamer.....then the best part...a call to the office and I could order a donut, or English muffin with jam or honey and it was delivered to the door with a good morning smile and greeting....also there was always a card asking if there was anything that could have made my stay with them better.

No great outlay for the continental type breakfast....English muffins can be toasted right there in the office on a plain old 4 slice toaster, and donuts purchased fresh by the dozen.

Some I stayed at set up a small table in the office where you could go in and help yourself to the coffee, tea, juice, or donuts (no English muffins on these)....this was nice but I still had to get dressed to wander down to get them...I much preferred the in room capability.

The card asking how they could improve is great too as it will give ideas that once implimented might justify a wee hike in the rates.

It sounds as though they are using a lower rate to try and stay full in competition with other low ends at the $30 dollar end....all that is required is to see what the $30 ones are offering (even if it means spending a night in each) and then offering and advertising perks that make them just a little more desireable than the others that are at $30.

Just a thought.

Cornell