Bonnet Creek B&B: Too Much Technology for Six Rooms

Bonnet Creek uses technology in almost every part of their day. From check-in to check-out, automation and some app is helping them manage things. Systems keep track of the data, and that makes the family and the lean staff efficient. But there doesn't seem to be much balance at all between personalization and automation. They use automation for those things for which that personal touch would be better. They are a bed & breakfast, and with six rooms, they are too close to the guests to rely on automation to run things sans hitch.

It seems the family found the advantages of using cloud-based apps. After all, these tools are designed to level up at scale, so starting small (and paying less) is a strong reason to choose these tools. These are accessible by all the staff from computers of all size, and probably even the guests have some access. Also, these tools better handle the data than, say, writing everything in a ledger book. The B&B won't get oversold; a program can keep track of the number of rooms sold far into the future, for example. There are many more reasons I'm sure the family reasoned. These two stuck out.

However, the limitations are just as feature-filled, as it were. Technology puts a slick, efficient, and impersonal bridge between guests and hosts. It would be possible to never meet the guest in person if they only ordered from the digital menu or pinged the front desk for a replacement toothbrush. There's nothing personal about logging into an app to do work two people could do together. AI can be useful, but it removes the satisfaction of talking with someone, puzzling the problem, and stumbling into the solution together. Guest Services is really about that connection between guest and host.

A small business like this has plenty of opportunity to bring in more revenue. They are free enough to do what they like, so there's plenty of options. They can sell branded merchandise. They can host cooking classes to guests and locals alike, and they can hold small events.

There are many more issues with relying on technology to be the mediator between the host and the guest; the biggest is simply the experience of the guest and app interaction. Receiving the web page on the phone, getting authenticated, to log in, and fetching data all require connection to the internet, and some B&Bs go out of their way to be out of sight of any radio towers. So guests would be cut off from all that the establishment provides, through the apps. AI is new, annoying, and misunderstood by many folks. And guests may simply not want, on vacation, to rely on the device that runs their whole life.

I'd say that this use of technology is out of proportion with the size of the lodging. They are really just a typical branded hotel. Large and corporate ones rely on technology for consistency, dealing with a high number of guests, and the complexity of the data. Nowhere in the description was there discussion of their interaction with guests. I guess there was some discussion of guests interacting with hosts through the app, again, a strength of large, branded hotels.

Given some factors: they are a small B&B with a lean staff relying on technology to manage the business each day, they should simply stop using technology as much. Probably it is okay to use an app for check-ins. But they really don't need an app to order food.

The amount of technology they are using is out of proportion with the size of the establishment; they can scale it back. Pick one or two apps that have more guest-interaction possibilities and remove those. Go back to talking with guests about actions that create the meaningful experience.

Focus instead on your guest and their needs. Communicate with them not with text but with words and gestures. Let them look into your eyes and not down to a screen.