Want to know how to help in Haiti?  We at Instant World Booking wish to express our sympathy and support to the victims and survivors of the earthquake in Haiti, and to those who travel there.  Here is a list of some organizations currently providing relief and aid.  Please help if you can. 

The American Red Cross

www.redcross.org

Text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 (billed to your phone)

The United Nations World Food Program

www.wfp.org
The Salvation Army

www.salvationarmyusa.org
Action Against Hunger

www.actionagainsthunger.org

Catholic Relief Services

http://crs.org/
Project HOPE

www.projecthope.org
Partners in Health

www.pih.org

This list is provided as a service to our readers.  Instant World Booking is not affiliated with these organizations and does not specifically endorse them.

Want to go phishing?   You’ll only catch some trouble.  Instant World Booking’s fraud department has uncovered some attacks and scams that could cause you some serious trouble, so read on for how to keep your user ids and passwords safe.

A recent “phishing” scam involves a fraudster’s attempt to duplicate a similar-looking webpage to our homepage.  They send emails to clients alerting them to new reservations, and direct them to the scam page to sign in.  Obviously, if you follow their link and enter your password, the fraudster now has it.

Protect yourself.  With any website you use with a user id and password, make sure you’re certain that you are on the correct site.  Here’s how to know.  Look at the address bar at the top of your browser page.  If the page doesn’t start with the precise domain you are trying to access, then don’t sign in.  Many scammers will purchase similar looking domains, but may have additional characters added to fool you. 

To be more certain, use the “secure” version of the website.  Any website that is serious about protecting your security will have a secure server.  So, when you go to the InstantWorldBooking.comhomepage, use the login section at the upper right corner of the page.  Once you click login, you will notice that you are then at https://www.instantworldbooking.com/.  Note the “https” with an “s”.  This signifies that you are now on a secure server.  A little padlock icon on your browser will also indicate the server is secure, and by clicking on the padlock, you will be able to view security information about the secure server.

So, protect your security and personal information.  Always make sure you know what site you are on, before logging in.

Alvin Starkman  M.A., LL.B.

At first blush David Hornick appears to be the most unlikely candidate to be spear-heading a housing development in the state of Oaxaca, one of the southernmost and poorest states in Mexico; his Spanish is sparse to be generous, until earlier this year he had never ventured to this part of the country, he’s never designed or built a home, and he’s lived virtually all his life in Schenectady, New York, leading a more or less typical, middle-class Jewish existence.

But Hornick had a vision, born of other life experiences which made him more qualified than most to proceed with the project.  “One thing about me,” he explained on his first trip to Oaxaca, “is that once I decide to do something, you know it’s already been thoroughly considered – and then there’s no stopping me.”

For more than three decades Hornick, a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has been a geriatrician, diagnosing and treating exclusively aging Americans … through home visits.  He and wife Roberta, his partner in the medical practice, have learned that where and how we traditionally live is rarely conducive to graceful and easy aging from a position of economic security.

The answer, as I’ve come to conclude over the past several months of tutelage from Hornick, at least for creating a blueprint for the solution, is to import some of the characteristics of collaborative housing (cohousing) and as many key elements as practicable of universal design, into a region of the world where the concerns can best be addressed – Oaxaca … for starters.  And that’s exactly what Hornick’s done.

Collaborative housing

Cohousing communities are usually designed as a series of attached or single-family homes along one or more pedestrian walkways or clustered around a courtyard.  While the concept originated in Denmark, since the early 1980s it has been promoted in the U.S., and since then similar communities using the basic concept have developed throughout other countries in the Western World such as Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand.

Each community includes a larger building facility, a “common house,” constituting the social center of the complex where neighbors can meet, dine, attend to activities which traditionally are not required on a daily basis (i.e. laundry), and even host guests in small apartments.  The latter two points have implications in terms of minimizing overall cost for each resident, since space not normally occupied on a daily basis is omitted from individual homes. 

While in the purest of models residents actively participate in the design of their own neighborhood, in this case prospective members are spared that effort – Hornick has devoted his entire adult life assessing the needs of Americans as their stages in life change.  Accordingly, substantial progress for the Oaxaca project has already been advanced, and in fact there is a website in place, addressing those interested in pursing a lifestyle change in the foreseeable future.  It currently includes photographs of the two proposed tracts of land, site plans and architectural drawings of the two models of home (www . mexicommunity . com)

Hornick prefers to avoid commonly used terms such as intentional or collaborative housing, as well as cohousing, in favor of simply “neighborhoods” and “communities.” The former import the idea of consensus decision-making, which he does not believe is workable.  He does envision, however, a “resident council” (perhaps similar to a condominium’s board of directors) to assist with suggestions relating to the neighborhood.  This indicates that his approach is realistic and his model is feasible.  The project does require, he stresses,  participants’ acceptance of, and working together to promote, certain basic goals:  energy efficiency; respect for the environment; the utilization of locally produced “green” materials (in construction and otherwise); affordability; and universal design which enables people of all ages to live comfortably and safely in their own homes and neighborhoods and delay or avoid transfer to institutional care.

Universal design

Universal design (UD) can be defined as the creation of products (including communication systems) and environments (including landscapes) which are usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. It has often been associated with exclusively addressing the elderly and infirmed. And in fact there should be no doubt that within the context of the Oaxaca project the concept will be extremely attractive to those in their fifties and older, many winding down their careers and embarking upon a new phase of life, “retirement.”  But the project’s use of universal design addresses more – compatibility with a natural progression of functional changes throughout the lifespan, according to Hornick. 

So how does UD address all ages and levels of capability, and thereby make the project attractive to families at every life stage?  Hornick explains:

“We’re all born helpless and short.  We can’t reach most light switches until we are about four years old, long after we can stand and walk.  Functional capability improves (normally) up to our mid- to late-teenage years, then begins to decline.

“Light switches can be lowered to three feet to be reachable by children as well as people in wheelchairs with limited shoulder mobility.  Round door knobs can be replaced by lever handles that accommodate arthritic hands, but also permit people encumbered with arms full of groceries to open a door with a free elbow.  Steps can be replaced by ramps, even at the entrance to a home.  Lighting intensity can be adjustable to accommodate vision as it dims with age.  Shower stalls can be built without that little step-up-and-over.  And there are literally a hundred or more other alternate designs and products available in the marketplace which can be considered, which do not detract from either ‘normal’ functionality or aesthetics of the home.”

Hornick has been consulted on seniors’ apartment retrofitting projects involving production of state-of-the-art adaptive design prototypes. The Oaxaca project enables his wealth of knowledge and experience to be put into action using a slightly different orientation. 

We’re in an era when an increasing number of individuals and couples in North America are becoming disillusioned with the work-until-you-drop mentality, the less-than-optimum environments in which they’ve felt compelled to live and raise their families, increasing inaccessibility to basic goods and services including healthcare, and much more recently both insecurity in the workplace and shrinking nest eggs. 

The Oaxaca blueprint

Based upon Hornick’s due diligence, Oaxaca proved to be a potentially attractive location to develop a prototype for what he initially labeled, when he first contacted me for advice in November, 2008, a “retirement community.”  That initial characterization was probably meant to pique my initial interest without having me ask too many hard-to-answer questions.  I fell for it, and have been enthralled ever since, hosting David at our home, introducing him to a number of professionals he could potentially tap to advance the project, and advising him regarding prospective plots of land.

Latin American locations have distinct advantages over Canadian and American prospective project sites.  While remaining north of the Rio Grande may initially appear attractive because of language, ease of access for friends and family as well as for return visits, and cultural familiarity, Oaxaca was selected because of its own unique set of pluses:

1)      Access via ground transportation is consistently being improved and upgraded through Mexico’s system of  toll roads, already extending from various locations along the the U.S. border, directly to the City of Oaxaca; and via more convenient flight paths (such as being able to avoid Mexico City by using Continental’s non-stop service from Houston, and Mexicana’s from Los Angeles);

2)      Its highly agreeable climate, 12 months a year, attractive both on an individual personal level and for providing solar energy;

3)      Proximity to Pacific Coast beach destinations such as Puerto Escondido and Huatulco;

4)      A modest cost of living (i.e. labor, public transportation, entertainment, food and taxes) relative to the U.S. or Canada, and even to the northern half of the country;

5)      Availability of reasonably priced tracts of land, fertile enough and with sufficient rain and ground water to support partial self-sufficiency in terms of agricultural production;

6)      A number of prospective development locations from which to choose, no more than a half hour’s drive from downtown Oaxaca, assuring proximity to restaurants and cafés, galleries, museums and other cultural institutions, as well as health care professionals and hospital facilities;

7)      Its burgeoning expat community (including programs facilitated through the English language Oaxaca Lending Library) together with support from the Canadian and American consulates;

8 )      Local populations which welcome non-Mexicans, motivated by both a recognition that Canadian and American immigration translates into more work and higher wages for a relatively depressed economy, and an innate desire to embrace foreigners with open arms;

9)      An understanding on the part of many of its professionals, trades and business people, and government, of what the project hopes to achieve, and the potential for the growth of more of the same in other parts of the state.

Each of the two “eco village” sites identified on Hornick’s website is equally attractive, meets all criteria, and easily facilitates advancing the set of common goals.  The San Juan del Estado development consists of 25 acres and is about 30 minutes from downtown Oaxaca, and San Lorenzo Cacaotepec sits on 75 acres and is only 15 minutes from the city.  Each is about 10 minutes from the town of Etla, known for its bustling Wednesday marketplace and production of dairy products, in particular the well-known Oaxacan cheeses (queso, and the more popular “string cheese,” known as quesillo).

Each of the two developments will contain 30 detached homes of about 1,000 square feet, the common house, sheltered walkways, green and garden areas, and its own sources of water and energy as well as waste-disposal facility, thereby providing for independence from the vagaries of municipal, state and federal government utilities.

Hornick emphasizes that with more than 300 sunny days per year, the communities will be able to generate and store electricity using photovoltaic technology.  Hot water will be produced using solar water heaters.  Interior temperatures will be kept comfortable all year round using passive solar heating and cooling techniques – such as constructing walls of locally mined stone (known as “cantera”), clay brick or adobe, depending on relative direction of the sun and prevailing winds.

But self-sufficiency has its limits, and to some extent dependence on the broader Oaxacan community will be a key element.  Hornick plans to develop relationships with residents of nearby towns and villages who are interested in employment as housekeepers, gardeners and personal care aides.  In addition, there’s a well entrenched practice in the state of Oaxaca whereby expats engage locals in an intercambio language arrangement, whereby a couple of hours a week informal meetings are held to help Oaxacans with their English and expats with their Spanish. 

Hornick assures:  “…both [locations] will have access to health care services via home care professionals who will live onsite and also via internet video teleconferencing with professionals at recognized centers of excellence.”  For several years he has been advancing his own medical practice along such lines.  Naturally, in today’s technological world he does not see distance, political boundaries, or differences in language and other aspects of culture, as impediments.   “Of course there are challenges, but with perseverance they are readily overcome,” he continues.  “Look at where I was just a few months ago, with merely an idea and my index finger pointed to a strange location on a globe – and look at where we now are.”  Indeed, Hornick with his team of professionals (including Prometeo Sánchez Islas, Dean of the School of Architecture at a Oaxacan university) continue to work diligently on the project. 

While visiting Oaxaca Hornick paid particular attention to indicia of cost of living, to the point of photographing sale prices in a supermarket (which attracted the attention of store management).  He is currently attempting to pin down other costs such as transportation; medical insurance and other expenses; housekeeping, maintenance, landscaping and gardening (although he believes that it’s important for residents to participate in such activities for exercise and to maintain a sense of function and purpose).  “I’m trying to come up with a ‘soft’ figure to enable interested parties to determine if they can survive on social security alone.” he reassures.  But one thing is for certain – cost of living should be less than 50% of what most live on in the U.S. or Canada.

The horizon

Hornick plans to begin pre-selling houses at summer’s end or perhaps into autumn, at a small discount for those electing to participate early on in the project, as a kind of kick-start to the development.  For him, and for most on his team, the motivation is pure altruism, having identified a sense of urgency on the part of many American, Canadians, and even Mexicans, and being in the enviable position of being able to address it in this fashion, without profit motive.

In a sense he’s a pioneer, having started with a dream for a better, more respectful, easier and self-fulfilling life for others in a new environment, virgin land to continue with the metaphor.  He plans to lay down roots in Oaxaca, and carry on a medical practice, encouraging others of similar means to follow suit. 

It was clearly different for those who had the fortitude and the instinct to find something better hundreds of years ago in opening up the American frontiers.  Today there’s more of a necessity, yet with virtually no gamble involved.  After all, investing between $100,000 and $150,000 to have a quality constructed new home, in a safe, secure southern climate, while at the same time substantially cutting expenses through supporting a sustainable living environment, shouldn’t be too difficult a lifestyle decision to make – especially for those who have already been contemplating change.

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004.  Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized  tours to the  villages, markets, ruins and other sights,  is a film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast (oaxacadream .com), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .

Instant World Booking is a recognized leader in credit card collection for hotels, hostels, and lodging worldwide, and offers the widest range of collection options with an integrated booking engine for hotel websites.  Because of this experience we get a lot questions from hotel managers on how to deal with difficult and unpleasant problems with credit card collections.  Here’s one question we recently received from a lodging partner regarding a reservation they accepted directly:

I had a situation recently where a scammer paid me with a credit card and then the rightful owner of the credit card reclaimed the money. This left me with a big overdraft and i am still trying to clear it. Is there no insurance against this sort of thing? When i approached my bank (bbva in Spain.) they said there was nothing they could do as there was no signed credit card receipt from the person who made the reservation. This person is a recognized scammer and I had an e-mail from him confirming the reservation which I showed to the bank and they just ignored it.  Who is wrong?

Unfortunately, in this situation, the customer is right.  In fact, the customer is always right in these situations since credit card companies protect the cardholder first.  In a fraud situation, there is nothing you can do to recover the loss, and this can be considered a cost of doing business with credit cards.

If you want to avoid having to deal with this type of online fraud entirely, consider using Instant World Booking’s reservation booking engine on your website.  Instant World Booking offers the most flexible and comprehensive set collection options available among any online provider today.  Any deposit amount can be collected by credit card for your website reservations.  Additionally, you will not have to deal with any disputes since Instant World Booking handles everything.  An even greater benefit is the Full No-show and Cancellation Protection offered with every hotel website booking engine.

Doing business in the 21st century will eventually require every hotel or bed and breakfast to have a website in one form or another. Whether your site is interactive or simply informational, there are steps you can take to ensure you’re on the right track to creating a successful web presence.

1. Perform a Business Analysis

What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan?

2. Perform some research.

Research your competition and other hotel websites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.

3. Develop a concept and a design.

Finally time for the creative stuff! This involves the selection of specific content, the layout of the site structure and navigation and the overall “look and feel” of your website. Remember to pay special attention to your navigational structure. If visitors can’t navigate your website or feel lost when doing so, your “pretty” site will have been a waste of time; don’t go there, keep the navigation simple and for SEO purposes, make sure your navigation is text based. Many hotel websites today feature Flash-driven introductions. Don’t use these unless you fell it’s absolutely necessary. These flash introductions usually take some time to load in browsers. Guests will quickly become bored with this, and simply bypass your site.

4. Develop your website.

When considering which technology to develop your website, think cutting edge technology, not bleeding edge. Make sure the technology you use, such as ASP, PHP, HTML, CSS, will be useful for the next three to five years. An SEO friendly CMS will utilize real URLs, not strange looking query strings with lots of strange characters and question marks. Search engines despise query strings and rank these site accordingly.

5. Choose a host provider and implement your website.

When deciding on a host provider, make sure the host is not only reputable, but has been in business long enough that you can be sure they will be in business next year. Also, ask about site uptime. If your site is down for any reason, this will not only affect your potential and current customers, but the search engines as well. If the search engines decide on a given day to spider your site and it is unavailable, it could cost you your rank.

6. Promote and market your website.

Register your site with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Initiate other marketing activities such as an email blasts to prospective customers. Consider “Pay per Click” advertising with the major search engines and don’t forget about a long term SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to your site.

7. Finally, maintain your website.

Probably the most important long term step is continuing to provide current and relevant information on your website. Keep your site content current to encourage return visitors and give them something to return for! Related to SEO, search engines just LOVE sites which provide new content on a regular basis and rank such websites accordingly.

Overall, remember, your website is not just a marketing tool, it’s a business tool, and it should be generating a constant flow of reservations from guests, and therefore a revenue stream for your business.

If you list your hotel, hostel, or bed and breakfast with Instant World Booking, or other online booking agencies, here is some advice for maximizing your reservation potential:

1) Ensure your listing is up to date and accurate. Include as much information as possible, not only about your property, but also about local attractions, restaurants, etc.

2) Make sure to spell-check your listing. Incorrect spelling signals to guests that the property is not professionally maintained.

3) Add photos. Listings with photos gain at least 4x more traffic than those without photos. Make sure your photos are large and complement your property and location.

4) Add a complete calendar of availability. Your calendar is important, since guests prefer instant booking over online requests. Make sure you have complete availability online, and at least 6-9 months of availability.

5) Include an accurate street address on your listing, as well as local directions. Guests will not book properties that they can’t easily find.

6) Use Instant World Booking’s low-cost options for accepting reservations on YOUR OWN website.

Remember, it can take several weeks to several months for Google and other leading search engines to effectively index your page on our network of sites. Instant World Booking has proven to be very successful in gaining top search engine rankings for its listed lodging partners. One last reason it is very important to use the instant booking method is that we use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to market your property on Google and other sites. Effectively use of a PPC campaign can cost you hundreds of US dollars. However, for our partners who use instant booking, we advertise your property in PPC campaigns for free.

One last note, persistence and patience is the key to success. Online marketing is “collective”. This means it is more effective to advertise your property on 2 services than 1. Persistent online presence is necessary to achieve online name (brand) recognition, and to gain higher search rankings for pages containing your property’s name. Advertising with Instant World Booking is an extremely valuable, and free, method of increasing your online presence.

At Instant World Booking, our goal is to enhance the business and profitability of our hotel and hostel lodging partners. There’s no question a hotel’s website is at the core of any marketing strategy in tourism.

As a small hotel or hostel owner, SEO, or search engine optimization, is the most important element in building a successful online presence. Most people online have heard the term SEO, but it remains a mysterious process to many. One of the reasons SEO is so mysterious is that it can be a complicated process and search engines are constantly changing the way they rank websites.

If you have limited time and resources to devote to marketing your website, you should at minimum concentrate on Google. Google has set the standard for technology in search engine algorithms that can track the relevancy of a website to its content and SEO efforts.

For beginners to SEO, many think the only SEO tool they need is keyword density. While keywords are important, they are not the only means to an end. Back linking is another important component. While back linking remains one of the most successful ways to get your site to rank high on the search engines, it also has evolved. The type of link is important, so that search engines do not penalize a site for bad incoming links.

The term “back link” refers to an external link on another site that points to yours. In the past any link from another site would have a positive impact on your site by the search engines. Because there were so many gimmicks developed in the last few years to aggregate large numbers of back links, such as link farms, and irrelevant reciprocal linking, Google began to develop a way to weed out links that were purchased, or had little meaning or relevancy.

Even though back linking is used to manipulate search engine popularity there are many very legitimate reasons for using the system of back linking. Finding web sites that have a common interest to your own who are willing to place your link on their site can get you extra exposure. So, look for websites of local tour operators, transportation companies, restaurants, tourist attractions, etc., and see if they will place a link to your website on their own. When their visitors come to their site they will see your link and likely visit your site as well. Search engines work in somewhat the same manner.

Google works so hard to be sure that back links are really quality links, and not manufactured links. Your hotel or hostel website will get higher ranking on a search engine for a number of truly appropriate back linking partnerships. However, if the sites linking to you do not share any common information services Google will penalize you for the link. Google may even devalue your website if the site that links to you is considered of bad quality. Bottom line, it is important who you choose to link to, and also who links to you.

Probably the best way to obtain a back link to your site is through anchor text. That is when you have another website with content that is relevant to your own including your site in the actual content of their site with a hyperlink inside the text. These back links are valued much higher than a simple banner link as long as they appear in the text in a way that has a meaningful association with the content of the article. There are several ways to get such back links.

Providing articles about your location, city, or area tourist attractions to content sites with your link built into the article is one method. Also, if you write compelling content on your website, there is a good chance someone else with a similar site may wish to point it out on their own. They may put a link on their site back to yours. You may not even realize they are doing it unless they tell you about it. This is one of the main reasons it is important to keep an eye on who is back linking to you. While the majority of those types of links are wonderful and you should thank the site owner for their inclusion, if you feel the site that is linking to you does not meet your standards, have similar information, or the content is not relevant to your site you should definitely ask them to remove your link.

Back linking is an extremely important aspect of SEO development, which in turn is very important to marketing your hotel or hostel on the internet. It is therefore something you need to understand well in order to implement properly. There are many secrets and mysteries in the SEO world that diligent study can clear up. Keeping your hotel website in a good position with the search engines will ensure a vital and profitable future for your hotel’s online business.

Scams abound on the internet, and scammers usually send email to small hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other small businesses

The scammer’s goal is to get the hotel owner to send money to the scammer. Scammers will make a reservation, and request to overpay it with either a credit card or forged check. They’ll claim that the check was already made out by a vendor or partner of theirs, and they don’t wish to cancel it. The scammer will request the balance sent somewhere, usually by Western Union. Scammers are very creative and there can be many variations to this scam.

How does it work?

The scammer will book a room and claim to have no credit card. They will ask to send a bank draft, certified check, or money order to pay for the room in advance. When the check arrives it will be for an amount greater than the value of the stay. The scammer will then request the balance sent to a third party (i.e. a car rental agency) or returned to the scammer.

Since the funds are drawn on a foreign bank it may take up to three months to learn that it is fraudulent. The B&B or hotel owner is now short the amount of the check or wire they sent to the scammer. They probably also lost bookings since they held a room for a guest that was never to arrive. If the scammer paid by a credit card it is surely to be disputed by the actual card owner.

Signs of a Scammer

Overseas/International: Typically the scammer will be overseas or out of country. They know authorities rarely pursue this kind of international crime.

Urgent: Often the scammer will be acting in an urgent manner and making bookings with short notice.

Long stays or lots of rooms: They will also want long stays and a lot of rooms, in order to make the booking charge very high. The scammer will also be very vague about the actual number of guest.

No rate resistance: Scammers will not care about the rate offered.

No interest in location: They don’t care about your location, they will express little or no interest in area attractions, etc. In fact, it may often be questionable why a traveler from their origin or country will want to travel to a location like yours.

Will not address your property by name in the first e-mail: The first e-mail you receive will likely not address you specifically. This is because it will be a general email sent in mass to many properties including yours.

Strange grammar, spelling, and choice of words: The scammer’s grammar, spelling and use of punctuation will be unusual. Often the scammer will present themselves as a doctor. Another frequent ploy is that they indicate they are from a religious organization, are holding meetings in your country, and make specific reference to their “delegates” or “delegation” coming to your country.

Free e-mail account: Often the e-mail will come from a free email service like Yahoo or Hotmail. Legitimate travel agents or businesses rarely use free email accounts.

Send money: They want you to send them cash, usually by wire, and quick.

Advice:
If you get one of these emails or letters, remember that if it is too good to be true, it probably is. If you feel the booking is legitimate, insist on a deposit by bank transfer or credit card and insist that the balance be paid in person. Whatever happens, do not send them any funds, regardless of what form.

This is the first in a series of articles which will enable you to answer the most fundamental of questions: How much is your hotel or bed and breakfast worth?

Protecting the value of your small hotel or bed and breakfast is a primary goal of your business. But, whether you’re new to the lodging business, an experienced innkeeper, or just looking to buy or sell your property, one key piece of information remains critical. How much is your hotel or B&B worth?

Whether your property is located in North America, Europe, South America, or anywhere in the world, the basic factors to consider are largely the same. But how do you begin to calculate the value of a tourism or lodging business? This is the first in a series of articles we will publish, giving you some new and leading edge techniques on how to value a lodging business. In this and our future articles, we will reveal some unique methods to determining the value of your business. Better yet, these methods can also be applied to most small businesses. If you need to articulate the value of your business in purchase or sale negotiations, we will provide some excellent methodologies to quantify the true market value of your property.

If you’ve looked for advice on calculating a price or value for your small hotel or bed & breakfast, there is only sparse information on the internet. Some resources deal only with the value of your real estate. One so-called “Inn Sales Specialist” advocates a method of determining an inn’s market value by dividing last year’s net operating income by a “cap rate” of 9% - 12%. These are extremely short-sighted methods of estimating value. Another highly simplistic method would be to take your net annual profit, and multiply by 14, which is the average price-earnings ratio of publicly traded companies over the last century.

These simplistic methodologies are not without value, however. There is no single way which will lead you to one absolutely correct theoretical value. What you do want to do, however, is try several conceptually sound methods, and then examine the range of results for consistency. Don’t ignore qualitative objective measures either. For example, consider prevailing real estate values in your region, condition and quality, and potential for growth. If you recently purchased your property, consider the price you paid (the presumed market value at the time) plus or minus value-changing modifications that you will implement with your business plan.

So how do we measure the market value of your business? We look to sources that traditional real estate professionals and B&B sales specialists ignore, or don’t understand. We utilize corporate finance techniques, taught at top business schools, but almost never applied to hotel, hostel, or bed & breakfast businesses in the classroom or in practice. These are the same techniques use by stock market analysts to value Fortune 500 companies. In fact these techniques were adapted from advanced shareholder value studies originally developed by an expert while working at JP Morgan Chase, and now is a leading specialist in online hotel marketing. Combining these traditional corporate finance concepts with some new arithmetic, we will show you how to easily compute an estimated market value for your hotel, inn, or bed & breakfast.

The basic formula underpinning our market value computation is:

Market Value = (NI - BV*Ke) / (Ke-G) + BV

Where NI=net income, BV=book value, Ke=cost of equity, and G=growth rate.

We will show you how to use this simple formula to calculate the estimated value of your lodging business. We won’t get bogged down with complicated mathematical proofs. The formula above is rooted in very sound financial theory, which we won’t waste your time by explaining. What we will do is show you how to move quickly past the complicated financial theory, and use simple math in calculating a very useful number: the value of your hotel or B&B.

One quick homework assignment before proceeding to our next article. There are two values you need to come prepared with, net income (NI) and book value (BV). Net income is the annual after tax profit of your business, after considering all relevant business expenses and income taxes. Make sure you adjust your net income figure for any one-time or unusual expenses you may have had during the most recent year. Secondly, book value is the book equity, or invested capital, in your business. How much cash capital do you have invested in your lodging. This includes any original equity investment you have in your property, but does not include capital that you borrowed to invest or purchase assets. Another way to think of book value is to construct a simple balance sheet. Add up the total value of all your assets, then subtract any borrowings or debt used to acquire those assets. What remains is the book equity, or book value, of your business.

Once you have these figures, please look for our next article, where we will explain how to use the formula to compute the value of your business.

For more information on promoting your hotel, hostel, or bed & breakfast, visit Instant World Booking

Should you affiliate? The short answer is yes. But, let’s start by explaining what affiliating means. As a small hotel, hostel, or bed and breakfast owner, you should not fear affiliation. No, it does not mean that you are becoming business partners with someone, or selling shares in your lodging business.

Affiliation in internet-parlance simply means that you join programs hosted by other web-based businesses to place links on your website. The links earn you money. Like advertising, these affiliate links direct your guests to pages where they can purchase products or services. The links track the clicks that you refer, and you earn a percentage of sales that you send to the affiliate company.

So, why should you affiliate? As a hotel or B&B owner, you can easily earn enough income through affiliate links to pay for the entire cost of hosting your online presence, your website, domain, email hosting, etc. Why not run your online marketing presence for free. But, more than just earning a residual income, affiliate links can increase the popularity and traffic to your website. This is the number one goal of online marketing. How does affiliation increase the popularity of your site? By adding affiliate program links to your website of complementary products and services, you increase the interest-level and content of your website. Visitors will be drawn increasingly to your website if they have more interesting content to read and valuable services or products to explore and purchase.

So, if you run a hotel or hostel website, add affiliate links offering car rentals in your city, rail passenger tickets, airline tickets, travel guide books, city tours, etc. See how it works? Your guests will not only return to your website to check out your rooms, accommodations, and services. They’ll return to your website, because they know they can find these other much-needed services there.

So how do you get started with affiliate programs? Select the online company you wish to affiliate with. You’ll most likely find a link on their homepage on “affiliate programs” or “how to work with us”. For example, if you wish to host affiliate links to sell travel guides for your city or country, check out Amazon or Barnes and Noble’s websites. Most out of town travelers to your city will be carrying a travel guide when they arrive. So, why not be the one who sold it to them?

Instant World Booking also offers an array of flexible affiliate programs. Their newest innovation, called the Auto-Affiliate Program, is new to the internet, and likely to cause a stir among company’s who affiliate. It’s called the Auto-Affiliate program because it’s the simplest affiliate program developed to date, and doesn’t require any lengthy sign-ups or online forms to complete in order to get started. You simply add some simple, pre-defined link code to your homepage, and your finished setting up. Instant World Booking then contacts you be email as you begin generating clicks and income. The other reason the Auto-Affiliate program is revolutionary is that you earn 25% of revenues on clicks you refer. This is the highest available today, which is astounding, considering how easy it is to set up. The vast majority of affiliate programs offered today earn just 5% - 15% of revenues produced.

On a slightly more controversial note, should you affiliate with companies that offer competing services to your own? I already said that you should affiliate with companies offering complementary services, but what about competing services? Well, you would certainly not want to affiliate in such a way that would lead guests directly to book at your neighboring competitors. But, affiliating with regional or global reservation services can actually enhance your business. Think of it this way. If a potential guest has already found your website, and is browsing your service offerings, they will still consider booking with you, even if they have the option of browsing alternative hotels or B&Bs across your region. Most travelers will appreciate your foresight in offering the ability to book lodging across your region, especially if they’re traveling from city to city during their trip. The key to clinching the booking is to offer instant booking capability right from your website, but that’s a topic for another blog article. Bottom line, offering affiliate links to online reservation services will not hurt your business, and marginally increase your profits.

To recap, here are the do’s and don’ts of offering affiliate links on your hotel, hostel, or bed and breakfast website:

• Do affiliate with websites offering complementary services or products.
• Do seek affiliate programs offering the highest share of revenues.
• Do seek affiliate programs that offer easy set up and tracking.
• Don’t affiliate with websites offering un-related services or products to your own. This will make your website appear disorganized.
• Don’t consider affiliating with more complex methods than simple links, unless you’re using your website to provide a virtual storefront.