It has always fascinated me – the incredible cross section of guests that have stayed and continue to stay in our small hotel.
Over the last 23 years, members of the British Royal family, world renowned surgeons and psychologists, winners of the Eurovision song contest, ambassadors and ministers of foreign governments, former Concorde captains, leading actors, prominent religious leaders, corporate heads, specialist lawyers, best-selling authors and a whole range of individuals representing just about every part of society under the sun have all been guests at our hotel.
What is perhaps most surprising is that many of these outstanding people could easily afford to stay in much more palatial surroundings.
My wife and I play this silly game. When guests visit with us for the first time, we try and guess their profession. Sadly, we very rarely get it right, but it’s fun trying.
And one thing is for sure – you should never assume.
I remember chatting with one young couple who came to Barbados for kite-surfing. He turned out to be the ownner of a large designer store in Canada and his family had a major brand name hotel in one of Israel’s top resorts.
It has become increasingly more important in the hospitality industry to know and understand your customers, their special interests and why they chose a destination like Barbados, when clearly, with many of them, the world is their oyster.
All of our returning guests automatically receive a small gift. Frankly, we sometimes struggle to ensure that it is locally made, especially when the guest is staying for the 14th or 15th time.
A year or so ago, one guest painted a beautiful line drawing in colour, exactly capturing the spirit of our unusual location and architecture. With his kind permission we are having a larger version replicated by a local printer and this will enable recipients to encase it in the frame of their choice.
From the same image a quantity of postcards are also being produced, again trying to create something quite unique to our property.
We feel that it is important to try and differentiate ourselves from an otherwise homogeneous experience they could have almost anywhere.
Changing the subject slightly, last year a number of private sector tourism partners contributed to what turned into a multi-page Barbados feature that was published in the January/February 2011 ssue of National Geographic Traveler magazine.
Frankly, it was a coup.
As a destination we simply do not have the budget to pay for this sort of coverage, especially targeted to such an important demographic audience.
Well, just maybe we have gone one better. A research editor at Reader’s Digest recently contacted us to confirm the authenticity of some of the contributions I have made. If all goes well, the article will shortly appear in the international edition of that publication.
Reader’s Digest, printed in 21 languages, is the largest paid circulation magazine in the world with 70 million readers spread across 70 countries.
If we collectively are able to influence just a tiny percentage of its subscribers, think what a difference that could make to our arrival numbers.
