The Bed
& Breakfast Guest Etiquette Quiz
104
Ways to increase your B & B savoir
faire, charm
your host and get preferential service at any Bed &
Breakfast
by Andrea
Reynolds, Copyright Andrea Reynolds
2002-2024.
Mentioned in USA Today
This was one of my 5 B & B
locations.
This one is one of two in Erie PA;
the others were in Toronto Canada.
E-book:
$1.95
Print
Book: $9.95 includes mailing to US + Canadian addresses.
Licensing rights to print with your guest home's contact
info: (Ask us)
Lectures and Seminars (Ask us)
Do you
know the best answer?
While the answers to these
questions may seem perfectly obvious to you, not everyone
who stays in a Bed and Breakfast is as intelligent, and
well-mannered as you. Many hosts (including me) have been
astonished at the lack of good sense of a few guests. So
this 104 multiple-choice quiz is an attempt to educate in a
way that helps some save face.
1. If
you're a smoker and you're staying at a smoke-free B &
B...
a. Feel free to smoke
wherever you wish... after all you're a paying guest.
b. Smoke only in your own
room or in the bath.
c. Smoke outside under
open windows.
d.
Ask your host
if there is a designated indoor and outdoor smoking area.
2. Which
of the following is OK to flush down the toilet?
a. Old underwear, books,
toys, jewelry.
b. Hair, old food, bars of
soap, stationery.
c. Used sanitary supplies,
tissues, paper towels.
d.
Toilet paper
(and normal bodily secretions and excretions).
3. What
do you do with the jam jar spoon?
a. Lick it before placing
it back in the jam.
b. Use it to spread jam on
your toast or muffin.
c. Use one jam spoon for
all the jam flavors.
d.
Use it to
transfer jam to your plate, return it to the same jam
pot, then use your own butter
spreader to spread your toast.Plus 97 more questions.
Andrea
Reynolds is available to provide a scandalously humorous
presentation to Bed & Breakfast Associations on B &
B promotion or guest etiquette. She will also offer small
classes for anyone who wants to open a themed bed and
breakfast.
"Andrea, thank you...
I have already read it and found it very, very informative
and so amusing. Keep up your good work.
Rod A.
Chisholm, Hamilton ON
In a style made famous by
the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" show,
The B
& B Guest Etiquette Quiz booklet contains the
appropriate answer to very typical guest home situations
(and also actual guest faux pas and antics as multiple
choices).
Experienced guests will
enjoy taking this amusing etiquette quiz... First-time
guests will learn how to be great repeat guests without
embarrassment.
Introduction
Back
when travelers rode horses until nightfall, lodging was
quite primitive. Men would pay for a place to sleep, often
sharing a bed with one or two strangers, dusty breeches and
all. At dawn they may have washed or shaved, had a meal,
and rode off in separate directions.
Today, more and more
business travelers and tourists are enjoying a modernized,
more enjoyable version of this form of accommodation, by
staying in someone's private city or country home for two
or more nights.
Staying in a Bed &
Breakfast has advantages over staying in an impersonal
hotel. You are accommodated in a home-away-from-home with
very nice people looking after you. And for less than the
cost of a comparable hotel stay, you get a comfortable --
often luxury quality -- room and bed, private or shared
bath, a wholesome breakfast (full or extended continental),
sparkling conversation, lots of activity ideas and cultural
advice, and often, free parking.
As more North Americans
are choosing Bed & Breakfast accommodation over hotel
stays, B & B hosts would like first-time guests to know
-- but are often too kind to tell them -- that there are
some major differences between the two types of lodging.
Staying in a Bed &
Breakfast is like staying at your future in-laws' home for
the first time. (You want to enjoy yourself, but you also
want to make a good impression.) The key is to remember
that you are a guest in someone's private home; you're not
staying in a hotel. We hosts want you to have a warm,
relaxed and memorable stay; all we ask is that you be a
polite and thoughtful guest.
The Story
Behind the Booklet
As a former bed and
breakfast host I can tell you that most guests are
absolutely delightful. Occasionally, however, we come
across a few first-timers -- mostly North Americans --
whose behavior and antics can be outrageous. (Guests from
other countries where B & Bs are more popular don't
seem to need these tips.) You will be amused by some of
them; disturbed by others. Many of the tips in the booklet
come from the experiences of dozens of other hosts.
This booklet began as a
six page article hanging in the guest bathroom of my own B
& B. I noticed that as guests used the bath their
manners improved and I didn't have to say a word or post
any signs. I transformed the article into a booklet of 50
tips...and now it contains 104 tips in the form of multiple
choice questions. I encourage you to test yourself.
CONTENTS
Tips
are written as multiple choice questions (correct answers
are indicated.)
1. Introduction
2. The B & B
Experience
3. Reservations
4. Check In
5. Your Room
6. The Bathroom
7. Common Areas
8. During Your Stay
9. Breakfast
10. Check Out
11. What's Your Score?
12. Guests' Bill of Rights
ORDER NOW
Credit card transactions
are also securely processed through www. PayPal.com in US
funds. Use the convenient payment button at the bottom of
this page...
About the
Author
Andrea Reynolds is the
former owner of Author's Bed & Breakfast in downtown
Toronto. It started with an assignment from a business
school to write a profile about one of their home business
instructors: a woman who operated a five-bedroom B & B
in downtown Toronto. Andrea was hooked. Five years later
she apprenticed herself to a Bed and Breakfast reservation
service, then filled in as host for several vacationing B
& B owners.
In 1995 she was able to
open her own small B & B in Cabbagetown, a trendy but
colorful area of Toronto. In 1997 she moved her B & B
to a larger home with 3 guest bedrooms, two guest baths and
a guest kitchen.
Her theme home was created
to provide a home and office away from home for authors who
were on media and press tours to promote their books. In
addition to affordable accommodation, she provided
promotion and office services, and kitchen facilities for
author-chefs who needed to prepare food in advance of
television demonstrations.
A home invasion and subsequent death threats for putting
the intruder in jail convinced her it was time to hang up
her host apron and return to giving how-to advice. She
returned to the US and is a writer and marketing consultant
who specializes in helping experts, how-to authors and
speakers build advice
empires. She is available to
speak to B & B associations on marketing your B & B
services and handling tough B & B
challenges.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
News
Release
Interviews: (Andrea
Reynolds), MEMBERS
OF THE PRESS + MEDIA: (656) 227-1130.
What do
you do with the jam jar spoon when you're a guest at a Bed
& Breakfast?
Test Your
B & B Guest Etiquette IQ
a. Lick it before placing
it back in the jam.
b. Use it to spread jam on your toast or muffin.
c. Use one jam spoon for all the jam flavors.
d. Use it to transfer jam to your plate, return it to the
same jam jar, then use your own butter spreader to spread
it on your toast. (The correct answer.)
(ERIE PA) Who cares?, you
say. Well, if you're the next guest at the table do you
want a stranger's crumbs (or worse) in your jam? The
problem is: not everyone knows the new etiquette for bed
and breakfast stays. The B
& B Guest Etiquette Quiz offers 104 tips written
"in the form of a question."
When a contestant on
Jeopardy! mentioned that a B & B host had insulted
guests by plastering rules on sticky notes all over the
home, Andrea Reynolds, former owner of Author's Bed &
Breakfast in Toronto, knew there was a better, kinder way
to enlighten travelers new to the idea of staying in a Bed
and Breakfast over a hotel or motel. So she wrote a 24-page
booklet of 104 guest etiquette tips in the style of popular
TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?".
Reynolds, once a family
and consumer science teacher, found that 70% of her guests
were first-timers. "I didn't want to be a critical parent
or make my guests feel uncomfortable, so after asking a
dozen hosts to tell me their worst guest stories, I wrote a
humorous article and hung a copy in each guest bathroom as
the only reading matter. Guest manners improved and many
guests said they were grateful for the guidelines. I get
better results when teaching with kindness than with
intimidation so the article grew into a lighthearted quiz
booklet. It still makes good bathroom reading."
Reynolds, interviewed by
Sir David Frost and other journalists on national
television on the subject of etiquette, advises: "Remember,
you're a guest in someone's private home. It's NOT OK to
parade through the common areas in your underwear, raid the
fridge at night, throw impromptu parties, sleep all day,
snoop in private areas, nor bring hookers into the home.
(Yes, it has happened.) But, it IS good to pay on arrival
-- after all, hosts hand you the keys to their house --
introduce your partner by name, use your phone card to make
long distance calls, and go out for the day after
breakfast."
Her 24-page, oversize
ebooklet, The B
& B Guest Etiquette Quiz is available online
for $3.95
US. For
more information, email Andrea at crisiswriter@gmail.com
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12 ways
Hosts can benefit from multiple copies of this
booklet
1.
Offer to supply copies to conference
planners in your area to insert in
attendees' conference registration packages.
2. Mail a copy to
each new
guest with her deposit receipt
and confirmation information.
3. Affix your B & B's
promotional label to the cover of each booklet and use them
as promotional
giveaways to generate repeat and
referral business.
4. Display booklets in
each of your guest rooms and bath rooms as
guest
reading material. Replace as they are
taken home or become tattered.
5. Sell booklets at a
profit in your gift
shop.
6. Sell booklets at a
profit to all the guest homes in your local,
area, or state B & B associations.
7. Sell copies at a profit
to other hosts at your national
or federal B & B association.
8. Sell copies at a
profit on your
web site to new guests and other
hosts.
9. Provide a bundle of
booklet to new hosts who become members of your B & B
association or reservation service as a membership
benefit.
10. Supply copies to your
local tourism
board, travel agents, and Chamber of
Commerce, with your B & B's
promotional label attached.
11. Invite
Andrea Reynolds to speak at your regional, state,
provincial, federal or international B & B conference
and receive a free booklet for each host in the audience.
12. If you're an
inn-sitter,
apply your contact info to the booklet and send it to hosts
in areas where you'd like to inn-sit.
Have your B & B information imprinted on booklets. Ask
for a price estimate. Minimum order is 1,000. OR affix your
own labels to the cover or title page.
If you
buy one booklet or a few for consideration, then later buy
a larger quantity, I can make an adjustment so that all
copies purchased are at the lower price.
Print
booklet: US $9.95 each Prefer not to use
Paypal? See more ways to pay.
E-booklet: US $1.95 Prefer not to use Paypal? See more ways to pay.
Or mail a check or US Postal Money Order payable to Andrea Reynolds, 1902 Andover Street, #194, Sun City Center, Florida 33573.
