Page 4 of 8 FirstFirst 12345678 LastLast
Results 76 to 100 of 182
  1. #76
    I'm in Jail

    Join Date
    May 2011
    Last Online
    29-04-2023 @ 08:08 AM
    Location
    Not in jail
    Posts
    7,255
    Just ignore that cybil fooker BIP. Im enjoying your thread . Very informative and some good info. Wish you and her indoors the best. Please keep updating

  2. #77
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Mentioned a couple of posts back that our first two guest reviews on each of Booking.com and Agoda were all 10 out of 10s. So we have an overall 10 score with Agoda but need five reviews on Booking.com to get an overall score. Made a bit more progress today as we were notified of our third review on Booking.com, another 10.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-reviews2-jpg

  3. #78
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Tragedy up here at the homestay. After securing perfect 10s in our first five Booking.com and Agoda reviews we got a 9.6 on the latest one. Lost a point on location. The text of the review was really good though, the reviewer nailed what we are trying to do in terms of customer experience, service and quality. This morning we got our first review on Google and scored a perfect 5, so happy with that...a farang reviewer.

    Last night, tonight and tomorrow we're full, the wife is earning her baht...

    We are now at 79 revenue night and 66,500 baht. So think we are indeed headed for 100 revenue nights and maybe 85,000 baht by the end of our first six months end January. Can't complain about that. Blown our objectives of 60/60,000 to pieces.

    We had another Agoda cancellation, this time in the middle of the day, but the booking occurred in the 10-11:00pm witching hour. We also scored another Agoda booking for eight guests, the danger number. It is for early November so given they cannot cancel with a refund five days out from checking in we should know soon if it is legit.

    Yesterday we got two new bookings that yet again leave me scratching my head at some Thais...

    On the first they booked for four guests via a third party booking engine but then contacted us direct to say there were seven guests. The wife asked why they didn't just book for seven and was unable to get any answer. The booking for four is still in place so we blocked the night from further sales. But if they turn up with seven guests then we'll be charging more for the extra three than they would have paid via the booking engine.

    In the second booking it was for a king bed room and two guests, again via a booking engine. We then get contacted via our Facebook page. What the booker really wants is a room with two single beds and by the way, there are three guests. So we've had a booking for a room type we don't have and with a 50% error in the guest count...sigh!. Anyway the wife worked some magic and we've moved them to our Sunrise room that has a king and single beds and they will be paying more for the third guest direct to us than if they used the booking engine.

  4. #79
    On a walkabout Loy Toy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    30,531
    Well done B.I.P.

    What is your bottom line profit margin?

  5. #80
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    At the moment where the guest is having an Asian or light breakfast we are making a bottom line profit averaging 240 baht or 65% of revenue. English style breakfast reduces those figures to 200 baht and 55%. The mathematically inclined would be able to work out revenue per guest per night is 360 baht. Given our successful start we've increased our rates for November and December by reducing opening discounts. Already in November and December bookings we are averaging 380 baht per guest per night but new bookings would be in excess of 400 baht per guest per revenue night. Next season we will be looking for something in the vicinity of 500 baht per guest per night during the peak season.

    Quote Originally Posted by Loy Toy View Post
    Well done B.I.P.

    What is your bottom line profit margin?

  6. #81
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Apologies for neglecting this thread for a week or so but we've been busy in the homestay and dealing with car servicing, flat tires and a dog requiring vet visits.

    We are two thirds the way through six days in a row with guests including three nights with everything sold. We successfully hosted a group of eight two nights ago and heard the magic words that they love our place and will be back. We are now at 87 revenue nights and 72,000 baht total revenue. We've been churning a bit on reservations with the usual loss of a couple of big Agoda booked groups to cancellations. This month we have 18 revenue nights and next month 21. Both will increase although there are constraints because of family visits in both months. Only a few bookings in January, more in February and nothing beyond at the moment. But nothing to be concerned about. We've already shattered the first season goals and guest reaction has been amazing.

    We continue to get good feedback on both our Facebook page and guest reviews on Agoda and Booking.com. We scored four 10s in a row on Booking.com and had another guest agree to do a rating. She loved the place, spent the morning playing with our dogs and said she was coming back. She said she had never done a review but would. We were really hoping for a high rating if not another 10 and were shattered when it came through at 7.5 for all categories and no text comments. SHATTERED & GUTTED. We had hoped that at our fifth rating on Booking.com which means you get an overall rating publicly displayed we might just have the perfect 10. It turned out we went public at 9.5 and after getting another 10 we are at 9.6, equal marketing leading in our area although in fairness the other place has a lot more reviews. On Agoda we still have only three reviews and a 9.9 overall score.

    We've dropped Airbnb as a distribution channel. Just couldn't get it to work for us. Only yielded a single booking for two nights in our smallest room. We tried with breakfast, adding breakfast to our listing title, created separate listings for each room, dropped breakfast, tried rock bottom prices, nothing worked. But funnily enough on the day we delisted, Airbnb issued an email saying they had created a bed and breakfast category. So will investigate it again before we remove our details from their system.

    Booking.com is powering on with bookings and our direct bookings are picking up as well. Agoda is falling back a bit and of course we experience a very high cancellation rate with them. Expedia is not working for us and seems to have short-changed us on October invoices. Thinking the wife will need to make a decision about whether to continue with them later in the month. We also joined the Booking.com Preferred Partner Program (PPP) which is supposed to increase bookings by up to 65%. Hard to see it yet but we are passed the peak for bookings now so difficult to tell. We are the only place on PPP in the local area, in fact we have not found anyone else in Nan province on it. May not be necessary but it is one of a range of tactics we are using to get to the top of the search page on Booking.com. Below about position eight is a bit like the second page of a Google search, a great place to hide something and it never be found.

    We have two Thai groups tonight and a slight dilemma, one group is Moslem. We successfully hosted a Moslem group previously but they were the only guests. So sometime in the next several hours we need to determine what breakfast the groups want (both are eligible for English style, Asian or light) and avoid preparing pork. Dogs banished to outside as well.

    And finally for today the we had a group last night on the first of two nights. They wanted to leave at 5:00am to drive up to the 1715 Viewpoint in the Doi Phu Kha National Park to watch the sunrise over the Bo Kluea valley and Laos border mountains. So we were up at 4:00am and prepared cut fruit, yogurt, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, hot water in Thermoses, tea bags, milk and sugar for takeaway. Hoping the toasted sandwiches were still okay by the time they ate them.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6098-jpg
    Last edited by BoganInParasite; 08-11-2019 at 02:16 PM.

  7. #82
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    We've been serving passionfruit jam made from our passionfruits with breakfast for a couple of weeks. This morning we added halved own organically grown passionfruits to the fruit platter. We normally do a green and orange melon combo but last night was a very late booking by a middle aged Thai couple and the quality of the green melons at the local Tesco was not up to scratch so we got papaya instead. The fruit platter is served with a quality plain greek yogurt which has emerged as the preferred choice of our guests over larger tubs of flavoured yogurt. We also provide honey as some of our guests like to add it to their yogurt and later use on toast if having the English style breakfast.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6254-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6254-jpg  

  8. #83
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Our female guest last night had the English style breakfast, her husband the Asian breakfast. Both get the fruit platter and greek yogurt. This is the current Asian breakfast, a serving for one. We get it from a local restaurant just eighty meters away. Outsourcing the Asian breakfast and making it the only option for large groups and Agoda bookings. Although we do have a 10-12 pax group booking for late November that would only book if we did an English style breakfast for them. That is going to be a logistical challenge, may need to get some help in for serving and cleanup.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6256-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6256-jpg  

  9. #84
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    The homestay progress is getting quite pleasing. We are now at 101 revenue nights and total revenue of 86,000 baht. On Booking.com we are at 7 reviews and 9.6 overall rating, six reviews were 10. On Agoda we are at 4 reviews and 9.8, two reviews at 10 and two at 9.6.

    Over the last couple of weeks we've been putting together a database of all of the bookings we've had and their fates and key details. It has given us some stunning insights into the business and another benefit is to keep track of the folks that cancelled and look for common factors.

    To date we've taken 71 bookings for a value of 116,400 baht. 15 of those were cancelled, 32 completed, 2 refunded (PEA electricity outage), 2 no shows and 20 future bookings. The average booking value is 1,640 baht, rev/rev night 869 baht and rev/pax night 369 baht. Of the cancellations 12 (60%) of 20 Agoda bookings cancelled at an average booking value of 2,418 baht. The majority of these Agoda cancellations were for large groups, were on weekends or public holidays and were either made or cancelled between 10:00-11:00pm at night. It is hard not to think we were being gamed but equally when we did contact Agoda about it a month ago they suggested the folks making the bookings and cancellations were genuine. Another cancellation curiosity was the three 3 Booking.com cancellations that occured over a six week period early on were all for a check-in date of 12 October.

    The second half of November is looking quiet although we do have the 10 pax Thai biker group and another group of 10-12 pax that wants an English style breakfast. We still don't know if the Thai biker group is ten riders, or five riders/passengers, or some other combination. But we'll be well stocked with beer in the hope of getting some ancillary income. Knowing our luck they'll probably bring their own or be drinking Thai whiskey. (We've no objections to guests bringing in their own beer instead of buying from us.)

    December is now looking quite solid after the first five days. In fact from 6 December we only have four days without bookings. My daughter and her family are with us from the 29th and already we have had to turn down multiple requests for rooms over those days and early January. Won't be happening again.

    We are also seeing an increase in direct inquiries and bookings. Finally seeing some return on the effort we've put in on our Facebook and Instagram pages. We are also getting referrals from previous guests and at least three bookings from a Facebook marketing campaign we ran several months ago at a cost of only 1,500 baht.

    The only real downside at the moment is that as soon as we signed up to the Preferred Partner Program with Booking.com, bookings via them slowed. In fact we've only had two since. Supposed to be an average increase of 65%. Given there is an increased distribution cost to be part of the program we'll have to watch this carefully. Of course the other side of it is that January is the end of the short four month high season.

  10. #85
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    We are having a quiet day and so got a few inside and outside jobs done and continued gaining insights to our business from our newly build database.

    It was interesting yesterday morning the wife and I were discussing we hadn't had a booking for five days and whether we should analyse our prices against our local competitors and maybe adjust. We decided to wait and in the early afternoon two bookings came in and another late in the evening. Completed and future bookings now stand at 107 revenue nights and 90,300 baht.

    Had to shake our heads over one booker though. Made a booking inside of the first night penalty period and then sent two messages...the first asked how to get to our homestay but didn't say from where...the second asked what there was to do and see in the local area. This was a booking for five pax. At least their stay with us will be fine.

    We also gained some insights into how far ahead folks (predominantly Thais) were booking us. Before we had the database we felt about six weeks, and if they cancelled, it was about a week later. Turns out we were close, The average booking date is 40 days before check-in (mean is 36) and if they cancel it is an average of 7 days later (mean of 5). When we have more data we'll do the bell curve thingy and work out the duration for 80% of bookings and cancellations. This will help us refine the early booker period and discount and cancellation policies for next peak season.

    And we finally got round to seeing why we seem to get a lot of bookings for 3 or 5 pax. There are several reasons. The first is we have used a number of techniques to be at the top of the search list on the most productive distribution channel for us. The second is that we have a small room with a double bed that we price low. The third is one of the large upstairs rooms has beds for three pax, a king and a single. In the table below we are the first baht column, the leading local hotel is the second and the homestay we consider is our most direct competition is the third.

    1 pax 800/1,100 --- 1,050 --- 1,200
    2 pax 800/1,100 --- 1,050 --- 1,200
    3 pax 1,450 -------- 2,300 --- 2,400
    4 pax 1,900/2,200 - 2,300 --- 2,400
    5 pax 2,250/2,550 - 3,450 --- 3,600
    6 pax 3,350 --------- 3,450 --- 3,600
    7 pax 3,350 --------- 4,600 --- N/A

    Our key competitive advantage here is that these two competitors only have rooms for a maximum of two pax. The second factor is the small low priced room. For 5 or more pax we can use it it combination with the three pax large room upstairs to offer a lower price. Where we don't sell the third large room upstairs we upgrade the pax to there anyway. The small room is nice and has a private bathroom, but there is nowhere to relax in it apart from the bed. It is good for the four S's only and we want to avoid any pax staying in it where there are pax in other groups in both upstairs rooms.

    We also have three futon style beds and can cater for up to 10 pax but we only offer those via Agoda and direct.

  11. #86
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Last Online
    Today @ 01:37 PM
    Posts
    24,744
    maybe PM simon for some tips/insight into the online booking malarkey - he ran the hotels in phuket for a while with mostly online bookings

  12. #87
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Time for a quick update. We've had four days with no guests which provided a nice break. The wife has managed to get tennis elbow in both arms and is currently stubbornly refusing either getting some local help in or my doing some basic treatment. (I had it in one arm 18 months ago and after watching some Youtube videos got quick relief from self treatment.)

    We have guests for six of the next seven days including two groups of ten (10), one being the Thai biker group. Will be stocking up on beer ahead of their arrival and hoping for some ancillary sales. The second group of ten want an English style breakfast. The largest number we've turned out at one time to date has been six so we'll be in uncharted waters.

    Had two future bookers contact us about the earthquakes which were only 40 kilometers away from us. We had no issues at all and neither asked to cancel.

    Had another Booking.com cancellation (our fourth) but was for a single night stay at a lowish rate. In fact we sold the same room night the next day at a 30% higher rate.

    We've joined the Booking.com Genius scheme which requires us to offer at least a 10% discount to Genius members. Booking.com apparently markets Genius scheme participants aggressively and from the first day we've seen a marked increase in booking via them, now 1-2 every day. Since we are also in the Preferred Partner Program we receive only 72% of our standard rate from Booking.com. But after analysing future sales we've seen we have been achieving a higher revenue amount per pax night via Agoda so there seemed to be room to increase our rate on Booking.com, despite that putting us above the market leading hotel and our most direct homestay competitor. But still we are getting bookings. Our revenue per pax night for completed stays is 393 baht but we are now regularly achieving 500+ in future bookings with the best being 700 baht.

    We are now at 118 revenue nights and 101,700 baht total revenue for completed and future stays. We now again have more revenue in future stays than completed. Only ten days ago it was the other way around and we had a period of five days with no new bookings. The original first season goal of 60 revenue nights and 60,000 baht now seems to have been ridiculously underestimated.

    Still haven't sorted out the October Expedia stays payments. Unlike Booking.com and Agoda we have to raise invoices to Expedia to get payment. We've done that for the two completed stays now. But we still have no explanation why Expedia invoiced us for taxes and charges on a no show booking that neither they nor we collected any monies. It was supposed to be hotel collect but not possible if they don't turn up. Our reading of the T&Cs for this booking is that after we flagged it as a no show Expedia should charge the booker's credit card, pay us either a net amount or the full amount an invoice for the taxes and charges. Waiting on a response.

  13. #88
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    1,742
    BiP
    I am impressed by the amount of data you have and that you seem to analyse it to death so you must think it is worthwhile.
    I know when we had our business in Australia I used to try and keep records of different things to try and establish the right metrics for the business.
    Don't know if you have ever read any of Eli Goldratt's books on project management but he has a few good ones on data management.
    I liked his description of the difference between data and information.

    I honestly don't know if I could handle dealing with that crap you are doing with Expedia but I suppose you do would you need to do.

    Good luck going forward.

  14. #89
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Thanks ootai. The last 32 years of my career was in IT project management, then business program management and then change and general management (at a VP level) of initiatives where the client (or my employer) was typically spending $100M USD per annum. A typical program might run for three years and the longest was eight, and successful. While I started out in retail banking the last 20 years was in airlines and business travel and had a heavy mix of data management and operations systems including inventory management, revenue management and pricing. All we are doing is the simplest of the techniques I observed in the airline revenue management. But of course the other key element for us is we have a very superior product offering. You don't stay in hotels more than 2,500 nights and travel on over a thousand first and business class flights without working out what constitutes a good experience and more importantly, what contributed to it. We haven't gone crazy, this is not a five star hotel, but it is something no-one would expect to find in the wilds of northern Nan province. And of course some luck was involved...the view.

    The Expedia matter is just a nuisance, it will be resolved one way or another, small amount of baht involved that we would quite happily walk away from. The wife decided to join their major end-of-year sale initiative and if it doesn't work out, we'll simply withdraw from them. At the moment we only have a single future booking with them despite they having preferential pricing for almost a month now.

    The first of our two pax groups for tonight arrived unannounced at 10:00am, five hours before the official check-in time. Apparently they were riding past and the wife recognized our name on the front sign so they came in and asked if they could leave their bags while they went off and continued exploring. More than happy to do so.

    And finally today I encourage TD members to reread post #1 as the key message content is still relevant. Our first taker will be with us in the second week of December, still happy to see others take it up even if it does ruin the revenue per pax night figure. Relevant to say end of March 2020 now since we are staying open year round.

  15. #90
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    We always try to do something a bit special for each of our guest groups. Today's arrivals are getting an afternoon tea featuring our brownies with cranberries and served with cream. These special elements are always complimentary and certainly build up a considerable amount of goodwill with our guests. This group is staying two nights, a further group of two arrives tomorrow for a night. BTW, I prefer these fresh from the oven and served with ice cream.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6341-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6341-jpg  

  16. #91
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Time for an update. Got another 10 rating on Booking.com. Now at 122 revenue nights and 106,000 revenue. Had another Agoda booking for 8 cancelled, same day it was created.

    Had a few interesting and diverse groups. A Belgium late middle aged couple stayed for two nights. They were on a motorbike they had rented. Interesting the gent only had a copy of his passport, the bike rental company insisted he leave his passport with them. Pretty sure I wouldn't be doing that. They loved the place and sought our guidance as to what to see and do. We sent them to Wat Phuket, the Pua evening market, Doi Phu Kha National Park, the 1715 Viewpoint and Bo Kluea. They had booked English style breakfasts but the wife decided on just a light breakfast and said she enjoyed fruit. Saw the husband left the baked beans and only picked at the potato cake. So we decided to option up the fruit platter next day with two types of melons, papaya, pineapple and our own organic passionfruit. We also provided passionfruit jam made from our fruit for the toast. We added a third type of mushroom to the garlic butter sauteed mushrooms and increased the amount, added a fried tomato and removed the baked beans. The only thing that came back was the potato cake. They headed off towards Chiang Rai via the northern most route.

    The next group was a young Thai couple with a four year old daughter. On top of their car was a quite expensive looking push bike. The husband announced he would be leaving at 4:00am to ride the thirty kilometers (and 1,400 meter climb) to the 1715 Viewpoint in the Doi Phu Kha National Park. We packed fruit, yogurt and a treat for the little girl for the mother and her to drive up to the Viewpoint a little later to collect him. When they returned we served the Asian breakfast and they checked out around midday. They too headed for Chiang Rai but were going to spend a night in south east Phayao province first. The wife has been on Messenger quite a bit both before and after the stay. On the evening they left we got a video of the little girl crying about how she didn't like where they were staying that night and wanting to come back to our homestay.

    And the final interesting group was our long awaited ten Thai bikers. Thirteen folks arrived, but it was okay. Turns out it is a family biker group largely from my wife's home city of Nakhon Pathom. There were six bikes, a support minivan, ten adults and three children. Apparently there were eight bikes when they started but two went mechanical and were freighted back home and the riders joined the minivan. They sat under the awning until late talking and drinking their own Thai whiskey. Also, no ancillary sales of beer or even soft drinks. Both the wife and I got the impression this family was not short of money. Next morning they requested we charge extra because the original price was for ten guests. We declined since we only supplied ten beds and the three children did not eat much. This seemed to impress the 'leader' and he suddenly became quite talkative. His wife said straight out she would be back with sisters and her mother, and soon. They like many of the groups that have stayed with us asked for a photo with us before leaving. Only downer on this visit was we had prepared two large fruit platters and there was little fruit eaten. This wife and I are still picking at it, remains will go into the compost heap tomorrow morning.

    We've got three groups left to complete November. A Thai family of three have arrived for two nights, another Thai couple arrive tomorrow for one night then we have a Thai group of ten for a night. This was the group that would only book if we did an English style breakfast.

    We got 39 revenue nights in December up to the 28th, then my daughter and family are with us for four nights.

    Finally we had the local amphoe folks here today measuring the rooms, house and land to calculate the annual homestay business tax using a new formula. Not sure if the change is a local thing, or province or nationwide. Anyway, we originally believed we would pay around 6,000 baht per annum, then when they foreshadowed the new formula a back of the envelope calc suggested it would be 20-30,000 baht. Well it's going to be just over 2,000 baht, so a win for us.

  17. #92
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    We've been accessorizing the breakfast fruit platters lately. Costs little but gets a good response from our guests. Currently serving our own grown organic passionfruits, still a month away from serving our own papaya and bananas.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6343-jpg
    Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6315-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6343-jpg   Starting a Business in Nan Province-img_6315-jpg  

  18. #93
    . Neverna's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    21,210
    Quote Originally Posted by BoganInParasite View Post
    A Belgium late middle aged couple stayed for two nights. They had booked English style breakfasts but the wife decided on just a light breakfast and said she enjoyed fruit. Saw the husband left the baked beans and only picked at the potato cake. So we decided to option up the fruit platter next day with two types of melons, papaya, pineapple and our own organic passionfruit. We also provided passionfruit jam made from our fruit for the toast. We added a third type of mushroom to the garlic butter sauteed mushrooms and increased the amount, added a fried tomato and removed the baked beans. The only thing that came back was the potato cake.
    Just out of interest, BiP, do you offer a 'conitnental breakfast' option?

  19. #94
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Yes Neverna, we refer to it as a light breakfast. Fruit, yogurt, toast, tea/coffee, a cereal if you smile real nice at us. We're quite flexible on breakfasts. Tomorrow morning we'll be up at 4:00am doing a packed brekky for three folks leaving at 5:00am for the sunrise at the 1715 Viewpoint in the Doi Phu Kha National Park. Then later we're doing an Englsih style breakfast for a party of two. (Bit pissed atm, decided to open a bottle of Bundy because I'm annoyed at something.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Neverna View Post
    Just out of interest, BiP, do you offer a 'conitnental breakfast' option?

  20. #95
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    1,742
    C'mon BiP you can't leave us hanging by not telling us what has pissed you off.
    You usually come across as a person who goes with the flow so I am surprised you have to head into the bottle for an answer.

    You can tell us we won't say anything to anyone, honest.

  21. #96
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Multiple reasons building up various frustrations over time ootai but trigger this afternoon was wife's yet again attempt to plant an inappropriate plant in the wrong location around the house. (Other reasons are more substantive.) Anyway, she came inside after an hour of so to apologize only to find me a bit worse for wear, a first in our eleven years together. That large bottle of Bundy had been sitting around unopened since late February and I must say I hope the remaining two thirds are as good as the first third. (Room is still spinning, might be another aftershock from the Earthquakes last week.)

    Quote Originally Posted by ootai View Post
    C'mon BiP you can't leave us hanging by not telling us what has pissed you off.
    You usually come across as a person who goes with the flow so I am surprised you have to head into the bottle for an answer.

    You can tell us we won't say anything to anyone, honest.

  22. #97
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    1,742
    BiP
    Please enlightrn me some more. What exactly constitutes an inappropriate plant? The worng place well that's just a matter of opinion.
    I thought the climbing rose being allowed to grow up to and then all over your balcony rails was "the wrong plant in the wrong place" but I think you allowed that to happen without too much resistance..

    I am constantly amazed about what my MiL does in regard to panting shit all over the place with seemingly no plan or forethought attached. I think it goes like this, there's an empty space and here I have a plant so I will put it here in this space. Doesn't seem to matter that the plant is a sapling that will grow into a huge tree and the space is large enough for an egg plant bush. Also being an Engineer I like nice straight lines and symmetry but the MiL seems to like haphazard chaos. I have learned to not care anymore but I do get into trouble when I pull out a "plant she put in" thinking its a weed.

    Save the rest of the rum as I am sure there will be many more occasions when you will want to turn to it for solace.

  23. #98
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Having seen how a climbing rose around the back of the house has climbed five meters and spread four, the wife was planting one at the front on a location where it had nothing to either climb or spread on to. It would have sprawled about impeding access to one corner of the carport and generally making an ar*e of itself. Anyway, it's not happening, and I've dug up and burned the bougainvilleas this morning for good measure.

    On to more relevant and better news...after the disappointment earlier in the week of the Thai big bike group drinking their own whiskey, the wife just took a call from the gent who booked a group of ten for tonight. (These are the folks that would only book if we did an English style breakfast.) He asked that we have the refrigerator fully stocked with Chang. We've already got twenty large bottles cold so hoping those plus another twenty of Leo and Singha quench their thirsts.

    We've got one room still open for a sale tomorrow night but to be honest it would be good not to sell it. The other two rooms are already blocked. Might be able to take the wife and dogs swimming on the first, but it is getting a little cooler. We are forecast to have mornings 8-11 degrees here late next week. Would make it close or even below freezing at the 1715 Viewpoint in the mountains and National Park.
    Quote Originally Posted by ootai View Post
    BiP
    Please enlightrn me some more. What exactly constitutes an inappropriate plant? The worng place well that's just a matter of opinion.
    I thought the climbing rose being allowed to grow up to and then all over your balcony rails was "the wrong plant in the wrong place" but I think you allowed that to happen without too much resistance..

    I am constantly amazed about what my MiL does in regard to panting shit all over the place with seemingly no plan or forethought attached. I think it goes like this, there's an empty space and here I have a plant so I will put it here in this space. Doesn't seem to matter that the plant is a sapling that will grow into a huge tree and the space is large enough for an egg plant bush. Also being an Engineer I like nice straight lines and symmetry but the MiL seems to like haphazard chaos. I have learned to not care anymore but I do get into trouble when I pull out a "plant she put in" thinking its a weed.

    Save the rest of the rum as I am sure there will be many more occasions when you will want to turn to it for solace.

  24. #99
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Well overdue for an update. December has exploded on us...more on that later.

    We are one booking away from 100 bookings. Current count of completed, other revenue and future bookings is 141 revenue nights and 123,500 baht. Remember the original targets till end January 2020, 60 revenue nights and 60,000 revenue, no, us neither. We've been crunching the numbers and believe our net profit margin is 65%. We expect next year this will go above 70% on higher revenues.

    We've completed 55 bookings, 95 revenue nights, 188 pax and 86,000 baht.

    We've got 21 future bookings, 40 revenue nights, 66 pax and 35,500 baht. January and February bookings are slim but we expect they will double before the season ends. Nothing March-September 2020 yet which is not unexpected and 1 in October 2020. For some reason we cannot determine we have no Agoda bookings in 2020 yet. Majority are Booking.com or direct.

    Highlights during December have been a three night stay by a Teakdoor member and his Thai wife (see post #1 offer), a farang centric big bike group, and several lucrative same day bookings/arrivals. Direct booking and Booking.com are our most successful channels at the moment. The TD member came all the way from Europe where he lives and at the moment is in danger of being the only forum member to take advantage of our member offer. I've now met four TD members and their wives, all fine people. We are well overdue to meet some less than nice members, so if that sounds like you, give the wife a call and book to stay before the end of February.

    We are increasingly promoting our breakfasts and arrival afternoon teas through our direct channels and with success. On arrival we offer our guests brownies with ice cream/cream with a decent coffee or tea. Some guests elect to defer the brownies/cookies/ice cream/cream until after dinner as a dessert. We offer the same thing to guests staying multiple days when they return in the afternoon/evening. We've had to introduce cookies because Big C has an unreliable supply of brownie mixes. Makro is either currently unstocked or has dropped our preferred Greek yogurt and our local Tesco Lotus has not had any vanilla ice cream for two weeks. The same supermarket frequently doesn't have stock of the bread we serve for toast and has even at time run out of mushrooms. On the plus side the current good supply of ripe firm smallish tomatoes has seen us add fried tomatoes to our English style breakfasts and we are increasingly using the local markets to purchase fruit we serve ahead of the hot breakfast dishes, whether English style or Asian. We've just switched to Nan province honey and honeycomb after receiving really good feedback from our guests on the Nan coffee we use. Our supply of own organically grown passionfruits has stopped for now and they were really well accepted by guests either as passionfruit jam (made for us by Crossroads Nan) or as part of the breakfast fruit platter.

    Now to December. A few weeks back it was only half full and we were wanting to fill in some of the gaps. Well, that happened. Probably half were from our efforts performing revenue management on Booking.com and Agoda, but the rest were direct bookings, they rang our number. December will be huge for us, 25 completed stay, 52 revenue nights, 87 pax and 47,500 baht revenue. Would have been more but my daughter and her family are staying the last three nights of the month. We could have sold those nights multiple times and at premium rates...family or friends staying end of year will not be happening again.

    Below is the control sheet we use for the three rooms through December. We use colour to denote booking groups. The same colour on a single day or consecutive days means it is one group. There is still room for some extra December sales. We are holding the Sunrise room of the 19th for the 18th group who have indicated they may want to stay an extra day. And there are two rooms left on Saturday the 21st. Likely we'll sell one of those for sure. Might crack 50,000 baht.

    For explanation...Rain is a small level 1 room with a double bed. We try to use that as an overflow room for a group upstairs rather than sell it on it's own. Sunrise is a large upstairs room with a king and single bed. We can add a futon bed as well. Sunset has a king bed and we can add two futon beds as well.

    Starting a Business in Nan Province-ptvhs-december-2019-png
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Starting a Business in Nan Province-ptvhs-december-2019-png  
    Last edited by BoganInParasite; 18-12-2019 at 11:21 AM.

  25. #100
    Thailand Expat
    BoganInParasite's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Last Online
    30-07-2023 @ 02:51 PM
    Location
    Northern Thailand
    Posts
    2,074
    Well that's it for our homestay in 2019 and the first five months of operation. Have my daughter and her family coming in for four nights tonight from HCMC (sadly at a pax per night rate of zero). As I said in the last post we could have sold those nights many times over and at premium rates; won't be happening again.

    After a very quiet first two months where we do admit to considerable self doubt as to where the business would come from, we had an outstanding October, November and December. We completed 65 booked stays involving 113 revenue room nights, 227 guests and together with 3,000 baht from no shows, grossed 109,000 baht revenue. We are rated 9.7 on both Booking and Agoda, marketing leading in the Pua area. We got two more 10 ratings on Booking in the last week and a bit.

    We are now making some handy pocket money with our net profit being above 65% of gross revenue.

    We've had 105 bookings and about nine days ago had a mini celebration when our 100th came in. Sadly they cancelled a week later.

    January and February are still skinny but we expect they will flesh out a bit to around 15-20,000 gross baht revenue for each. While we'll remain open throughout 2020 we have no expectation other than the odd surprise booking in the March-July period.

    The only real excitement we had was two nights ago. We were asleep when just before 10:00pm the wife gets a call from someone saying they are outside the house, have a booking and want to check-in. We were already full upstairs and were not expecting anyone else. After a few minutes of chaos we established they thought they had booked us for 27 December earlier in the day through Expedia, but they had actually booked 27 January. It was a young couple and one of their mothers. We managed to get a futon bed into the small room downstairs, they cancelled the Expedia booking and we did an alternate direct arrangement. It was too late to order additional Asian breakfasts so they agreed English style breakfast. They needed it on the table at 6:00am because they had a wedding to go to. We had over-catered the English breakfast that night in case we had to do them for the large Agoda group last night so we easily were able to put it together. They were so thankful and full of praise it was almost embarrassing. And they were one of a rare breed...a Thai group that ate the entire English breakfast, nothing came back.

    Anyway folks, hope this thread hasn't been too boring, will try to make it a bit more interesting next year. Have a happy and safe New Year.

Page 4 of 8 FirstFirst 12345678 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •