Last week I had the pleasure of stopping through Savannah, Georgia to meet Corey Jones of Lucky Savannah, a boutique vacation rental fleet of 200+ restored properties in the historic downtown and nearby Little Tybee Island.
Upon checking in to The Metropolitan -- easily one of the most limited edition vacation rentals I have ever seen -- Corey told me about Mrs. Wilkes, which is maybe the most iconic restaurant in Savannah. In short, Mrs. Wilkes started off as a boarding house that offered guests family-style down-home cooking on the ground floor. While Mrs. Wilkes passed away more than 15 years ago, her family continues to run the business and it's so renowned that people stand in line for hours to get a seat.
As a long-time Savannah resident, Corey also happens to have an in...Corey's wife, Emily is Mrs. Wilkes' granddaughter, and his company Lucky Savannah manages the several vacation rentals around the restaurant. "You've gotta try lunch at Mrs. Wilkes," Corey said. "But don't worry, we'll get you in the backdoor."
Corey has arranged a deal with the management at Mrs. Wilkes for his guests in the form of special lunch vouchers. Even more remarkably, they've arranged for a special entrance (literally, the back door by the kitchen) so that you don't have to wait in line for hours. We met up with Cindy, one of Lucky Savannah's local ambassadors, who showed us to the back alley and then through the back door into the main dining room where we were seated promptly.
There wasn't quite enough food...
IDEA: While you may or may not be fortunate enough to have a Mrs. Wilkes'-level food institution in your town, you surely have popular attractions that your guests all frequent OR famous small businesses that treat your guests especially well. Reaching out to those businesses and making special arrangements for your guests to be treated like VIPs transforms any vacation rental business into a cultural catalyst. It turbocharges any vacation outing into a lifelong memory.
ACTION: Find one iconic experience that you can curate for your guests with as little extra work as possible.
1. This week sit down with your team, spouse, or colleague and write down the attractions that your guests (already) enjoy most. This could be restaurants, bars, tours, theme parks, museums,
2. Rank these places in order of your personal connections there (the places where you know people up top and the places where you have zero contacts at the bottom).
3. Find the right contact and ask them for a phone call or brief meeting over coffee
4. Start the meeting by introducing yourself and your vacation rental business, using your track record (number of nights booked historically or number of guests served) and reaffirming how much your guests (already) love the experience
5. Throw out a few special request ideas: perhaps you'd like to pre-purchase tickets at a discounted rate that you can gift or re-sell to your guests, perhaps you envision a special "back door" entrance so your guests feel like VIPs, or maybe you just want the owner/manager to come and personally say hello
6. Distill your agreement down into a single simple voucher: free ice cream cone if you talk to X, secret dish {named after your vacation rentals} off the menu at Y, one lunch at Mrs. Wilkes with special entrance.
Curated local experiences are the new luxury that the biggest, richest hotel chains are trying desperately to bottle and scale: but the best experiences are not mass-producible: they are built on the relationships and local insight you have been cultivating for years. Leverage what you have built: package the love: and as a result every guest will feel like a VIP.
Please post your questions/ideas/revelations below to inspire and motivate other members...
Upon checking in to The Metropolitan -- easily one of the most limited edition vacation rentals I have ever seen -- Corey told me about Mrs. Wilkes, which is maybe the most iconic restaurant in Savannah. In short, Mrs. Wilkes started off as a boarding house that offered guests family-style down-home cooking on the ground floor. While Mrs. Wilkes passed away more than 15 years ago, her family continues to run the business and it's so renowned that people stand in line for hours to get a seat.
As a long-time Savannah resident, Corey also happens to have an in...Corey's wife, Emily is Mrs. Wilkes' granddaughter, and his company Lucky Savannah manages the several vacation rentals around the restaurant. "You've gotta try lunch at Mrs. Wilkes," Corey said. "But don't worry, we'll get you in the backdoor."
Corey has arranged a deal with the management at Mrs. Wilkes for his guests in the form of special lunch vouchers. Even more remarkably, they've arranged for a special entrance (literally, the back door by the kitchen) so that you don't have to wait in line for hours. We met up with Cindy, one of Lucky Savannah's local ambassadors, who showed us to the back alley and then through the back door into the main dining room where we were seated promptly.
There wasn't quite enough food...
IDEA: While you may or may not be fortunate enough to have a Mrs. Wilkes'-level food institution in your town, you surely have popular attractions that your guests all frequent OR famous small businesses that treat your guests especially well. Reaching out to those businesses and making special arrangements for your guests to be treated like VIPs transforms any vacation rental business into a cultural catalyst. It turbocharges any vacation outing into a lifelong memory.
ACTION: Find one iconic experience that you can curate for your guests with as little extra work as possible.
1. This week sit down with your team, spouse, or colleague and write down the attractions that your guests (already) enjoy most. This could be restaurants, bars, tours, theme parks, museums,
2. Rank these places in order of your personal connections there (the places where you know people up top and the places where you have zero contacts at the bottom).
3. Find the right contact and ask them for a phone call or brief meeting over coffee
4. Start the meeting by introducing yourself and your vacation rental business, using your track record (number of nights booked historically or number of guests served) and reaffirming how much your guests (already) love the experience
5. Throw out a few special request ideas: perhaps you'd like to pre-purchase tickets at a discounted rate that you can gift or re-sell to your guests, perhaps you envision a special "back door" entrance so your guests feel like VIPs, or maybe you just want the owner/manager to come and personally say hello
6. Distill your agreement down into a single simple voucher: free ice cream cone if you talk to X, secret dish {named after your vacation rentals} off the menu at Y, one lunch at Mrs. Wilkes with special entrance.
Curated local experiences are the new luxury that the biggest, richest hotel chains are trying desperately to bottle and scale: but the best experiences are not mass-producible: they are built on the relationships and local insight you have been cultivating for years. Leverage what you have built: package the love: and as a result every guest will feel like a VIP.
Please post your questions/ideas/revelations below to inspire and motivate other members...
