BUSINESS TRAVELERS

 
Pettigru Place was just voted "One of the United States Top 3 B&Bs/Inns
In the United States For the Business Traveler"
—Arrington's Bed & Breakfast Journal
Book of Lists for 2004

.      NEW - FREE HIGH SPEED WIRELESS INTERNET .

A delightful change from ordinary Greenville hotels, and most of our guests feel far more secure here (see Safety). We know what business travelers want and need. Two thirds of our guests are in Greenville on business and come Sundays through Thursdays.

Each of our rooms offers the following for our business guests:

• Private Bath

• Desk

• Private Phone with Laptop Hookup

• NEW - FREE High Speed Wireless Internet Service - in your room; in the garden; anywhere!

• Luxurious robes

• Comfortable Queen and King Beds

• Very Reasonable Corporate Rates (call for corporate rates)

• Cable TV

• Also available are:

                     Flexible cancellations; check-in and check-out

                     Early morning gourmet or special order breakfasts

                     Breakfasts in Dining Room, Travel Room or can be arranged In-room

                     Offstreet, Well-lighted Parking

                     Walking access to 60 superb restaurants

                     Complimentary wine, cheese and fruit

                     Ironing board, iron, hair dryers

                     Fax and copy service

                     Facilities to entertain or meet with business associates

                     Of course, the soft drink fridge and bottomless cookie jar

                     Early coffee and tea

After a hard day, if our corporate guests prefer to stay in for dinner, we always assist them in picking-up or having food delivered. Guests regularly order-in sushi, steaks, Chinese, Thai, Italian, sandwiches, salads, and of course, pizza. Some guests just make a meal of the complimentary wine and cheese. Really done-in? Book a massage, or take your wine and cheese in Sherry's English garden.

If you are entertaining clients, require small conference meeting facilities, or a special dinner for your evening meeting you will find we are prepared to meet those special needs. Use your laptops anywhere in the inn, or in the garden with our complimentary high-speed wireless service.

Equally important to many, when you return at the end of the day, or for your next visit, we know you - it's not another stranger behind the desk greeting you. That's why our business guests keep coming back; and why they say we are the finest of Greenville accommodations.

Come by and see why we were voted one of the Top 3 in the nation for business travelers.

Below you will find a few photos of some of our favorite BUSINESS GUESTS - all using our new free high speed wireless internet service. Access the internet from your laptop anywhere on the property - on the bed - in the gathering room, or in the garden with a glass of ice tea or wine and cheese:

The following article about B&B business travel is from the May 14 New York Times.

B & B's Lure Business Travelers

May 14, 2002
By MARCI ALBOHER NUSBAUM
Craig Kaufman woke up in a Hilton Hotel in Orlando, Fla., and thought he was in the Denver Hilton. Then he noticed the palm trees outside the window and realized he had
gotten his days mixed up.

At that moment, he decided he had had it with cookie-cutter accommodations on his business trips. The next time he went to Orlando, he checked into the Thurston House, a bed-and-breakfast. That was a year ago, and since then, he has stayed at the Thurston House a dozen times.

"Thurston House has all the amenities of a hotel, but it's homey" said Mr. Kaufman, a real estate developer based in Atlanta. "They serve wine and cheese on the veranda in the afternoon. It's quiet. And when I come back at night, the kitchen is open if I want to take a cup of tea back to my room."

And it is not just the atmosphere that delights him. Carole Ballard, the innkeeper, keeps him plugged into the local business climate in Orlando. Mr. Kaufman says that getting to know Ms. Ballard has helped him understand the needs of the tenants in his buildings, who are also small- business owners.

B & B's have long attracted travelers with a taste for the personal touch. Their distinguishing features, according to the Professional Association of Innkeepers International, are individually decorated rooms, a common area where guests can congregate, a resident innkeeper or owner and a home-cooked breakfast.

That makes them ideal weekend retreats for the romantically inclined. But in recent years, many B & B's have reinvented themselves to compete more directly with the hotel chains for business travelers as well. They are providing guests with Internet access, dual phone lines and fax machines, and are offering conveniences like airport transportation and corporate discounts.

The B & B's can't match the big hotels service for service, of course; few have the resources to send up a shrimp salad and bottle of wine in the middle of the night. But, they believe, their very smallness gives them a competitive advantage by allowing the owners to establish personal bonds with their customers.

Cynthia and George Wakeman, owners of two bed-and-breakfasts in Sioux City, Iowa, often introduce
business guests to a friendly face at the local Chamber of Commerce or line up meetings for them with local business leaders. The Wakemans also say that their close ties with Gateway Inc., one of Sioux City's largest employers and their own former workplace, has made them a frequent lodging choice for the company's recruiting efforts.
"We see ourselves as partners with the businesses we serve," Mrs. Wakeman said.

B & B's also say their appeal as a place to hold business conferences for small groups is growing. Diane and Michael Franco, who recently bought the Churchtown Inn in Lancaster County, Pa., say the pastoral setting is a big draw.

In their first year as owners, the couple say, the national sales representatives of the Longaberger Company, an Ohio marketer of handwoven baskets, met at their establishment and Argosy Health, a national provider of industrial rehabilitation services, held a strategic planning meeting there for one of its regional management teams.

"We don't have all the accouterments of business, yet people are coming to our inn because they want to do
business a little differently," Mrs. Franco said. "The Amish country has an almost narcotic effect. It just calms business people down."

Sarah Hammann, a marketing executive who has stayed at many bed-and-breakfasts in Europe and the United States during the last decade, says she values their intimacy. Even though larger hotels offer a wider array of conveniences, she says, that does not make up for the impersonal atmosphere.

"While I need basic services like the ability to get faxes, have an early breakfast and enter the house late in the evenings, I don't expect to plug in my laptop," she said. Like many female business travelers, Ms. Hammann said she also felt more secure staying at an inn than at a hotel.

Safety has long been a selling point for bed-and-breakfasts, of course, but these days there are a
lot more buyers. "So many people have called us since Sept.11 who say they don't normally stay at bed-and-breakfasts," said Lydia Pena Simone, manager of the Dupont at the Circle in Washington. "But they want an extra bit of hand-holding. They like a place where everyone in the inn is known."

The Internet has been a boon to B & B's. "For years, our industry did not have branding and the 800 numbers of big hotel chains," said Jerry Phillips of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. But over the last five years, he said, "the Internet has leveled the playing field."

Sites like Inn-BusinessTravel.com (founded by Carole Ballard of Thurston House) as well as a site called
bedandbreakfast.com offer travelers inns searchable by city. In addition there are the Web sites of individual inns.

While the trend may be big news for the B & B industry, it is doubtful that it will cause much of a stir among the major hotel chains. "The amount of rooms B & B's represent in the scheme of things is so inconsequential that I can't imagine it having a big effect, even if it did catch on," said Neil Kantrow, a New York travel agent with a largely corporate clientele. And the hotel industry certainly doesn't seem worried. "B & B's are limited in the amenities that they can provide, compared to hotel properties," said a spokeswoman for the the American Hotel and Lodging Association in Washington..

Travel agents are also reluctant to recommend inns since standards vary widely and commissions are not always available..

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/business/14BBBB.html?ex=1022413780&ei=1&en=cda3d0c6c5afb94e

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Pettigru Place Bed And Breakfast  is a member of the South Carolina Bed & Breakfast Association

Pettigru Place Bed and Breakfast
Proprietors: Lori Donaldson
302 Pettigru Street, Greenville, South Carolina (SC) 29601
Tel: 864.242.4529  §  Toll free: 877.362.4644
Call for fax
Email: info@pettigruplace.com Website: www.pettigruplace.com 

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