Hotel and Concierge Referral Programs

The property whose desk sends you clients is a place of public accommodation in the legal sense, and so, in the relevant sense, are you. That is not a technicality. It shapes who the guest is, what they expect, and what both of you have to be able to do for somebody who arrives with a disability, a language, or an expectation set by a brochure. Most guides approach a concierge relationship as a marketing problem and discover it is an operations problem, usually on a Tuesday with a family standing on the dock. Everything else about where work comes from is mapped from the getting-booked hub.

What is a place of public accommodation?

Defined by statute, and lodging is the first item on the list.

The civil rights provision entitles all persons to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, colour, religion or national origin.

It then lists the establishments covered where their operations affect commerce, beginning with any inn, hotel, motel or other establishment providing lodging to transient guests.

That first item carries a narrow exception for an establishment inside a building with not more than five rooms for rent, actually occupied by the proprietor as their residence.

The list continues through restaurants and other food facilities, gasoline stations, and places of exhibition or entertainment.

Understanding that the property sits inside that framework explains a good deal about how they behave, and why they are careful in ways a one-boat operation is not used to.

This is general information rather than advice; check the current position with a qualified adviser before relying on it.

Section 2000a of title 42 can be read in full through the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

Fish Hawk, MD

How does the disability regulation define lodging?

In unusual detail, and the detail is worth reading.

The regulation defines a place of public accommodation as a facility operated by a private entity whose operations affect commerce and fall within at least one listed category, the first of which is a place of lodging.

A facility is a place of lodging if it is an inn, hotel or motel, or if it provides guest rooms for sleeping for stays that are primarily short-term, generally thirty days or less, where the occupant has no right to return to a specific room after the stay.

It must also provide rooms under conditions and with amenities similar to a hotel, motel or inn, including on-site or off-site management and reservations service, rooms available on a walk-up or call-in basis, availability of housekeeping or linen service, and acceptance of reservations for a room type without guaranteeing a particular unit until check-in.

The same list runs on through restaurants and bars, places of exhibition or entertainment, and places of public gathering.

For a guide the point is not to memorise the definition but to understand that the property is operating inside a detailed framework, and that a request from them about access is coming from somewhere.

The definition is at section 36.104 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

What does that mean for your boat?

Ask what a guest needs before the day rather than at the dock.

The honest position is that a small boat cannot be everything to everybody, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

What you can do is know precisely what your operation can and cannot accommodate, and say so plainly and early.

Tell the desk, in specifics: how somebody boards, whether there is shade, whether there is a head, how long the run is, and what the seating actually is.

That lets the concierge match a guest properly rather than discovering a mismatch when it is too late to fix.

Where you genuinely cannot accommodate somebody, say so early and, if you can, name an operation that can.

Confirm the current requirements applying to your own operation with a qualified adviser, since this turns on specific facts.

The equivalent conversation with lodges is covered in the network piece.

Hookin' It Up, OR

Can your own materials be reached?

A question worth asking about your site, not just your boat.

Federal accessibility guidance names barriers that keep people from using online content, and two of them recur on guiding sites.

The first is poor colour contrast, where people with limited vision or colour blindness cannot read text because there is not enough contrast between the text and the background.

The second is using colour alone to convey information, which fails for people who are colour blind and for anybody using a screen reader, since a screen reader does not announce the colour of text.

Its example is instructive: using red text alone to show which fields on a form are required.

Both are cheap to fix and both sit on the page a concierge will send somebody to, which is why they belong in this article rather than in a design one.

Take proper advice on what applies to your own site, and fix these regardless, because they cost nothing.

The guidance is published by the Department of Justice.

Should the concierge be paid?

Ask the property, because the answer is often no.

Many properties prohibit staff from taking anything from suppliers, and a guide who offers a personal commission has created a problem for the person they were trying to help.

Ask the property rather than the individual, and ask in writing, since the individual is the one exposed if the answer was no.

Where commissions are permitted they usually flow to the property rather than to the desk, which is a different arrangement with different paperwork.

The safe default is to pay nobody and be useful instead, which also tends to produce the more durable relationship.

Where anything of value does change hands, the obligations that attach are covered separately.

And a guest who asks whether the desk gets anything deserves a straight answer.

What attaches once anything of value moves is worked through in the referral program piece.

What does a concierge actually need?

To not be embarrassed, and to answer in thirty seconds.

A concierge is judged on whether the recommendation worked, which makes their tolerance for risk very low and their incentive identical to yours.

What they need is a one-line description they can say out loud, a price, a number that gets answered, and confidence you will not make them look foolish.

Tell them plainly who the trip is not for, because a desk that sends the wrong guest once will stop sending anybody.

Leave something physical, since a card at the desk is how these relationships survive staff turnover.

Then answer the phone, because they are standing with a guest in front of them.

Everything else is secondary to those two things.

Designing the thing you leave behind is handled in the cards and codes piece.

Who is the resort guest?

Not the client you are used to.

Somebody who booked a hotel and added fishing on arrival is a different proposition from somebody who travelled to fish.

They are more likely to be a beginner, more likely to bring family, and considerably more likely to have expectations set by somebody else's marketing.

Plan for it rather than resenting it: shorter trips, more explanation, more patience, and a genuine willingness to come in early.

Say plainly what the day involves before it is booked, because the desk cannot manage an expectation you never gave them.

Where the property advertises fishing in a way you cannot deliver, correct it once, in specifics.

Resort work is often the steadiest income a guide has, precisely because the guest is not choosing between guides.

How to set those expectations is covered in the welcome sequence piece.

Who handles the money?

Decide once, and put the refund position in writing.

Some properties put the trip on the room; others simply pass you the guest and take no further part. That choice decides who refunds when weather cancels.

Where it goes on the room you are effectively a supplier invoicing them, so settle payment terms early and bill accurately; sloppy paperwork ends these arrangements quietly.

Where you take payment directly, agree what the desk tells the guest, so nobody is surprised at the dock.

Either way, write down what happens when weather cancels, when a guest does not appear, and when a guest is unhappy.

An email is enough and is far more likely to be read than anything longer.

Where fees or charges are involved, verify the current position with somebody qualified before you rely on any arrangement.

Wording for the call itself sits in the cancellation scripts piece.

How do you approach a property?

Through a person, out of season, with their problem in mind.

Desks turn over, so the relationship is with a role as much as a person and needs rebuilding periodically.

Go midweek in the quiet months and ask what guests request that the property cannot currently supply.

That question tells you what to offer and signals that you understand their problem rather than yours.

Offer to take the desk out, which sounds transactional and is simply how people find out whether a guide is any good.

Leave availability rather than a brochure, updated monthly to one named person.

Then be patient, since these relationships are slow to build and unusually durable once built.

The shop version of the same approach is covered in the fly shop piece.

What about guests who do not speak English?

Commoner at a resort than anywhere else, and manageable.

A property drawing international guests will occasionally send you somebody whose English is limited, usually without mentioning it.

The safety briefing is the part that matters, and the fix is to make it visual rather than verbal: show where things are, demonstrate rather than describe, and check understanding by asking somebody to do the thing rather than to confirm they understood.

Ask the desk in advance whether anybody in the party needs that, since they usually know and rarely volunteer it.

Keep the trip simpler than usual, and be more conservative about conditions, because instructions given at speed on a moving boat are the first thing lost.

Where a translation application helps, use it without embarrassment; guests are almost always relieved rather than offended.

And never let a language gap silently reduce the safety briefing, which is the one part that cannot be shortened.

How to prepare somebody before the day is covered in the pre-trip text piece.

How many properties should you work with?

Two done properly, before a third at all.

Guides introduce themselves to every hotel in town and end up vaguely known everywhere and relied upon nowhere.

Two properties worked properly for a season, with monthly availability, prompt answers and a visit out of season, produce more than eight casual introductions.

They also give you something concrete to say when approaching a third, which is far more persuasive than describing yourself.

Where two properties in the same town both use you, be even-handed and be seen to be, because the one that feels second will quietly stop.

Beyond three or four the relationships stop being relationships and become a distribution list nobody maintains.

Depth is what makes a desk send you their difficult guests as well as their easy ones, which is where the value actually sits.

The same argument applied to shops is set out in the cross-referrals piece.

What should you do after the trip?

Tell the desk before the guest does.

A two-line message after every referred day is the habit that keeps a property calling, and almost nobody does it.

Say how the day went, anything the guest mentioned, and whether you would take that party again, which is information the desk cannot get anywhere else.

Where the day went badly, say so first and say what you did about it, since the desk finding out from a guest at checkout is the version that ends the arrangement.

Ask whether the property is comfortable with you sending the guest their photographs, rather than assuming either way.

Most properties are relaxed about a guest returning independently next year and every property minds being cut out during a stay.

Two minutes after each day is the entire maintenance cost of these relationships.

What to send the guest themselves is covered in the trip photos piece.

Which habits lose the desk?

Seven of them, beginning with being unreachable.

Not answering when the desk rings, which is the only test that matters to somebody standing with a guest.

Offering a personal commission without asking the property whether that is permitted.

Sending a brochure instead of availability and a price.

Never saying who the trip is not for.

Being vague about boarding, shade, seating and the length of the run, so a mismatch is discovered at the dock.

Leaving the refund position undecided until weather cancels.

And vanishing between seasons, so the new desk has never heard of you.

The bureau layer around all of this is described in the visitor bureau piece.

What surprises operators here?

How precisely lodging is defined.

The disability regulation defines a place of lodging by reference to short-term stays of generally thirty days or less, no right to return to a specific room, and amenities including reservations service, walk-up availability, housekeeping and room-type booking without a guaranteed unit.

The second surprise is the five-room exception in the civil rights provision, for an establishment inside a building the proprietor actually occupies as a residence.

The third is that the same statutory list runs from lodging through restaurants and fuel stations to places of exhibition or entertainment.

The fourth is that two of the most common accessibility failures on a guiding website are colour contrast and using colour alone to convey information.

The fifth is that a concierge's tolerance for risk is lower than any client's, which explains almost everything about how they behave.

Taken together, this is an operations relationship with a marketing label on it.

Where the destination marketing sits above all of it is explained in the tourism boards piece.

The arrangement, in order

Be specific, be reachable, be rebuilt each year.

Tell the desk exactly what your boat can and cannot accommodate, in physical detail rather than in reassurance.

Ask the property in writing whether staff may accept anything from suppliers.

Give them one line, a price, a number that gets answered, and who the trip is not for.

Leave availability monthly with one named person rather than a brochure once.

Agree who takes payment and what happens when weather cancels, before the first booking.

Fix the colour contrast and colour-only cues on the page they will send people to.

Plan for resort guests being newer and more family-shaped than your usual client.

Correct anything the property advertises that you cannot deliver, once and in specifics.

And rebuild the relationship every season, because the desk will have changed.