What do we leave out?

I received a marketing newsletter recently that said,

• "To hold the attention of the public, you must identify what you leave out. Organic fruit and vegetable growers leave out the fertilizer and pesticides. Netflix leaves out the trip to the video store. Digital cameras leave out the film. What does your company leave out?"

That got me thinking. What do we leave out for our guests?

Here are a few things I came up with:

• We leave out guests having to pay all those extra fees that raise the price.
• We leave out collecting (and sending back) a security deposit.
• We leave out requiring guests to physically sign a contract and mail it back (it's all done online).
• We leave out guests having to wonder if our online calendars are up to date (they are - all the time!).
• We leave out guests having to arrive before an office closes in order to pick up the keys.

That's just a few to get you thinking. I'll try to list some more in another post.

But what do you think we 'leave out?' Leave a comment - we'd really like to hear your thoughts.

Trees!

Trees! We've got a lot of them all around Smoky Mountain Tower and All Decked Out. They're beautiful. But sometimes they get in the way of our views.

But there is some comfort in knowing that we're not the only ones with the problem. I just saw an article in today's Knoxville News-Sentinel that talks about the problem with trees in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Here's a link to the article so you can read it yourself:

We continue to work on opening up more of the view at Smoky Mountain Tower. Unfortunately, the trees that have grown up are not on our property. So far, the people who own the trees haven't been very sympathetic to our requests for trimming. But we'll keep working at it.