Everybody Writes: Infographics
This wraps up our series of posts about Ann Handley, the author of Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide To Creating Ridiculously Good Content. Ann offers practical infographic creating tips that we will illustrate with an excellent bed and breakfast industry infographic.
But first, just what is an “infographic”? Infographics are expressed graphically via drawings, pictures, maps, diagrams, charts, and more and are all held together with a coherent visual theme and typically published as an image file.
According to Ann Handley, the best infographics express rich objective data in a more accessible and engaging way:
- Checklist or resource
- Compare and contrast study
- Evolution of a movement, demographic, or industry
- Illustration of the state of some business sector or function
Have the following characteristics:
- Utility: entertaining, educational, intrinsically useful, applicable to your audience
- Data: based on facts (not opinions); uses credible data and credible sources
- Story: have a hypothesis and a narrative at their core
- Logical sequence: organize your information so that it flows logically; the images and text need to make sense together
- Great design: color, typography, illustrations, animation, videos, charts, text
- Quality control: make sure your infographic is free of errors
- Promotion: the goal is to drive attention to and interest in your brand
- Shareable: make your infographics easy to share in social media
The infographic shared in this blog post was produced by Little Hotelier and the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. First, they share the statistics that the B&B Industry in the United States has an estimated worth of $3.4 billion. The core of this starts with the estimated 17,000 inns in the United States and then branches out to all of the product and services needed:
- Real estate
- Insurance
- Hospitality
- Furniture
- Food and beverage
- Cleaning
- Safety
- Heating
- Cooling
The median performance:
- Occupancy rate: 43.7%
- Average daily rate: $150
- Revenue per available room: $58
The infographic tells us that the typical inn has between 4 and 11 rooms with 6 being the average number of rooms and the average size is 5700 square feet.
94% have private baths and 93% offer free high speed wireless internet.
Types of inns:
- Suburban 5%
- Urban 23%
- Village 43%
- Rural locations 29%
- Historical designation 36%
Their infographic portrays amenities at most inns both in the common areas and in the guest rooms.
Amenities in Common areas:
- Internet
- Magazines
- Hot/cold beverages
- Board games
- Fireplace
- Televisions
- Refrigerator
- Newspapers
- Telephone
- Cookies, cakes, candies, and fruit
- Fresh flowers
Amenities in Guest rooms:
- Internet
- Magazines
- Televisions
- Fireplace
- Luxury bed linens
- Robes
- Premium branded toiletries
- Jetted tubs
Their infographic ends with a statistic about the inn owners. The percentage of inn owners that are 72% are couples, 18% are individual females, 5% are individual males, and 5% are non-couple partnerships. Also it lets us know that 79% of owners live on the premises.
A big thank you to Ann Handley, Little Hotelier, and the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. If you would like help with your online marketing, please contact us at Bed and Breakfast Blogging.
Top Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography
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