Success derived from not being judgemental

The independent hotelier/restaurateur has many complex questions to answer when planning the direction of their business. Freedom gained through independence can also be a burden. Every decision comes back to you. No marketing department, no planning team, no research department. Gut feelings, hunches and flying by the seat of your pants are, more often than not, the guiding principles of decision-making.

Thankfully, though, one area of marketing we don't have to spend too much time pondering are the guides. The choice is fairly straightforward. Those guides which choose you, put you in without charge and over which you have no influence. These guides have complete editorial freedom over inspectors' and readers' contributions. They have to be the best for business, don't they?

Well - er, no, actually they are not.

Effective

The guide that has worked for me - at least four times more effectively than all the others put together - and which has worked for all the hotelier friends I have spoken to, is the guide which does everything wrong.

A guide should be pocket-sized, or at least small enough to fit in the glove compartment of your car. The only pocket this guide would fit is that of a Lincolnshire poacher: it is a coffee-table tome.

And you have to pay for the privilege of being in this guide, and pay quite a lot at that.

It also refutes the argument that says unbiased entries by inspectors or readers give a truer picture and engender greater confidence. In this guide you have a major say as to what goes in. You can more or less write your own entry.

And what about grading systems, score sheets, rating systems, points, stars, rosettes, knives and forks, steaming casseroles, decanters?

No, no, and no again. This guide contains none of these, no assessment, no critique, no judgmental comment, no comparisons.

Trusted

What is it that makes this guide so good for hoteliers? What makes it one of the most respected? People trust it. Over 14 years we asked many users what they liked about this guide, and why they used it. Without exception they confirmed they had never made a bad choice by using it. They found it reliable and had confidence in its recommendations, it was comfortable and comforting.

Could the secret of its success be the fact that it is not judgmental? It seems that guides which use points or scores - of whatever nature - are inviting the reader to challenge their opinion, to find fault or a reason to disagree with the rating. It is as if the reader's critical senses have been activated by the opinion of another. "This place seems interesting, let's go and see if they're right."

On the other hand, the user of the Johansens Guide reads a benign, uncritical overview, written mainly by the person who knows the place best, the owner, which doesn't take the reader to task to confirm or deny the inspector's "report".

Could this be why guests who arrive having sourced the hotel from Johansens seem to have a much better time? They've come to enjoy themselves, not to be part of a critical consumers' appraisal system. There's no doubt about it, you can spot the difference, and it makes you wonder whether those who source you from the point scoring guides are actually enjoying themselves.

Rather like Hyacinth Bucket in the sitcom Keeping up Appearances, you can imagine these guests turning over the plates, examining the hem of the table-cloths, looking round the restaurant to see what is on other people's plates. You can imagine them stripping the bed to check the mattress ticking and the underblanket. Conversations at the table are almost wholly concerned with the food or the establishment.

Whereas those who read the uncritical guide have come to enjoy themselves.

Success

Perhaps Johansens has succeeded because it is a coffee-table book. Picture a lady browsing through it, "This place sounds lovely, darling, it looks beautiful, too. What about a few days away on our anniversary?" Glossy art photographs, beguiling prose, expensive print, heavy paper, a sure-fire certainty for success.

Well - er no again. There have been several attempts to copy this formula, all of them ended in failure. Did Derek Johansen foresee the guide's success when he started it in 1982? I hardly think so - all I know is that it has worked for us and many others, but why?

I would love to know.