Right after the lock down started reduced our costs to an absolute minimum by dismissing all our staff until business returns.
Hadn’t we done that we would be bankrupt by now and all jobs would be lost. Now we manage to run Tings by doing everything ourselves: Bookings, reception, night duty, cleaning, gardening, website, accounting, bake our bread for our breakfast everyday, run the bar when we have guests, blogging about what’s happening, maintain our websites, we have refurbished the reception and bar, we do reporting to turismo and border service (even though there is almost nothing to report)… We even do a bid of construction which we promised ourselves never to do.
So in many ways we are in a much better situation compared to most of our colleagues in the Portuguese hospitality business.
Still our life sucks.
Not because we work more than 15 hrs every day and have done that for months. We don]t mind that.
What we do mind is working & living in a house that is meant to be packed and used by happy people, but it only has a few guests.
So we have decided to try to change that.
We have kicked off a campaign on Booking.com with prices that are so attractive that travelers can’t say no – if there are travelers in town at all!
All who book directly will of course get the same deals – PLUS the benefits we always give our direct bookers.
Tomorrow we will open Tings Lounge – our restaurant with a completely new and exciting menu we have been working on for 3 weeks.
Hopefully this will attract locals who need a quiet outdoor space for a drink and something to eat together with friends. Or who just want to sit and read or work under our lemon tree.
