The Cottage Inn on Exmoor is coming back into the Lynton and Lynmouth Hotel market with new rooms and a new system, we thought it might be nice to share some insight.
If you would like to book a room with us we would really appreciate you booking directly by clicking the link below.
After much planning on how our rooms are managed and the future of how things will look with the new World and how energy prices will effect the industry Pam and myself wanted to start from scratch and design a system that our customers can freely enjoy and is also sustainable for the business.
The start of our process was to look at how we enjoy travel ourselves and use this as a template for the new system.
Things we wanted to highlight and give some focus to was the following.
Technology
Design
Comfort
Functionality
Efficiency
Hygiene
Food & Drink
Technology - Technology is a massive part of our lives and as such when on holiday a great connection to the World is important. So to ensure the best system we tackled this face on and wired 3km of data wiring to a communication hub with makes sure that all internet using devices are hard wired, making sure that they are reliable when needed but also to reduce messy signals on Wifi so our guests have a cleaner connection, a complete new Wifi system gives a clean fast signal to every corner of our site.
The investment in the system would not of been worth it if the supply wasn't up to scratch but thankfully for us BT wired fibre to premises which gives hard wired points 690 mbps which is pretty fast, WiFi is 100Mbps which is amazing.
Room wise all rooms have FREE good quality WiFi and also access to super high RJ45 jack socket should this be required for business.
Design - The Cottage is a unique building and deserves a face lift, the place has been refurbished many times throughout its multiple century spanning life so not all original features remain but some do and these features are left, repaired and enhanced within the new design works.
Our aim is to make decoration classy and happy.
The Front rooms of the building are part of the old Cottage and ooze soul, thick walls, old beautiful windows and vaulted ceilings all help contribute to a feeling of age, the real selling point for these rooms is the historical feeling.
The rooms overlooking the river were built in the 70s so do not have the architectural features and are more modern, however during refurbishment care was taken that no room ended without soul. The selling point in these rooms is the view of the West Lyn River.
Comfort - This should of just read Bed really, most important piece of furniture within the room so we have memory foam mattresses beds in every room, King size where they will fit and doubles in others, great beds for a proper nights sleep.
Functionality - Part of our early talks took us back to when rooms were let pre-Covid and there seemed to be issues around Wifi and other not so big things such as light bulbs going.
This is a distraction for the guest and can be also for our team of staff so we decided that functionality is really important to us. USB bedside sockets to plug phone chargers into, permanent hair dryers, Simple to use televisions, per room heating controls for use in winter lets.
Efficiency - Without it there will be no business so this is a big one, Insulation has been added wherever it can be to help reduce the use of Utilities, in many areas we chose to use multi foil wrap as well as other insulations, often because it does a great job of covering intricate areas, its also thin so can be installed within clad walls etc.
New boilers and smaller heating / Water zones mean that we can be more efficient out of high season, fully heating sections of the building in use instead of the complete building.
Hygiene - Tiles are a bit of a hate of mine because they always end up back in the same spot of dirty aged grout, bacteria sits in the pores areas and its just not nice, for this reason in the bathrooms we chose bathroom wall panels, they look great and can be wiped down to a better standard.
Food & Drink - This is where our system is a little different and its taken a long time to finalise a decision, here's the conundrum. We wanted to offer a better than average room experience which takes investment and ongoing investment also, We understand the financial situation and didn't want to increase room prices dramatically to cover staffing costs for a standard breakfast, it can be more than you imagine and would increase room rates dramatically per night, this is because we are a small business, of course the economy of scale changes the more rooms that are available / sold.
Something we learnt in the past is that our customers often eat with us in the evenings and are not really in the market for a huge breakfast the morning after, personally when we go away as a family I often find the offer of a large breakfast as being the straw that broke the camels back, often because during the day we are out exploring and want to visit local coffee shops, bakeries, restaurants and pubs, it becomes unenjoyable on a stuffed stomach.
Our solution is to sell on a room only basis but provide a little something healthy which our customers can help themselves to Free of charge, such as yoghurt, cereal and fresh fruit, the right size to fuel up but leave enough space for a day exploring.
All of our new rooms have a specific dining area installed so you and your room mate can enjoy a light breakfast in privacy and in your own time, Rooms are all equipt with tea and coffee making facilities but if you prefer something else check out the kitchenette for a bigger choice, you will also find fresh milk in the fridge if this is something you prefer.
So there we have it, a few thoughts on the new Cottage Inn Hotel rooms, we would love you to join us this season, if you have any questions on the rooms that are not covered here please email us at nartnapadelivery@gmail.com
Commentaires