Jo Lewis from Alexander House Scotland joins Sarah Orchard to discuss the intricacies of expanding a short-term rental business, highlighting the importance of diversification in enhancing revenue streams.

With Jo's successful transition from a luxury large group holiday house to offering glamping and wedding services, Jo shares her journey of creating unique guest experiences that cater to different audiences.

She emphasises the symbiotic relationship between her various offerings, where guests often transition from one type of accommodation to another, driven by word-of-mouth referrals and repeat visits.

Jo also candidly shares her insights on managing weddings, detailing the challenges and rewards of this venture, and the necessity of being genuinely invested in the couples’ experiences.

The episode wraps up with Jo sharing practical marketing tips and the valuable lessons she's learned on her journey in the short-term rental hospitality industry.

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Key Takeaways:

• Expanding your short-term rental hospitality business can be beneficial if you understand your market well.
• Building relationships with guests leads to repeat bookings and positive word-of-mouth marketing.
• Careful planning and attention to detail are crucial for successfully managing wedding events. Make sure you are ready for this type of guest!
• Utilising automation tools can streamline communication with potential wedding clients effectively.
• Diverse offerings in accommodations can attract different customer segments and increase overall bookings.
• Understanding the unique customer journey for weddings is vital to providing excellent service.

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Explore Alexander House Scotland

Website

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The 2 dedicated websites for glamping and weddings:

Enchanted Glamping

Thistle Weddings

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Connect with Sarah:

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Are you ready to take more direct bookings?

Take Sarah's FREE quiz here to find out how ready you are with your marketing to ditch the likes of Airbnb! Put your business to the test...

You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard. Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket. Hello everyone. Thank you for taking time out of your day to join me on this week's episode of the Get Fully Booked podcast.

I'm your host, Sarah Orchard. I'm delighted to welcome another amazing guest to the podcast today, Jo Lewis from Alexander House, Scotland.

Jo and I have known each other for about eight years.

I worked out and I've helped Jo as a client expand her hospitality business from her original luxury holiday house, Alexander House into glamping and weddings.

Alexander House is located in the stunning Perthshire hills in Scotland and it's just a stone's throw from the world famous Gleneagles golfing resort. Today, Jo and I are going to be chatting about how you go about expanding your short term rental business and the pros and cons.

Welcome to the podcast, Jo.

Thank you for having me, Sarah.

It's great to have you here.

So I thought we'd start really for the listeners, just to give them a bit of background on how Alexander House, which was your original offering in the hospitality market, how did that come about?

All we had was a ruin which we managed to get planning permission to replace. So 18 months later, we then had a house with a road, with water and with power and the rest is history. So yeah, it's a very beautiful location.

So we are very, very spoiled to.

Have it and I will, I will put a link in the show notes so that people can come and check out your website and you know, give Alexander House the once over. But it is a very stunning location. I've been very lucky to be there. It's a very remote location.

I know you have some challenges with things like snow, but I think the one thing I love about the house is if anyone looked at the obviously looks at the pictures on the website, it looks like it's been there for years and of course it hasn't.

So obviously you did a very good job of building something that looks like it's you know, stood there for, probably 50 to 100 years, but actually it's very new.

That's what we wanted.

We wanted it to look like it just been there forever and just sit into the landscape because it is in a special landscape area and that's where you have to be very, very careful, I think, to make something that in, that adds to the landscape instead of detracts from it.

And the holiday house was, obviously it sleeps 21, so it's, you've got 10 bedrooms, it's a, you know, you've got a hot tub in a turret. I mean, it's an amazing, it's an amazing property. So listeners do go and check out the website and have a look at Alexander House.

But it obviously the house was doing really well and you were ticking along with your, you know, traditional like self catering holiday house, renting it out to groups. Probably a lot of them were, I know, were coming for celebrations and sort of group, group gatherings. But then you decided to expand.

So what was the, what was the motivation for that?

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, but it just felt like the location was spectacular and glamping requires a sort of beautiful location with something slightly different about it. And actually our location is stunning and glamping just sort of felt like it would fit. I'm also an Explorer Scout leader, so camping is my thing.

I understand about camping. So what I wanted to build was something that I wished I could have on scout camp but obviously can't.

So I wanted a bath and I wanted a hot tub and I wanted warmth, so that's what we've built. Expanding the business was actually a really good plan anyway.

So I always say that the house is the bread and butter, but the glamping and now the weddings are the icing on the cake really. And it has brought in an excellent extra revenue stream. It's been a really good thing to do. So thank you for your help with it.

Yeah, so I was very lucky. Jo and I first started working together when you approached me about helping you with launching the glamping.

So for people's benefit and listeners, we added or you added. I didn't have anything to do with the build.

You added two luxury yurts which are quite different because they're conjoined in that they're double double yurts and you've got a roll top bath in one side of it and then obviously wood burner and, and the bed and then obviously you've got hot tubs out on the Deck. So you added the two yurts to start with, which I helped you launch and market. But then you've added on some additional stretches as well.

We have. So Sarah and I both love horses, so this one is one really for both of us, I suppose.

A very practical, fun piece of kit, really. But in Lockdown, my son was stuck at home very bored. He was supposed to go to Japan and obviously with lockdown and Covid, nobody went anywhere.

So we bought a tatty old horse box, which he then converted. So the second one joined us just after. Well, in between the Covids, if you. If in between the COVID lockdowns. And that's his horse lorry.

So we now have two horse lorries and the two yurts also in Covid sort of times. We added a third yurt as a temporary structure because demand was so high.

That has subsequently gone and we sold it off to a lovely guy in Ireland for a yoga studio.

That was for families, wasn't it?

That was a family yurt, because everybody just needed a getaway. And our yurts are for two people. The lorries are actually for two adults and two kids. So again, it diversified the offering.

It also meant we can take dogs in the lorries. Dogs in the yurts is just. It's chaos, it's dangerous, to be honest.

Doesn't work.

Whereas in the lorries it's meant we've been able to have dogs and children.

So that again was diversifying the business in a different way because we were having requests to come for kids to come and stay in the yurts and they just weren't safe. So we produced something that was. So, yes, it's made it again.

We've widened the breadth of the business by adding a different offering and I think there'll probably be more to come.

Yeah. And I mean, you've obviously, you've got quite a large. It's four acres, isn't it?

Actually the whole farm, the whole estate is 114 acres in total.

So you've got a bit of but even just the plot the house is on, you've got quite a lot of scope in terms of space that you could expand into, but you've got some quite different audiences there.

So obviously, you know, sometimes that's a big challenge when people expand, is having You've got couples coming to the yurts who are probably the 30 somethings, aren't they, escaping Glasgow in Edinburgh.

Yep.

And coming for a romantic, you know, stay. And then you've got the two horse boxes that have been converted and they are juniper and thistle and they've got a different audience and then you've got the house.

So how do you juggle all the different customer types and. And the, you know, obviously they want different things from their stay.

So how do you find that works for you?

It's so interesting. They feed into each other, which I hadn't expected. So people who come and stay in a yurt look up at the house and go, I want to go stay in that.

And they'll save up with a bunch of friends and all come back together. Or people staying in the house will look at the yurts and go, oh, I just want to come back with my partner.

Because a lot of our house bookings are hen dos, for example, or big family gatherings.

And so they just go, actually, I just want to come back to this place, which I love, but I'm not going to book the house again, so I'll book something smaller. So it does feed really well.

And now with our new wedding business as well, the yurts and glamping often will have a proposal or something in there and that feeds really well into the weddings. So we've had several people propose, get engaged and then come back for their wedding, which is just delightful.

Perfect.

So they actually, like you say that it's quite a symbiotic relationship between them all, which on paper you wouldn't think that that would be the case and that often people do struggle when they have couples and families and groups and having it all in one location.

Although you've got quite a lot of space, people do struggle with how do you have all these different groups sort of together and being happy in the same space?

You know, there is a lot of space between all our units. They are quite separate entities. I think if you tried to put all that into a smaller space, you would have a real problem.

So our whole site is set across 14 acres with the lorries, the yurts and the house and the wedding venue. And 14 acres is enough, but I don't think anything less would be.

Yeah, I know when we were chatting about you expanding the business, you've always been very, very mindful of that from the guest experience point of view of not being greedy and trying to cram too much in or different or, you know, customer types, an ideal guest being, you know, like you've not put family stuff next to the two romantic yurts, you know, being mindful of what people want. And they've got the most glorious views out over the. Over the valley and towards the hills.

So they've got their bit and they're not overlooking everything else. So you've added. You've added weddings.

I know that's something that a lot of the listeners, particularly if they've got multiple units, might be thinking, we could do group bookings here, we could do weddings. How has that gone for you? I mean, obviously you've been doing it for a number of years now.

What's been your key learnings of being working in the weddings market?

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings, weddings. So, on one hand, I love our weddings, on the other hand, I am not in favour of weddings. So let's start at the beginning.

Eight years ago, pretty much, you and I talked about weddings and I think five years ago, was it, six years ago, we did a weddings open day and that was with a view to doing small weddings in the house, I think, and bigger weddings in a marquee. Yes, that's right.

I remember large yurts and teepees on the lawn.

Yes. So we had all of those. And in Scotland, where we are, it gets a bit breezy and it's an understatement. Yeah, yeah.

And there was a famous moment when we woke up one morning and there was supposed to be a wedding in a beautiful marquee and we looked out and went, where's the marquee?

Oh, every host's worst nightmare.

So anyway, the marquee had gone flying. So anyway, they ended up having the wedding in the house, which was fine. It was a beautiful wedding. So that was fine.

But it then meant that the process of having weddings in marquees had come to an end. I wasn't willing to risk somebody else's wedding. You know, it's such a special day, you want it to be perfect.

So if you cannot make that day perfect, you're not interested in making that day perfect. Weddings are not for you.

You really have to be invested in this person's life because you become their friend, you become their confidant, you become that person that they trust for quite a long period of time. Weddings are booked in. On average, our weddings are booked 14 months ahead, so some can be booked three years ahead.

And trust me, you really know that person or that couple probably more than you'd like. So if that's not something you can do or you are willing to be invested in. Weddings are not for your sight.

But if you are, if you do love people and you do want to have those relationships, then absolutely, it's great fun. They're fantastic things. We've subsequently built a new wedding venue on the site.

So an orangery, it's about 20 something meters long by 20 something meters deep. It has toilets, a bar, it's a huge, beautiful room and it's designed for weddings and I love it.

It's a spectacular venue with great views and we love our couples, so it's actually a fantastic thing. So again, if this is something you think you can do, weddings are great fun. On the other hand, they are really, really, really hard work.

Remember, when you are pricing for a wedding, the hours you are going to put into that wedding are almost as many as the couple, possibly more. So that really is something. And people say, why are weddings so expensive? And it's because the amount of time taken for a wedding is huge.

I can have 28 guests in the house on site and I can speak to them once I can send them a load of messages, I can never get to know them at all. They leave and I've booked the house for, I don't know, &6, &7,000 pounds.

I can take a wedding booking for £12,000 pounds and I can literally have worked probably £5,000 pounds worth of hours before they've even arrived. And then on the day, fortunately, I have Mandy, who is, who just loves weddings and she's wedding coordinator and she loves what she does.

So again, I think you need a Mandy, I think you need somebody on site to just make sure everything is perfect.

So that's a key learning, isn't it, really? That's a key learning that I think you've learned over the time is that I know you were doing a lot, you were doing all of it yourself.

And your wedding offering has evolved, I suppose, by trial and error.

And you've seen what's worked at your location because you've got the sort of physical factors of being above the snow line, quite high up, quite breezy.

Yes.

Which provides challenges because people want to get married all year round. But also people are very. I know when you first started, I think the idea was, you know, you had the house, which was obviously, you know, accommodation, you had a beautiful setting.

So it was like, I want to be quite hands off, I want to just be basically renting them the venue, then it's over to them, you know, to go and find you can put them in touch with like a list of suppliers. And I know that's how we sort of work to start with and put all that together. And it was like basically, off you go, you organise the rest.

But I think you've learned as the years have gone by that that potentially doesn't work, as that's not what brides want, really.

So, no, it doesn't work.

They still come to you for everything anyway, regardless, so you might as well provide that service and make sure that they have a great day because quite often they have no idea how things work. They don't know that they need a license for the bar.

They don't know that the caterer is going to need a field kitchen to cook their meal or whatever it be. So, yeah, we discovered that actually it's better to manage the process with. With them, even if it's almost. It is entirely bespoke.

Every single wedding is different with us, but we also offer sort of straightforward packages so they know what they get from us and then we can help them with the rest.

Yeah.

So, yes, you need to package it up. There is no way of sort of, because otherwise I find it's very unfair.

They don't know what the price is and then it racks up and then suddenly their wedding is twice what they expected. And that's an unhappy bride.

Exactly. Everyone has a budget, don't they, at the end of the day?

And also, what you've just said makes perfect sense because I, I, people who've been in my world for a while know that I organised over the last couple of years a live event. And I had been involved in events in the past, but I hadn't organised a conference myself. And you, you.

That really struck a chord, what you just said about, you know, the brides and grooms, you know, they've never organised probably a gathering on that scale with that many moving parts in terms of catering and loos and flowers and all the logistics, music bars. And suddenly, you know, it may not be their forte trying to pull that together.

And actually they need somebody who knows what they're doing, otherwise their day is not going to end up how they imagined.

Exactly. And they, they often sort of arrive with hundreds and hundreds of decorations and we're like, who's putting the decorations up?

Have you got anything to put the decorations up with, for example? And of course, that's just beyond the thought process. They see a pretty picture on Instagram and that's what they want their wedding to look like.

And they buy all the bits, and then they forget that actually it's quite an art to put a beautiful wedding together.

So that's where we come in and say, look, we can either help or here is a decor person to come and do that for you, whatever it be, you know, all those things. But it's hard. An event is a hard thing to organise as well, you know.

Yes, definitely.

Even just managing the invites is hard.

Yeah.

So damn that Pinterest and Instagram where people go and get all these, all these wacky ideas and then they come to you and say, I want my wedding to look like this.

I'm very good at saying. And we know just the person to help you with that. Yeah. So here's their details.

So again, that sounds like a major learning about having some really good suppliers that you now know can, can handle those requirements because you're, you're not there necessarily doing all the floral art and, and doing all that decor stuff. You've got people that help.

No, been there, done that and bought the T shirt.

So I'm sensing that obviously there's the, you know, if you're charging for organising much more of the wedding, there's obviously a certain elevation in the fees to cover your time. And that's. You've made that quite clear. That's a real big learning that. Don't underestimate how much time's involved.

But it sounds like you've kept going with weddings.

So obviously I'm assuming there's more positives than negatives and you actually have enjoyed and seen a financial benefit of adding this onto Alexander House, otherwise you might have quit a while back, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it is a genuinely good add on to your business. But I'm not sure I want my business just to be a wedding venue.

So we do a maximum of 24 weddings a year, which for a wedding venue is not very many. But for us to manage is a lot. You need a big team to manage more weddings than that. So. Yes, absolutely. The pluses are financially, it's, it's good.

It's an added extra business dream. It's more icing on the cake to add to the glamping. So, yeah, absolutely.

I would recommend it to anybody, but please make sure you've got correct contracts, correct insurances, so that when the marquee does blow away, everybody's insured. And also, I say this advisedly, probably 1 in 20 weddings does not go to the full wedding date.

Okay, that's an interesting one.

So do be aware that that is going to happen and it is horrible when it happens.

That's a bit of a nightmare.

The couple has split up or sometimes actually weddings do need to be moved because life gets in the way. So we had the most lovely couple, young couple and he developed cancer. He was only 28 I think.

So again, the wedding got delayed four times I think over that, that period and eventually they got married last May. So I was really happy.

So yeah, like I say, life, life throws stuff at people, doesn't it?

And you know, actually that's really good point about the sort of legal aspects and like contracts and making sure that it's not something to probably your normal booking terms and conditions for your holiday accommodation is not going to cut the mustard with, with a wedding booking and.

Make sure that the couple takes out wedding insurance because it's surprising how many of them just don't, don't actually get along for the three years since they booked the house or the wedding venue. They do split up, I'm afraid. Sorry.

I know. But yeah, that's something that people probably wouldn't even think about.

And you get all excited about, you know, getting involved in branching out and doing weddings on your site, maybe your glamping site or if you've got multiple accommodation units and some ground, you might think like self catering, you might think brilliant, let's do weddings because it's a money spinner. But actually there's a lot, a lot to consider, isn't there?

I think there is and you just need to go into it with your eyes, eyes absolutely wide open that it is not a business with a faint hearted.

No, we've all heard of Bridezillas and yes, might test your patience sometimes.

We have figured out a way of managing the process for our couples as well. So we have a very clear communications process and a very clear timeline as well. So again, that's been a huge learning curve.

We actually send them the timeline when they first book and we tell them what we will do at each stage and what we expect them to do at each stage. So again, prepare that before you go out to the wedding market and suddenly have lots.

So that's a really, really good point in terms of mapping out responsibilities and who does what. And so from your marketing perspective, I know when we started working together we had weddings on the main Alexander House website.

But you've now made the decision, you've split out both glamping and weddings. What was the driver for that?

We tried having, as you say, the one website but there's such different offerings. People need to see different information, different booking flows. The whole process is different for each one.

So, for example, if you're booking a yurt up a hill, you're probably booking it maybe, I don't know, four, six weeks out, not quite close to the date, sometimes further if it's a special occasion. But often it's a, it's a very quick purchase, you know you want it, you pop the deposit in and you're done. That's it.

You just want to see that it's there, that what the price is and you're going to book and do you have availability. So that's done dead easy for the house.

Probably the same actually these days, you know, everybody books online, very straightforward, you know what you want, you know the number of guests, so you book whichever option you choose. It's all online. Done. A wedding is a much, much, much longer process.

The wedding couples tend to stalk you online for a good six to eight months before they actually come and see you.

They'll be stalking your socials, they'll be checking you out, they'll be checking out all the pictures of all the other weddings you've ever had and then they'll book a show round. So a show round for Alexander House takes about two hours by the time we're done and dusted. So that's a long process.

So usually by the time they come and see you, you are down to perhaps the last one or two wedding venues and they're just coming to actually check that what they've seen on social media and on your website exists and is what they think it is. And then it can still be another six to eight weeks before they actually make the decision to book.

Yeah.

So it's a really long, drawn out process and I guess it's big purchase.

Yeah, that makes sense actually, because there's a sort of buying model, you know, a you've talked about like customer journey and the fact that people go through a sort of a journey and need, you know, the higher the emotional and financial investment, the more touch points they need, the more marketing they need to see to make that decision.

So, and also the level of detail like you say that you've got on your wedding site and what you need to show on your socials is going to be far more in depth and different to what you would need to show to your normal holiday guests.

Yes. And even after that first touch point, they still need more. Once they've come to see us, they still need more love, care and attention.

So we then put them into a nurture sequence of emails, for example. So we have five Emails in a nurture sequence after they've come to visit us.

Even so I think it's a really interesting one that the journey, as you say, is completely different and is a long journey.

And again, as a business owner you have to be in that process, you have to be willing to take the time to make that couple really appreciate and love you. So again, be aware time.

But I love how you've used automation there.

So that's using something like Mailchimp or you know, an email marketing system to do, to do some of that follow up and heavy lifting for you because all of us, you know, you see people and then you maybe forget.

Dealing with just a house enquiry, you know, for accommodation is quite like say, short decision making but obviously with the, with the weddings sector, you know, using that tech to help with the staying in touch because of course they need to feel that they're being nurtured and you know, really want to be part of their big day so that they make that decision and come to you.

And I think also for the glamping in the house because times are a little bit, or have been a little bit tighter, I think people are actually feeling they want that too. So we've now started a nurture sequence even for the glamping and the house. So up till now I've been very rubbish.

Periodically we send out a mailchimp and say hi, we're here. But actually I think people now need more than that and automation can allow you to do that. As you pointed out.

I think we're all going to have to do that for the clumping and any form of short term holiday letting that is going to be the next stage of what our customers expect. And being on the dreaded TikTok.

Particularly for that younger audience, yes, there's different platforms and that, you know, that just goes to show what I always sort of bleat on about that, you know, for each of your different ideal guests and you've got very different sort of Personas, there's going to be a different mix of marketing that's going to be relevant for each one. You can't just do one size fits all.

Hence you've got, you know, you've now got three websites to manage but ultimately it's because you're, you're gearing up your messaging and your content differently for the different guests that you're trying to attract to your, to your business.

And you absolutely taught me that from the early days, Sarah.

Oh, I'm glad that my bleating on about it had had good effect.

So for anybody listening, do, do what she says.

It works well. We did well. I remember when we launched the glamping in year one, we had 70% bookings, didn't we, from when we launched. And that was direct business.

We did.

So, we knew who the audience was and you, you were very good at knowing what they wanted from a guest experience point of view.

And I think we used. We didn't use. We used Facebook predominantly at the time because it was going back a few years and obviously then Instagram.

But, you know, we weren't reliant on agents and you got a huge percentage of direct bookings. And actually, my last question was if you had one top tip for hosts to get fully booked.

You've mentioned a little bit about, like, the cross sort of fertilisation between the different businesses helping each other sort of fill. But what would be your top tip for hosts to get fully booked?

Oh, my goodness, it's so hard. So. So initially, obviously, when you first start out, you do need to use specific marketing. So, as Sarah taught me, very targeted, very specific.

Facebook, Insta, TikTok, whoever you're using, very targeted. Don't try and go wide, don't try and hit the entire world because most of them won't book. So go for the people you think will book.

But actually, you know what? The thing that generates me the most bookings to this day is word of mouth.

So love your customers and they will love you back and they will talk about you to all their friends and then all their friends will come and visit. And that just really is how it still works. And I'm so pleased it does, because if it was just constantly finding new guests coming, I'd be exhausted.

But probably 70% of my business is return guests.

Yeah, that makes a huge difference, doesn't it?

Yeah. So, yeah, really lucky to have that. And also, if you diversify, they want to come back and see what you've done. They're like, oh, what's next?

Can we come and stay in the next lorry? Or oh, I wonder what they've done in the house. She said you'd redecorated something. Let's go and have a look. You know, things like that.

And I think that's another key learning point, is that you didn't create four with your glamping units. You haven't created four identical spaces. They're all decor, sort of, you know, features different.

And that's another reason to give people a reason to come Back because they come and then go. We stayed in that one, but we'd like to stay in the other one this time or try the lorry or, you know.

So I think that's the thing, creating different guest experiences, even though you're at the same location can be a massive driver for getting, you know, repeat stays.

And I think, I mean, obviously the current trend is for wellness and that's something that we've always, always given our guests without even thinking about it, to be honest.

You know, it's a beautiful place, fresh air, you can go and walk in the woods, you can chat to the squirrels, you can look at the views and you can sit in the hot tub or you can go and swim in the loch if you want. But I think in this day and age now, it's important to tell people about those things.

I never bothered before, whereas now I tell people there's a loch next door, would they like to go and wild swim? Why haven't they climbed to the top of the hill and, you know, lent into the wind or whatever it is? And it's a real thing. Saunas. I'm not.

We haven't got yet, but Sarah can tell you about those. But I think there are things that you can just always sing about that you haven't realised you have.

So try and look again because that's something I learned the other day. Try and look at the overview and go, oh, actually we've been doing that for ages. Why aren't we saying so?

That's one of the best marketing tips, isn't it? Is to actually tell people about all the aspects that you offer.

Because we all forget to shout about our sort of strong points because we just take it for granted when we live there and we don't realize that that's like you say, the fact you've got things on site that people can benefit from that you would think, oh, well, I haven't told them that before. But actually it's. It's really on trend at the moment.

Totally. And the other thing, you know, small things can change that. You don't expect to.

So we have a swimming pool in the main house and we've always heated it all year round. But I can't. My environmental conscience will not allow me to do that anymore. It's simply just not a thing.

So we've discovered that the swimming pool, when treated and left all winter, is a perfect temperature for an ice bath. Ah, so perfect.

So we have this beautiful ice bath next to a hot tub and you can do something called contrast therapy, which is hopping in and out of a cold swimming pool into a lovely hot tub. It's really good for you. But of course, we hadn't thought about that until I went, look, environmentally, I cannot do this.

This is just not something that sits even vaguely with me anymore. We cannot heat that swimming pool up a hill in, in the middle of Scotland in the winter. So we're going to close it.

And suddenly everybody was like, well, why just use it as an ice bath? I'm like, oh, okay. So again, fresh eyes.

Yeah.

Always. There's always something that changes.

Always an opportunity I have.

Yeah.

One last question for you, which I've started asking everyone who's a host because I think we're all intrigued to know this. If you could have one celebrity come and stay at Alexander House, who would it be?

Oh, that's so hard. Okay, so am I allowed one celebrity in each business?

Go on then, because you've got the three.

So. Oh, it would have to be Bear Grylls or Dwayne Fields who are the chief scouts. Definitely.

I mean, obviously I'd love to have Bear come and stay, but he'd probably land in his helicopter, so that's not environmentally sustainable. So we'll have Duane. He'll arrive on the train.

I like that.

So, because I'm a scout leader and that is really what made me think about the whole glamping thing. So, yeah, absolutely. One of those. Show them how they should be camping.

Right, Yeah, I like that.

And in the main house, it's very tricky. We almost had William and Kate's honeymoon, but it wasn't quite big enough for the security detail to come and stay with them.

Although security loved our position. Up a hill. Nice and safe, very easy to defend. Wow.

Didn't know that.

And then early doors. We had Timothy Spall come and stay just after he'd had his nervous breakdown. And he almost refused to leave.

He was like, I just want to come and stay here forever, please. So that was really sweet, but I don't know.

We've had so many famous people already, so I think I'll just wait and see who comes through the door next. I've had to sign a few disclaimers through the years, so I can't tell you about them all. And for a wedding, oh, my goodness.

Well, we want somebody, like, super famous, don't we? Don't know who. Who. Who do we think we should have? Any ideas?

I'm probably not. I'm not a good one on the celebrities. I'm not a celebrity follower.

Neither am I. So I'll just have to see who comes again. I'm sure we'll have somebody pretty cool.

Or maybe you just make all of your wedding guests feel like they're celebrities and they're special. So you don't need to have the celebrities come and stay.

You know, every couple is their own celebrity on the day.

They're in the limelight, aren't they, for their wedding day?

Completely. Some of them hate it and some love it. But, you know, you are your celebrity.

That day, whether you like it or not. Thank you for that, Jo. And thank you for joining us today. That's been brilliant chatting to you. I know I'm going to have to

off broadcast I'll have to chat to you more about some of those stories. There's lots of lots of interesting facts there.

But thank you for being so open about, you know, your learnings and the pros and cons of expanding the business and how that that's been for you.

Oh, thank you for having me. There's been lots of learning, that's for sure.

So, everyone, that's the end of this episode. And actually it's the end of series two. I can't believe that flown by.

But I'll be back with series three in just a few weeks with more actionable marketing tips to boost your direct bookings and some great fellow hosts for you to learn from. So thanks for listening and if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

You know how much us hosts love those five star reviews. See you next time. Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free direct booking roadmap quiz. Head to my website get-fully-booked.com/ quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.