- We're gonna get started with some logistics
that you can see here on the screen.
And I wanna acknowledge the Northeast Extension
Risk Management Education Center
and USDA for supporting this online conversation
this Zoom cafe.
Today, we're talking about farm tours and overnight stays.
My name is Lisa Chase.
I'm with the University of Vermont Extension
and the Vermont Tourism Research Center.
And with us, we have Claudia Schmidt
from Penn State Extension.
Elisa Fleming from Verdant View Farm in Pennsylvania
and Scottie Jones of Farm Stay USA
and also Leaping Lamp Farm in Oregon.
And at this point I'm gonna stop sharing my screen
so I can turn it over to Elisa from Pennsylvania
to share about,
to talk about what she's got going on Verdant View Farm
and how her experience has been during COVID,
during the pandemic and now that we're coming out of it.
- Thank you so much.
Hi everyone, it's a pleasure to be here with you
and a pleasure to have this conversation with you.
And again, my name is Elisa
and I am from Verdant View Farm
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
It is a fifth,
I am on a fifth generation farm.
My grandmother started our bed and breakfast in 1967.
Lancaster is known by many
for the Amish community that we have here
as well as many other attractions,
but at the time in the 1960s
there was a shortage of rooms.
And so a neighboring farmer
encouraged my grandma to open up some rooms
because there was a need.
And so ever since then,
my parents then took over the operation
and I came back eight years ago
to continue the bed and breakfast and farm.
We were a dairy farm for a hundred years.
We have since stopped that
and we are now a 100%
grass fed and grass finished beef farm.
We graze the cows on 25 acres of pasture
and we farm 74 acres of crops.
And we also offer farm tour seasonally
for many people that cannot stay with us
but wanna still learn how to milk a cow
and learn about the farm and we open up farm tours
primarily in the summer season.
So today I would like to talk about
a couple of different things.
One, how we pivoted during the pandemic
and continue to pivot.
How we came to understand
what needs our customers had,
how we set expectations for them.
And then also our ultimately
we tried to exceed expectations.
You know, the changes that the pandemic brought
is nothing new to many of us that are on farms
with each generation
with the many storms that farmers have to face seasonally
or from year to year.
How we weather those storms
and how we transition,
how we find a vision and find a way forward,
how we change the nature of our farms.
This is all, you know, nothing new,
but in America, you know, this is not,
we're not alone in this.
As you can see in the data below, we have
we see that all from,
I kind of try to find data points
that represent the four generations of our family
and as we operated the farm.
The data shows that as farm operators decreased
dramatically between 1920 and 2017
population in the United States increased dramatically
from 106 million to 325 million.
The percent farmers of course decreased
to 0.63% of the population in 2017.
What I found most interesting is that
the share of farmers, again,
all this data we got from the USDA's
census of agriculturalists historical archive.
The, what I found really fascinating is that farmers,
now 93% of farmers are working off farm
to, you know, for a variety of reasons, of course,
but you know, in 1945 only 27% of farmers
had off farm income and now in 2017 it's 93%.
To me that shows that, you know,
as farmers we're trying to diversify our income
that we're trying to reach out.
But also it tells me that if,
with all of these changes and the percent of farmers
more and more people are further and further removed
from agriculture.
And so I say this because every tourism has a critical role
in educating the public as we all know,
but we are the link between producers and consumers
we're the link between rural and urban
and we provide a critical link
in helping people have a connection
to farms and to agriculture.
So, you know, in last year as the pandemic in quarantine
as we were thinking about how we were gonna move forward
if, when we could move forward
we had to start thinking about how,
what changes are gonna make
and how we can provide a safe and welcoming environment.
And I think first and foremost,
we wanted to listen to our customers
and we continue to listen to them
and also to our coworkers and to our family.
Ultimately, I think what was important to us was that
we tried to make our customers feel welcomed,
to feel that they were comfortable and safe
but at the exact same time as answering questions of like,
are you open and is it safe?
I try to really emphasize all the farms in general,
but also our particular farm
already provide that was very COVID friendly.
And so that was, you know, saying that
we had multiple hand washing stations
and they could wash their hands
however many times they wanted,
it's right in there with them.
And plenty of space to spread out.
There was unstructured play available that they could do,
self-guided, we had outdoor, accommodate, you know
outdoor dining and private accommodations.
And, you know, as this picture
that we got from our Instagram account
shows they've a Zoom meeting which like today,
but it hasn't represented many of the different animals
on our farm as well as some of our coworkers.
And we tried some always maintain a good sense of humor,
even when, you know, in the difficulty of everything.
And what do our customers seek?
You know, before COVID,
I would think that many of the questions that I fielded
were about the activities and options that they could have.
They wanted to hands on activities for their kids.
They want to dedicate a time with us.
Anytime we were in the garden or in the shop
or, they would ooze into our space and say,
"Hey, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that?"
They really wanted, you know, to be up close and personal.
They wanted a family style breakfast indoors
where we eat with our visitors.
And so they really, and then, you know, they,
not only did they wanna pack it in during their stay
but they also wanted to, you know,
go visit many other attractions in the area.
So they went from, you know,
as we fielded questions and calls from our visitors
it went from packing it in
to almost every question was related to safety and retreat.
And they wanted to know
if it was gonna be a safe environment indoors and outdoors,
they wanted limited interaction.
They didn't want to talk to us necessarily.
They wanted to come and have a space for their own,
for themselves.
They wanted outdoor dining and sitting at separate tables.
They wanted private accommodations
and they didn't even wanna leave the farm
for so many of us,
I'm part of a farm stay group here in Lancaster.
And I think everyone in the times that we've touched base
agree that so many of the families
really just wanted to spend so much more time on the farm.
And of course they wanted to,
they wanted them to know
what the COVID cancellation policy was.
In the midst of trying to figure out the logistics
and the physical nature
or the response that we were gonna have
for the physical aspects of our business.
I think it's important that we stop and acknowledge
the difficulty it is that we can have as a small business
in balancing competing priorities.
And so like accommodating our customers
and trying to go, bend over backwards
to meet them wherever they were at
while also safeguarding our own family
and our farm and our business needs.
And I shared a graph here.
It shows my room revenue from January one to June 10,
from 2017 to 2021.
And I shared this graph in part,
one, to cheer on 2021.
It's my best year in the past five years.
And I'm happy with this trajectory,
but really it's also a reminder that in 2020,
on June 10th, 2020
if you would've called me and said, "Are you open?
And, you know, do you have all the answers for me?"
I myself looking at numbers that were just really terrifying
and I didn't have answers for myself,
but you know, the exhaustion of trying to figure it out
and navigate it and understand the different legal aspects,
how we did, how could we mitigate liability,
how could we do all of this extra work with fewer staff.
These were all, you know, leading to exhaustion
and leading to a lot of perplex conversations,
you know, giving ourselves the grace
as a small business to understand that
we don't always have the answers
and that was okay for me to tell my customers too.
There were many moments where I said,
you know, I don't know this is what I'm doing for this week
or this next week, but trying to figure it out as we go.
And I think they appreciated the honesty.
So exactly what did we do to pivot?
We tried to offer more private accommodations.
We put spacing in between,
in between room reservations,
we modified our check-in procedure so it could be touchless
and limit exposure.
Almost any interaction I had with visitors was outdoors,
even including the check-in process of bringing them
and explaining where they needed to go.
We served breakfast entirely exclusively outside.
There is a picture here of our, what we call our veranda
and that random we've actually now enclosed it.
And so it's able to extend the season.
We could start earlier in the spring
and then go further into the fall to serve outdoors.
We now see people, instead of all sitting together,
we see people at their own tables and plate food separately
so that there's not cross-contamination.
And we updated our housekeeping procedures.
Of course, and tried to, we actually improved our wifi,
changed our service so that people
that are working from home or were bringing work with them
or students that were doing e-learning
would have a better service.
And then a big thing for us
was adjusting our farm activities.
So there are certain activities that we do
with our visitors every day
we do something called morning tours.
And it's an hour guided experience that we take them on.
And whoever's leading morning tours
we'll teach them how to milk a cow.
And we do, meet all the different animals and feed them.
And one of the popular activities, for example,
and we do this on the tours as well
is bottle-feeding baby cattle.
And we decided that
the nature of bottle feeding of these cattle
wasn't, it wasn't a pandemic friendly activity.
We had to share a bottle, the calves drinks so fast.
I don't have limitless calves to feed
and so we just removed that.
We didn't even offer it all.
We also removed bunnies
because people want to crowd in and hold the bunnies.
So any, we adjusting our farm activities
so that it reduced cross-contamination
and it also allowed people to spread out
while enjoying the activity.
They didn't feel like they were being,
they were receiving less.
On the tours, we offered private tours.
We limited the size of each tour
and so that it, you know, was more manageable.
And also people could, again, spread out and do everything.
We sanitized.
If people came into our farm store to make a purchase
the tours themselves, they were purchased online.
So we didn't really have to do any contact
in the beginning of the tour.
But if they came in the farm store
we would sanitize their credit card and pen
after they purchased an item, of course
we always encourage hand washing.
During the bed and breakfast experience
or even with our farm tours
and how we set expectations, of course,
is through a lot of communication.
A lot of we feel it's so many extra voicemail,
phone calls and emails, but we also try to provide
as much information before they came, during their arrival,
improving our signage, improving the notes
that we gave so that they could do a self check-in.
We wore masks, we did social distancing
again, interacted outdoors.
And again, trying to make it a very comfortable space.
And then during their visit
they could learn more while they were here.
That is all the stuff that we would talk about
with our visitors.
But I think for many of the visitors,
they came with unspoken desires
and that related to the baggage that became,
that was the result of the pandemic.
So many of them, you know,
arrived and were just so fatigued.
They were stressed.
Something that we kept hearing over and over again
is that they were really wanting to retreat
and they really wanted to feel normal again.
And they were hoping that.
Some people even had told me
that they never saw sunshine
in their apartment in New York City for many weeks
because of the position of their apartments.
So just even seeing the sunshine
it was like such a warm welcome for them.
And I feel like this is something that many of us
that run agritourism businesses might forget
because we're already here.
But a farm can be, you know, such a source of stability
because she's unchanging
and that it can provide someone just the respite
that they need in a time of pandemic.
And I wonder if this is related to
why a farm is also partly,
why we're seeing more and more people coming.
You know, the breath of fresh air,
the connection to animals.
And we all know that baby goats
give really good animal therapy.
You know, connection to the sunshine and plants,
learning about sustainable practices.
You know, as things were flying off the shelf in New York
and there was shortages
there were people that came here and were so happy to learn.
Suddenly their interest was piqued
and learning how to make their own soap
or make their own, you know, canning or gardening.
And again, you know, on the farm
just the farm itself was such a welcome change
but also the hospitality
that they would would receive off here.
And so to exceed our guests expectations,
I think really it goes back to these
more philosophical things of
how we are able to engage with people in a safe way
but also to make connections, to encourage that
and to give people the space
that they needed to feel comfortable
and to allow them to do
as you know they felt was best for themselves.
And by giving them that normalcy
they also brought normalcy back to us.
They allowed our business to continue to operate
and we will, of course we're ever so grateful
that they were present.
One of my favorite reviews as we know
and reviews are so critical to our business,
just touched on so many of the things
that we've talked about.
They loved that there was a socially distanced vacation.
They wrote that they were so happy
that we were masked, some were socially distance
as much as possible.
This review again, was written for a stay last July.
And, you know, they felt super welcomed
even with all of the changes that were necessary.
Key takeaways, you know,
agritourism has a really important role to play, you know,
but as we pivot our operations and meet new needs,
hopefully that our customers can know
that it's a welcoming and safe place to be.
And how we set expectations
and meet people where they're comfortable
can only improve our operations.
And ultimately, as we try to, you know,
encourage connections
and build a community, hopefully that can make a change
that is, that goes beyond our own farms.
If you have any questions
and you would like to contact me directly.
My email address can be found on our website,
that's elisa@verdantview.com
or you can look us up at verdantview.com.
- Thank you, Elisa.
That was such a great overview.
Scottie, would you like to add something
from the more national view?
- Elisa had asked me whether I thought this was,
come on, this needs to go from the beginning, there we go.
Whether I thought the fact that a lot of us are really busy
and Elisa was saying
how busy they have become actually now this summer as well,
whether it was a blip or a trend.
And so I think that actually,
since I oversee farm stays
in all 50 states,
Farm Stay USA is a trade association
for working farms and ranches that offer lodging.
But what I have heard, and this is mostly anecdotal
I haven't done a survey, but I have heard
that most of us are totally full this summer.
I think the silver lining of COVID
if you wanna put it in a sort of sick way
is that people have discovered that they wanna be outside
and that there are benefits to being outside
and what a perfect place to bring your kids, but to a farm.
So I just wanted to show this right here
because I'm gonna do a comparison.
This is just showing the membership
for Farm Stay USA right now.
And you'll see where along a lot of the coasts.
And because I know a lot of you are on the East Coast.
I wanted to highlight a little bit
just kind of what it looks like.
There aren't that many of us that are members,
maybe this is only five or 10%,
but if you look at countries like Italy
and you'll see that this has just identified
what they consider their best agritourism
or agriturismo is plural
that Italy fits into this part of the US.
There are actually about 20,000 agriturismos in Italy.
There are over 10,000 in England,
there are over 8,000 in France.
So if you think of the size of those countries
there's huge opportunity
that the US has available to it.
And we're just really behind the curve on this.
And so the fact that
people are now looking to nature tourism is,
means that this is a perfect opportunity for farms
that were maybe sitting on the fence.
Do we want to welcome strangers onto our farm?
I think what we've discovered with the term farm stay
when people who want to come out to our farms,
they tend to be very respectful
because they're interested in what we're doing.
They know that this is our home
and they often will treat it like our home.
I just wanted to show you a comparison.
This is my farm.
And so this is 2020 to 2021.
And so this is what happened last June.
We had just started to reopen.
We only wanted to be open on weekends.
We wanted to put lots of time
so that we would have time to clean.
And you'll see how kind of blank this was
till towards the end of June
we started to increase a little bit
and we had always been offering farm tours
but we offered them as group farm tours.
So we didn't wanna do that.
So we started to just do individual tours for families.
And that started to pick up towards the end of June
as people felt, maybe it was safer to do a tour
rather than to come stay with us.
Well, then we get to this year
and you can see that we are booked basically solid.
And then look at what's happened to our tours.
And you'll see here that we had 1:00 PM tours.
We were offering two different tours
twice a day to people.
And this was getting all filled in too this line here.
In March, we had to cut out
the afternoon tours
because we weren't getting any of our work done.
The tours are about an hour.
Some of these, I will say right here
that we developed because of COVID
our virtual farm tours.
So we were taking schools around on our farm
and introducing them to our different animals.
This may be what June looks like.
July looks the same and August looks the same
but all of us that have outdoor nature tourism going on
which would be farms are totally booked this summer.
And I wanted to show you here, the traffic comparison.
So the orange is gonna be last year
and you can see what happened in March, April
when everybody was closed down.
And then you can see what happened this year.
So the traffic on our website is up 66%
just from February 1st to June 14th.
The new users are, it's up 67%.
Sessions means the time that people come on
and look at our site.
So we are seeing a huge increase in business.
And then you'll see at the very end of that
it starts to level out a little bit.
Well that's because all of us are booked for the summer.
Travelers are discovering that they're gonna,
it's interesting.
I actually have many more bookings now in 2022
than I've ever had this far in advance.
So people are really starting to think ahead
and where can they be and where can they go,
and they don't wanna miss out.
Is it a blip or a trend?
'cause I really only wanted to just pop in here
and tell you what I think.
This is just showing one article.
This is just from May 31st, this is USA Today.
Best summer vacations in the US for families this year
farm vacations stay on a farm.
There are many more articles out this spring about
being out in the country.
Where can you take your family, where do you feel safe?
And to kind of piggyback on what Elisa was saying,
you know, that sense of relief
that we are getting from our guests coming here
and they're able to lower their shoulders.
I've been told so many times, you know,
I walked onto your farm and I just felt relief
or else I've been getting guests to spring apologizing
for all the naps who've been taking it.
They're just overwhelmed.
We've all been overwhelmed.
But what I enjoy the most about
inviting guests onto my farm
is I don't see them as strangers.
I do see that I can provide something for them.
I do feel that I can educate them about what we do.
I do feel that they leave as friends.
What I see both as a farmer and a farm stay host
but also through Farm Stay USA.
And I'm happy to chat with anybody
who wants to know about the opportunities and the challenges
of being a farm stay here in the US.
So thank you.
- Thanks Scottie.
That was also really interesting.
And everyone else, please feel free to type your questions
into the chat box, or we can also unmute you
if you would like to ask some questions.
So I'm wondering what about the type of customers
you have been seeing.
I mean, from last year to this year
and then even like pre COVID,
I know it's very family focused, but I've
we had another webinar too
with people that are running corn mazes
and they said, you know, it's not the families anymore.
And now it's the couples that are coming out.
So have you seen any changes over, you know
pre COVID during COVID and now that we're moving
into a different phase.
Elisa, I'll start with you.
- Yeah, we did see,
of course we lost our international visitors.
We often get a lot of international visitors
because they're intrigued by the Amish.
It draws them to Lancaster.
And so we were really sad
because I, you know, personally really love
meeting people from all over the world
and learning from, learning with them.
So I'd say more regional,
even having visitors from across, you know,
from California or from Florida even was pretty rare.
It was many more people that were from the Northeast
for us
- But it's still families?
- Yeah, primarily families,
a lot of grandparents with grandchildren.
Parents might be working or having other commitments.
- Or just being exhausted, yeah.
- Yeah, or just being exhausted.
But I think that was probably the main demographic
that we saw.
- And I would reiterate that in that
it was much more local traffic.
I mean, I had people coming to stay
who only lived 30 miles away,
who only live 50 miles away.
Yes, we didn't get our California visitors
the way we had before,
they're coming back slowly
and Washington north of us,
but many, much, much more local.
But also some of the visitors we got in the last year
were pods of kids in their parents who came
because like Elisa said, we have pretty good wifi.
I mean, we made sure we did.
The kids were doing their Zoom classes in the morning
and the parents were doing their work
that they needed to do.
And then everyone would take the afternoon off or whatever.
So we were also hosting kind of class groups really,
which was different, we've never done that before.
- Right, thanks.
And Courtney is asking how much structure do you need
to provide visitors?
Have they just been happy to be out on the farm
or would they, that they need
some more scheduled activities?
Elisa.
- I think our customers always would like more
than what I can offer.
But as Scottie mentioned, it's hard to get your work done
if you're constantly hosting.
And so I just set it up where
the morning is our structured time.
We have morning tours followed by breakfast
which we eat together.
And so I answer and field a lot of questions during that.
In the afternoon I tell them that that's when,
and I encourage them,
I even like try to post like notes from like study,
research studies of showing
how important unstructured play is.
I think a lot of people coming,
wanting us to entertain their children
and keep them occupied
but I try to encourage them to think about it
as an opportunity to just to figure it out
and to enjoy the unstructured time together.
So we gave them ideas of what they can do.
They can fish, they can take a walk,
they can read a book, they can look for a worm.
They can play with the animals.
We do have to give it to the guidance,
but I try to make, set expectations
that they will have time on their own.
- And similarly
I let people know upfront that we are unstructured
that they can accompany us for tours
but the rest of the time they're on their own.
And there is sometimes that question will
are we gonna be bored?
You know, what are we gonna do?
Well, the kids take that out of their hands.
I mean, kids can find plenty of stuff to do unstructured.
We do have a creek, we do have trails.
We do have goats that you can hang out with.
And so we introduce everybody
to the animals they can be with,
show them how they need to be around them.
And then we go off and do our own stuff.
If they need to stop us halfway through the day
and ask a question.
But for the most part, people seem very, very happy
to just be able to relax and play,
let their kids run in the grass.
You know, what I found is there is a connection that happens
not just with nature, but they all connect with each other.
So I've had parents say to me at the end
you know what surprised me the most
was how much we connected as a family.
We ate meals together 'cause we don't provide food.
We ate meals together, we played together.
You know, it's just seems like once they get here,
they find out that it's not that hard
to make it exciting.
- That sounds great.
I just have, Michael Luciano could you please mute yourself
because we can hear you typing.
That's what you get to in a German organizes the webinar.
I have one, I have another question.
That's something we've heard a lot from farmer's markets,
farmers in general.
What about staff availability?
Did you have issues?
Just people to work on your farm
to help you with everything?
- So we are fortunate
because we have many of our neighbors are Amish
and we'd have, you know, multiple generations
worth of neighborhood relationships with them
and so we're very close with many families.
And so I am able to employ several young adults
from our neighborhood that I know their parents
and know them already.
And then we also have several apprentices.
This year we actually have like an all women teams
which is really exciting.
And so we're just fortunate
that we through networks that we already had
that we were able to find some apprentices
and some tour guides as well.
So we have not had an issue,
but it's a big team of us several,
some are full-time many are seasonal and part-time
so, but I know many places in the area
are struggling to find employees.
- Good for you.
Do you have anything Scottie?
- Well, I'm gonna say we're much smaller than Elisa is
but what we did is we made sure that we kept the,
I have a full-time farm manager
that we kept him fully employed and his wife
and that our part-time person who helps clean
we kept her employed.
If we weren't, if she wasn't cleaning
we had her doing other farm chores for us.
She lives out here in the community, kind of like Elisa
we have some connections with, these are gonna be teenagers
that wouldn't otherwise have a job anyway,
she brought in her friend with her.
So we haven't had issues
but we're a much, much smaller operation.
And I think by being able to keep people employed
and we got PPP money,
that kind of helped bridge that issue.
- Okay, that's good.
Elisa you talked about
the different set of customer expectation, right?
Like before the pandemic, everyone was just glued to you.
They wanted to experience everything.
Then during the pandemic is like, oh, stay away from me
you and your drums.
How long do you think this will last?
Do you think like this expectation we'll just go back,
you know, to how it was before
or do you think that kind of this independence
will continue?
- That's a great question.
You know, I think it's,
for this summer it's family by family
with each, you know, a return visitor is a little bit easier
to know what to expect
but as people come on to the farm
I just try to take cues from them.
I just asked them, or if I remember a phone call,
when they make a booking, if they,
most people make bookings online
and I might not even talk to them before they arrive.
If I do have a conversation or have notes into their stays
that I remember like,
oh yeah, they're very concerned about this aspect.
And so that I can address that.
But you know, just as it's evolving
people are definitely feeling more comfortable.
Breakfast, we arrange the tables now
so that we can still all see each other
and we look inward so that we can have a conversation
even though we're sitting apart.
I think fewer and fewer people are,
the conversation is shifting, less is about COVID
and we're about, you know,
how we're returning to work
and, you know, political conversations
or social social issues or, you know, whatever it might be.
I think it is returning to a normalcy,
but each family is somewhat different
with their comfort level.
How about you Scottie?
- Yeah, and I would say, you know,
we always ask when people show up, first of all
we let them know that we're all vaccinated.
You know, that we will wear masks
if they want us to wear masks if they aren't.
But we've discovered that all of our guests
are vaccinated as well.
It's only the kids that aren't
but I do find that things are getting,
whereas we all used to stand 10 feet away from each other.
It's much, much closer now.
We get a lot of repeat guests.
So we're still not doing the hugs and the handshakes as much
as we used to do a lot.
I think everybody's trying to be totally respectful
'cause we do have two different lodgings.
The guests in this place
will ask the guests in this place
what are they comfortable with.
And so everybody just seems
to be very respectful of space
and what people wanna do.
So, but it does seem to be returning to normal
and people are smiling more.
- And I do wanna add that I get a lot of emails saying,
what's your mask policy,
and this is more, so I get it less now
but especially last year, what's your mass policy.
And I found that people were often not frustrated with us
but with other visitors, we have seven units.
So I could have seven,
potentially seven different families here.
Usually it's like one extended family rents one half,
all the rooms in one house,
another family or to rent rooms in the other house.
So in any case, you know,
the tension was often between them.
So I almost always had to remind people that, you know
no matter what there is space for everyone in the world
and that even if you find somebody that's an anti masker
or if you find someone that thinks
the mask is absolutely necessary every minute of the day
that we have to get along.
So I felt like I had to just be a mediator
between people at all times.
- Wow, I didn't have to do that.
I think I'm lucky to be on the West Coast.
I hear more stories of that on the East Coast.
- Regional differences, okay.
What about costs?
We've heard that a lot from other people.
So even like farmer's markets or whatnot, you know
like demand has increased.
You also said like your demand has gone up.
People have been booking,
but your costs increased too, right?
I mean, you've had some more, yeah, you know,
a totally different arrangement for the table.
It's like your outdoor setting looks so beautiful.
Did you just had to buy all of this to just, you know,
like adjust to this new situation.
Are there a lot of changes you had to make just for this?
- Yeah, for us with breakfast, that was,
I had to buy some new, you know, more of everything.
Fortunately, we were able to continue using,
well, we stopped using silverware because we felt like,
cups we often use, we don't use like using disposable
but in a way it gave people assurance
that it wasn't touched before.
And so we did use that, but then plates
and everything else we already had.
The table settings we had to purchase more.
It wasn't a very significant increase.
What was actually most, what increased the most was
before we can set a table and people could pass plates.
And so there's a lot less plates
so the amount of hand-washing, the amount of prepping.
And if there's a table of five and there's a table of two,
how much creamer do you put,
you know, like there's a lot of logistics of like,
so that you're not, we run a lot between the kitchen
and the outside, but we were busier than usual.
I would just take time to get everything out on the table
and then try to host, but also accommodate people
as they're needing new things.
So I think the cost was probably more in labor
and it was thoughtfulness that many of my teammates have,
had to use to make sure that dietary restrictions
that this plate is for the gluten free family.
And this plate is for vegans.
And this is for the vegetarians, not mixing them up.
- What about you, Scottie?
- Well, so I would say our costs didn't go up that much.
I mean, we were buying hand sanitizer
which we always had some at the barn
but now we were buying a lot more.
We bought masks for guests who might not have them.
The change, I guess, would have been in the food
'cause we do provide the makings for breakfast.
And we used to make bread for our guests.
And we used to take the milk that we bought from the store
and pour it into a glass jar
because cold milk taste so much better.
We stopped doing, everything we started providing
was just pre-packaged.
So we were throwing out more milk, for instance.
Throwing out more things that people hadn't used.
So it wasn't significant though, in terms of that.
What was interesting is that
we actually started selling more meat off of our farm.
So we do have a USDA lamb in our freezer.
We sold out of that by like mid summer.
And then my farm manager had started doing pasture chickens.
He ended up doing three times that,
and we sold out through all those too,
because people just wanted to buy the food
from the farm that was right there.
So where we were not making it in as many bookings
we were making some, a little bit more
in what we were selling off the farm.
- That's really interesting.
It goes right into my next question.
So there's interest for local food
and you know, how your own food is made
and you know, the canning and everything.
Do you think that will continue after white,
I mean a little bit after I could see,
but like, you know, people really
changed their way of living,
having their little kitchen gardens and whatnot.
Do you think that will continue?
- I've heard so many people say
that last year gave him the opportunity to slow down
and have time with family
and to start a project that Bailey's dreamed about doing
especially like gardening, I think,
you know, some other skill.
And it seems like they're continuing on.
If they're like, yeah, I learnt so much last year.
I can't wait to learn something new this year,
you know, or to expand my garden
or to, you know, whatever it might be.
And so I do think that, you know,
it kinda piqued people's interest and they'll continue.
I also had the similar experience where our beef
we sell USDA inspected grass fed beef
and our farm store as well as pasture chicken is sold out
as people were nervous about supply chain issues.
So I think, you know,
again, if you're reducing contamination,
they love the idea of coming to the farm
and getting it right from the source
and that they didn't have to go to a grocery store
where there were other people they could just,
you know, we could have it in a bag outside the store
and they could pick it up
and we didn't even have to talk, you know,
like they wouldn't have to come in the store.
So I do think there's interest
and there's continuing interest.
- And I also, yeah, I agree with that.
And I also think that more people adopted
or brought on chickens into their backyard
if they had the possibility of doing that
because of farm fresh eggs.
And because it seems like everybody got a pet last year
it could be chickens as well.
In Portland you can have chickens
as long as you don't have a rooster.
So we are having guests now who are coming,
love our farm fresh eggs, but tell us also
they know all about this cause they have their own.
- Yeah, I've heard that too about the chickens.
And then you get the food safety issues as well, right?
There are now articles out there
don't kiss your chicken and whatnot.
You know, lots of stuff to learn.
Lincoln had a question.
Have you experienced many guests
who want to work remotely from the farm?
We are a farm stay that offers co-living co-working
with longer-term stays
and curious if others are doing the same.
- Yeah, there's definitely an increase.
People often ask me is there wifi.
You know, I have to do some work.
And so we've always offered it.
And so, but now I think more,
I'm hearing more people that are actually working
while they're on there farm stay.
I don't do any long-term arrangements like that
but it's a great option.
- And that would be similar.
We don't, we're so, we don't have the opportunity
to do long-term 'cause we're so booked for short term.
And, but yeah, people wanna know what kind of wifi we have.
So.
- That's the common thing.
I know, and if nobody else has any more questions
I'm just gonna ask the last question, like the final one,
because we probably have a couple of people on
that would like to get into offering farm stays.
Do you have any recommendations for any operator
who would like to start?
Like, what are your final thoughts on it?
- Elisa, so you can go first.
- So I guess for me
there's a lot of different aspects of,
one, I would say go shadow,
go visit several different farm stays.
Like I even myself being third generation farm stay owner
I learned so much from our peers.
So visiting them and seeing their operations
and then utilizing the resources that are available online
to understand about liability, to understand about
a lot of the different aspects
that are critical for running an agritourism business.
Putting together a team around you
to help you ask good questions, you know
to like formulate questions
and to like develop your business plan.
Kind of putting a lot of thought into it
before jumping right in.
That's kinda my thinking.
I think for a lot of people that I see
and I'm on the younger generation
for a lot of farm B&B owners.
What I see is a lot of romantic views
about owning a bed and breakfast.
So even the people that come here they're like
I have always dreams about owning a B&B
and you know, being a farmer
you already understand where the hard work is.
And then the bed and breakfast
just adds another layer to it.
And so I'm trying to like demystify it
and seeing the reality by visiting others
and trying to develop that business plan
I think will help you give a great path forward.
- I would also say you need to start off by making sure
that everybody on your farm is, likes the idea.
There has to be one person who is willing to be that host
and willing to talk to strangers
and likes to do that and wants to be the educator.
And if you don't have that person
then it's probably not a good idea.
You know, we have a lot of training through Farm Stay USA
that gets you started there.
That first 10 questions you should ask yourself.
That's one of them.
I think you need to understand liability.
You need to understand insurance.
You need to understand hospitality
which may or may not be in your background.
And you need to understand marketing, you know,
'cause just 'cause you build it
doesn't mean people will come, right?
So you need to understand
there's so many different parts of it.
And like Elisa said, it's good to have a team around you.
If you think you're going to do every single job
you are going to burn out.
If you think you're gonna be cleaning and cooking
and hosting and farming,
it just isn't gonna work.
You know, we're more than happy to share all of our training
with anybody who thinks they might be interested.
It's not something you have to pay for.
And it's basically built out of my experience
as a farm stay host.
I started back in 2007
and some of it I learned by the seat of my pants.
Some of it I brought with me, I was not,
I'm not a multi-generation farmer.
This was a second career.
And then it's also put together
by some of our farm stay hosts
and things that they've learned
how to take a good photograph would be one.
There's lots of questions to ask.
Business plan is a good idea.
And then you at least have asked all those questions.
- Or get to know a really good photographer, right?
Elisa, and we've talked about that too.
Your pictures are amazing.
- She has gorgeous photographs, gorgeous photographs.
- Okay, Lisa, you have one more question.
- Yes, I have a question about booking sites
and I'm asking this
because I feel like with the increase in demand,
I'm seeing more and more farms in Vermont,
but really all over the place who are saying, wait,
should I be thinking about this,
should I be getting into it?
And it's, you know, from someone with a sugar bush
who's building tree houses for people to stay in
or people who are thinking of, you know,
putting up a yert or even just letting people
come onto their land and camp
or letting RVs come on.
And it feels like there's more and more
booking sites out there.
And so I've been trying to do a little digging into,
you know, what are the pros and cons
and what are the different sites out there from Airbnb,
VRBO, Yonder, Tenter, Hipcamp
or Harvest Host, the list goes on and on.
So I'd love to hear from you folks
what you're working with currently, why you chose that,
how it's working for you.
And I also wanna invite other folks
who are here with us today
to type into the chat, or, you know
raise your hand and unmute yourselves
and share your experiences with booking sites
because I'm getting a lot of questions from farms
that are thinking about this
and I'm not really sure what to tell them.
So I'd love to hear about your experiences.
Do you wanna start, Elisa?
- Sure, I currently use, I've been using since 2000,
my parents began using them, I think in 2009,
a site called ResNexus.
It is a booking site for traditional bed and breakfasts
and we use, we've been using it.
And the big reason why I haven't,
I looked multiple times about finding a different system
but I just love the database.
The fact that I have all these numbers
like go all the way back.
And so it's hard to separate myself from that data,
the archive,.
I know many other farm stays here in Lancaster are having,
are shifting maybe from a booking site and going to Airbnb
or VRBO and shifting their business model.
Instead of renting two rooms or three rooms,
they only rent now one unit, but the whole house.
And so there are a lot of options out there.
I'm choosing to stick with more of a traditional
I'm not having to build brand awareness.
I'm in a location that already brings many people to it.
We're not having to try to find people
that are already coming to the area.
So I'm in a position that might be a little bit different
than other locations across the country
but that's what I've chosen to do.
- And it's interesting.
So I use ResNexus as well
and I've been using them since 2008.
They are a booking software.
What I would say for anybody
who's looking to get into this.
If you think you're just gonna do this on email and calls
and keep your own calendar, that's all well and good
but you're gonna spend a lot of time doing it.
And it took ResNexus a little while
to get me to join up with them.
And then once I did that, you know,
people like to book at one in the morning
and seven in the morning
and they like to book it all sorts of times.
But reservation software has calendars
where you can't double book.
And the biggest fear in my life is that
I would double book and have two different sets of guests
show up on the same day.
So that's reservation software
then there's reservation platforms.
So that would be Airbnb, Yonder, VRBO.
Elisa didn't say it, but ResNexus it doesn't play
with these other opportunities.
So that means the calendar doesn't sync
and you don't wanna have a calendar that doesn't sync
'cause it means you have to fill in your Airbnb calendar
by hand and maybe you'll make a mistake.
So some of us that are more mature businesses
we already have our guests,
as Elisa was saying, people already know us.
We've already got that marketing out there.
I personally, don't like to pay a percentage of sales
to anybody because I can get the reservations myself
and I pay a flat fee for booking software.
If you're new into the business,
yes, jumping into Airbnb, Yonder, VRBO
all of those kind of bigger booking platforms
makes life easy.
You don't have to set up a credit card system.
They do it all.
They just give you a check at the end of the month
or the end of a reservation based on bookings online.
So we've mentioned Yonder.
Elisa knows that I like Yonder.
They're a new booking platform that came in March, 2020.
What a great time to launch.
They are all about nature tourism.
So they speak more our language as farm stays.
If you want to be in a place
where you are with other nature tourism sites
Airbnb does, takes everybody.
And so you won't necessarily get the best customers
off of there.
You might get the customer
that's looking for the cheapest place to stay.
Hipcamp, yeah, Hipcamp is great.
That will bring you the right kind of customers as well.
Hipcamp, so talking about calendar syncing,
calendar sync between Airbnb, Yonder, Hipcamp, yes.
RVs with Harvest Host you don't get to charge anything
for people coming.
So it's something to look into
and we're trying to work with Lisa
to come up with kind of a chart
to show you the benefits of what is it costing you
'cause as far as booking platforms
you're paying a percentage of the reservation.
So just say you know, it can vary Booking.com
you're probably paying up to 20%.
Hipcamp you're paying 10%
and then there's everything in between.
So they just have to think about what's it worth to you
and worth your time and your calendar.
- Thank you, that's a food for thought.
And Sharon was typing in the chat
that she uses ownerreservations.com as a booking platform.
She loves it because it can sync
all of her calendars on it automatically.
Then she owns two homes.
She uses her own website, Airbnb, verbal,
Booking.com, booking and Farm Stay USA.
And now some advertisement for Farm Stay USA.
She gets the most reservations from folks
that find her on Farm Stay US and then Airbnb.
And then another Lisa.
She was saying that she uses ownerres for her bookings
and calendars.
And then Jada is saying that
visitors from different countries
maybe used to using different booker sites,
for example, Booking.com
used to be way more common in Europe than the US
but is becoming more widespread
and features of wide variety of property types.
That's right.
But really check out Yonder
because it's a, it is kind of new, right?
- Yeah. - All right.
If we don't have any other questions and comments
I'm just gonna turn it back to Lisa for the final words.
- Well, thank you.
Do you see my screen again?
- Yes. - All right.
I wanna thank everyone who spoke today
and everyone who put in questions.
This was a great conversation
and one that we definitely wanna continue.
You should see a link in the chat to a survey.
If you wouldn't mind clicking on that link
and spending a couple minutes,
just answering some questions about
how this conversation today work for you
and what you might be interested in going forward.
And I will let you know that this session has been recorded.
And in a few days, once it gets posted
I'll send an email out and we'll include in that email
a link to many of the resources
as well as contact information that was talked about today.
And it will be on the website here,
gouvm.edu/farm-safety-COVID-19
and that's about it from me.
So just wanna really thank all of you for joining us today.