"When you're down as low as you can go, there's no place to go but up."

_
We read in political blogs and hear on TV that the pressure is mounting on our new President to start sounding more optimistic about the nation's economic prospects.

He's in a bind there, because if he accepts Bill Clinton's advice and switches to an upbeat tempo, his critics will accuse him of being either naive or totally incompetent. And a "don't worry, be happy" message isn't likely to play too well among the millions who have lost their jobs, their homes, or (if they've managed to hang on to those) a huge chunk of their savings.

Which brings us back to those website traffic reports that I keep revisiting because they, at least, offer an occasional little ray of sunshine to back up the weekly California B&B roundup we started earlier this month.

We've had our knuckles rapped for mistaking a standard seasonal "bump" for good news, but the way we see it, given the cliff a lot of us saw business jump off late last fall, there was reason to doubt even a seasonal rebound.

Here are more numbers from Quantcast.


(Click on the image to enlarge it)

Obviously, Priceline casts a net far beyond the B&B biz (as does TripAdvisor), but what's good for travel and tourism in general is good for all of us who depend on people in motion to help us pay our bills.


(Click on the image to enlarge it)

According to this source, bedandbreakfast.com is just 8% away from hitting its best traffic numbers for all of 2008, which is saying something, given the fact that the busy travel season (assuming we get one of those in 2009) is still months away.

It's already at a new high internationally, and since the United States attracts large numbers of tourists from Europe, and many of those have the good taste to seek out bed and breakfast inns (hence their visits to BBDC) let's risk at least one toot on our party flutes...


(Click on the image to enlarge it)

Sure, we'd like to see even better numbers. But something's up, and up is good!

Well worth mentioning is news from our favorite of all B&Bs, the Arroyo Vista Inn in South Pasadena, Calif.

Times got seriously tough down there, because the Pasadena Rose Parade was a damp squib this year (relatively speaking) instead of doing its historical duty and filling every hotel and B&B for miles around at double standard rates.

A new report shows the AVI running at 58% occupancy in terms of reservations processed in the first couple of weeks of this month. Long may it continue!

-