Bed and breakfast inns know that the personal touch is what sets them apart from hotels, but they may not know how to use the Internet to their best advantage.

To make sure that innkeepers have a comprehensive list of ways to promote their inns, Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research has just issued a free, downloadable marketing guide for promoting bed and breakfast inns.

"A Comprehensive Guide to Merchandising Bed and Breakfast Inns" was developed by William Carroll, a senior lecturer in Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, three Cornell students -- graduate students Betsy Gomez and Iris Lui and Anna Huen '05 -- and Pamela Lanier, director of Bed and Breakfasts Inns and Guesthouses International, publisher of numerous guides and books for bed and breakfast inns, and host of Travelguides.com and Lanierbb.com.

The guide not only covers such traditional promotion methods as listings in guidebooks, hosting special events and sending out direct-mail pieces, but also includes specifics on such electronic methods as using the Internet and e-mail.

The guide is available at http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/chr/research/tools.html.