Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 4, 1993 TAG: 9307040059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
The two concepts don't exactly jibe, as tourists Nancy and Wait Peake could tell you when they brought their three children to the oceanfront.
But a service that caters to beach tourists had parents like the Peakes in mind when it began operating this year. For $10 an hour, a baby sitter will come to the tourists' hotel rooms to care for their children while the parents go out for a quiet, childless evening.
"It's a valuable service," said Peake, who traveled to Virginia Beach with her family from Roanoke for a lawyers convention. "You're always anxious when you call someone out of the blue, but we didn't have a problem."
The new service, operated by licensed day-care provider Kathy Beck, is designed to give tourists some peace of mind. Beck has checked references and conducted criminal-record checks of the 75 baby sitters on her list. She won't hire anyone under 18 and she has insurance to cover accidents.
"It's not a fly-by-night deal," she said.
Hotels usually handle requests for baby sitters on a more informal basis. Craig Mulderrig, rooms division manager at the Ramada Inn in Virginia Beach, said that hotel usually kept a list of five or six sitters on hand. Beck's service gives the hotel more sitters with better consistency.
"It's something everyone is always asking for," Mulderrig said.
Tourists are often leery of hiring sitters they don't know or have no references for, especially in cities where they're unfamiliar. The Peakes said they have brought sitters with them in the past, but finding room for an extra person is difficult and expensive.
Marvin and Joyce Wooten of Goldsboro, N.C., said a baby-sitting service can make the difference between bringing their children with them when they attend conventions or leaving them at home with their regular sitter.
"It was nice to have a licensed person with experience who these sitters report directly to," said Joyce Wooten, whose children - ages 11, 8 and 2 - stayed with one of Beck's sitters last weekend. "I felt more comfortable."
Some hotels have their own baby-sitting services.
With 24 hours notice, the Clarion Resort & Conference Center in Virginia Beach can provide a baby sitter who can care for children in their room, at the beach or in the hotel's activity center, which has a big-screen TV, pool tables, ping-pong tables, jacuzzi and other activities. Cost of that service is $5 an hour for one child and $6.50 for two or more children.
The majority of beach hotels, however, said they don't have regular baby-sitting services.
Beck, who has been a day-care provider for 12 years and licensed for two years, said she first considered opening an oceanfront child-care center for tourists, but the rents were too high. She also looked into caring for tourists' children at her home, three blocks from the beach. But after talking with hotel managers, she realized the demand would be greater than one person could handle.
Ninety hotels have Beck's business cards to hand to tourists, who also can book the baby sitters when they call to make reservations. Because of insurance restrictions, Beck's sitters are confined to the client's hotel room.
Beck said she hopes to expand her tourist service into a temporary child-care service that would care for children who are too sick for their regular day care. She'd also like to serve organizations that throw functions where sitters are needed for groups of children.
But all of that depends on whether her tourist sitter service takes off this summer. The first weekend of service brought 25 requests, which Beck found encouraging.
"If it works, I'd like to take the service to Northern Virginia next summer," she said.
by CNB