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Mrs. F
Bed and Breakfast is an interesting innovative "down-home" kind of business springing up amidst homeowners around the country. If being domestic is your area, considering a bed and breakfast business could be in your favor. All it takes is a spare bedroom, an inherent ability for cooking, an sociable personality and a true enjoyment of tending to the comforts of others -- and you could be happy and successful with a bed and breakfast inn business.
What exactly is a bed and breakfast?
It's a kind of hybrid between a luxury hotel and a private home, embodying the best of both worlds. A B&B is generally a small establishment with four to 10 guest rooms instead of the 50 to 100 or more found at most hotels. The owners live on-site and interact with travelers as if they were invited guests rather than anonymous transient room numbers. And guests are dealt with to lost of little deluxe touches like chocolates on their pillows, turn-down service, and baskets of bath and beauty products set out on Jacuzzi tubs.
And, of course, there's the "breakfast" in bed and breakfast, a sumptuous home-cooked feast that is included with the price of the room and is served each morning in a social dining room or in the guest's own quarters. B&Bs also tend to feature frosty glasses of iced tea or lemonade on the porch on hot summer afternoons; cups of cocoa after sleigh rides on wintry afternoons; plates of cookies in the kitchen; and wine and cheese in the parlor on dusky evenings--all a part of the room rate.
What are the Different Types of Bed and Breakfast Business?
1. B&B Homestay: This is a private, owner-occupied residence in which the frequency and volume of B&B visitors are incidental to the main use of the building as a private residence. One to five guest rooms are made available to temporary visitors and provide extra income for hosts. Breakfast is the only meal served and is included in the charge for the room.
2. B&B Inn: This is a commercially licensed business operated in a building that basically provides short-term accommodations to the public even though the owner may live on the residence. Guest rooms for a B&B Inn range from a minimum of four to a maximum of 20, although some believe the range is more like 5 to 25 rooms. Breakfast is the only meal served and is included in the room charge.
3. Country Inn: This is a commercially licensed establishment primarily known for its cuisine that is removed from planned, commercial areas and usually accessible for patronage only by automobile. Overnight accommodations are available and a full service restaurant offers breakfast and dinner to overnight guests and/or the public. The number of guest rooms usually ranges from a minimum of four to a maximum of 20, although a number of Country Inns have more than 20 guest rooms.
4. Small or historic hotels: These are often thought of as establishments with twenty or more rooms that offer the service and privacy of a hotel in the setting of an inn with a few attention from a host. Historic hotels are not less than fifty years old and linked to events or persons of significance in contributing to the broad patterns of history. Many embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction in architecture. Most are located in historic districts and all have twenty-one or more rentable rooms.
What Does a Bed and Breakfast Business Do?
Bed and breakfast owners provide a private space in their own home for overnight visitors. Entrepreneurial owners should expect to wear multiple hats as marketers, concierges, cooks, chefs, maids, tour guides, bookkeepers and hostesses.
What are the Suggested Skills and Experience to Run a Bed and Breakfast?
Bed and breakfast business owners need to have noteworthy people skills as well as a drive to allow strangers into almost all aspects of their lives.
As well, innkeepers should:
- Be willing to read, network and educate themselves about the bed and breakfast business constantly;
- Have strong communication skills, including talking on the phone and answering emails;
- Understand that hiring contractors is sometimes crucial, and have the skills to hire and/or fire landscapers, managers, cleaners and hostesses;
- Know that sometimes running a B&B is very similar to running a household with children, such as cleaning up after people regularly, making certain every need and request is taken care of, and that people are warm, fed and content every step of their visit.
What are the perks?
The personal pay back for providing the ultimate bed and breakfast experience can be very gratifying. Bed and breakfast inn owners have the opportunity to live in a desirable location and spend the majority of their time in the home that they have worked so hard to decorate and keep. They can have their children at home; children can also become involved in the business. They have the chance meet all kinds of interesting people from around the United States and possibly the world. And the expenses of running a home become tax deductible, i.e., cleaning supplies, car expenses, insurance, eating out, magazines, travel.
What is the start-up cost?
The investment for a bed and breakfast inn will differ substantially depending on if you already own the home or not, and the renovating costs in the area in which you business is located. Expect to pay from as low as $10,000 per room to as high as $40,000 per room in refurbishment costs of your existing home. If you're buying a home to convert into a bed and breakfast inn, the costs may be as high as $70,000 per room, again depending on where in the country your business is located.
How Much Can a Bed and Breakfast Business Make?
Independent bed and breakfast businesses charge anywhere from $45 a night per person to $150 a night or more based on location, facilities and current, concurrent events. An easy way to determine going rates in the area of interest is perform a market analysis by looking at the local yellow pages and reviewing what other B&B businesses are charging, and what sort of facilities come along with the price. As an example:
If a B&B charges $80/night and has 2 rooms to rent, they can potentially make $1120 a week, or $58,240 a year.
Most B&B owners take at least two weeks off a year ($56,000) and only have a 50% occupancy rate at any given time ($28,000).
Consequently a B&B owner with two rooms available at all times, taking two weeks off a year for vacation time, can expect to earn $28,000 a year. This doesn't include expenses at the same time, which are better calculated by crunching the numbers in a basic business plan financial worksheet.
What are the Typical Markets or customers?
There's a lot more to transforming your dream of a B&B into reality than just selecting designer towels for the bathrooms. First comes changing fantasy with the hardcore strategy planning stage, and that includes exploring the type of guests you can attract and planning how you'll woo them.
Take a look at the subsequent typical target markets. If you can pull in two, or several, that's great. But you'll need to draw at least one--or get innovative and come up with something else that will bring ample visitors. Typical customers are:
- Tourists.
- Business travelers.
- Romance.
- College or university.
- Locals.
What should you Charge your clients with?
Your room rates must take into consideration several factors:
1. The services you offer. You can provide luxury features like whirlpool tubs, fireplaces, king-size beds or private balconies, or more common features like a swimming pool.
2. Your location. A bed and breakfast tucked off the beaten track where tourists or business people don't often go won't be able to charge as much as one in a popular tourist and/or business destination. Your location within your community can make a difference as well. In a beach town, for instance, a beachfront B&B can demand higher rates than one that's a mile, or even two blocks, off the sea. An inn right on a popular historic district can demand higher rates than one on the highway leading into town.
3. The going rates in your region. Regardless of how upscale your amenities or how desirable your location, your rates will have to be in line with other B&Bs and lodgings in your area. If you charge significantly more, you'll lose business and--perhaps surprisingly--if you charge significantly less, you'll also lose. (People will think there's something wrong with your inn and won't try you out.)
HOW?
How do you market the business?
If becoming a bed and breakfast inn owner is for you, start by obtaining your business listed in as many travel and guidebooks as possible. Make contact with local travel and reservation agents and become a member of their regular referrals. For their services, they will expect between a 10 and 35 percent commission off your room rate.
Advertising your bed and breakfast business will include:
- Local telephone listings
- Newspaper Advertisments
- Travel agency listings
- Local business Directories
- Listing your services with a broker
- Travel Magazine advertisements
- Press Release
- Word of Mouth Advertising
What are the essential Keys to Success?
Two things are key to a successful bed and breakfast inn -- location and number of rooms. Profitability is directly associated with occupancy rate, and so the more desirable the area is for vacationers, or the closer it is to an urban area which pulls steady business travelers, the greater the possibilities for making money. In any case, a bed and breakfast with four or fewer guest rooms will have a more difficult time being profitable, a according to the Professional Association of Innkeepers.
Given a good location and adequate number of rooms, your ability to offer the ultimate in hospitality will be a robust marketing factor in your bed and breakfast business. Being friendly to all types of guests at all times and responding to their needs - even arduous ones - is essential. Â Also, cooking home-cooked meals, and keeping things neat, fresh, and orderly are prerequisites for repeat customers.
White Space
Running a Bed & Breakfast For Dummies
- ISBN13: 9780470426821
- Condition: New
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