So You Want
to Buy a Small Hotel!
Joanne Muller
More information
CHAPTER
ONE:
First Things First
When I told people I was going to buy my own hotel I was surprised by the different reactions - from 'Gosh, you're going to make a lot of money!' to 'You must be mad! That's terribly hard work!'
All I knew at the time was that I was desperate to get out of the rat race. I was sick and tired of working for a boss for a weekly wage that was a mere pittance. I was tired of scraping the barrel every week, trying to make ends meet. When my husband got a teaching job, he was exhausted by the hours spent commuting in the dark. One day a collision with another car cost him his entire month's salary.
Well, I did buy a small hotel and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg! Selling my small three-bedroomed house in Harrogate gave me enough money to put down as a deposit on a small six-bedroomed hotel in the Scottish Borders. One thing I can certainly tell you after eight years of trading: it revolutionised my lifestyle, and definitely for the better! Instead of a salary I have a cashflow that's given me everything I want: a comfortable home, a Mercedes Benz, clothing and food for me and my family, and each year a fantastic holiday in places like the Canary Islands, Malta, Barbados, not to mention a cruise to Australia. In the meantime I've bought and sold two holiday cottages and paid off the £65,000 commercial mortgage on the hotel
And yet, although I have only owned my hotel for eight years, it sometimes feels like a lifetime! I hope that by reading this book you’ll not only have a good idea of how to run your own hotel but also whether or not you actually want to own one!
Perhaps it would be a good idea to elaborate on the main advantages of having your own small hotel. Try these for starters:
1. It’s true, you can escape the Rat Race! No more standing in a crowd or in the train/underground/bus on your way to work! No more sitting fuming in your car on a cold and misty morning while the traff
ic queues grow bigger and bigger. Ice, snow, rain - it doesn't matter. You just hop out of bed, fall down the stairs and hey presto! - you're there, at work. You may even get an extra hour in bed compared to what you have now. I rise at 7.30 a.m. I'll bet a lot of you rise earlier than me!
2. Forget the winter blues - that's if your hotel is seasonal like mine. My husband and I just love winter. Winter is our time off - time to relax, indulge in a hobby like painting, and take a package holiday to the sun.
Most people have weekends off and a fortnight's holiday once a year. With a seasonal hotel you have much more time off. You can really get your teeth into your hobby. Go for walks, read, write,
paint - whatever takes your fancy. (Both my husband and I paint and we've filled the walls of the public rooms with our oil paintings, many of which are bought by guests during the season.)
You could even have a small apartment somewhere nice and warm and disappear for those nasty winter months. It's cheaper to stay somewhere warm (like Malta or the Canaries) and you can let the apartment out to pay for itself in the summer. Indulge yourself! Hey, you could even hibernate!
3. Forget that Monday-morning feeling. (In a sense, every day is Monday - or whatever other day of the week you choose to make it!). It's your business so Mondays, as such, don't exist.
4. You're dealing with happy people (this should appeal to doctors and dentists!). The chances are you will be buying a hotel for tourists and people are generally happy on holiday - with the possible exception of Americans who can be aggressive consumers and take their holidays very seriously!
5. You're working for yourself. YOU are in control of your own destiny. The world's your oyster, the sky's the limit. Once you've tasted the pleasure of being your own boss you'll never work for anyone ever again. You can give reign to your entrepreneurial skill and forge from strength to strength, or you can be laid back and limp along as long as you make enough to make ends meet. The chances are you're not the latter since - yes, running a hotel is hard work
6. Your business comes to you. Your car can stay in the garage. The weather can do what it likes. Cut down on motoring expenses - even sell the car!
7. There is no hard sell. On the whole people want to stay. You don't have to phone them and cajole them into staying - they phone you!
8. There are no debts. People pay up front.
9. A small hotel can be a wonderful stepping stone and secure base for starting a new home-based business such as mail order or even enabling a hobby you have always fancied mushrooming into a business of its own. The telephone is at hand. You're there all the time in the season to work at a second business for a few hours a day and get more out of it in the winter when time is your own. Phasing in a business this way certainly cuts the risks, since you’re already earning a living from the hotel while the other gets off the ground.
You would cut down on expenses such as travelling, expensive premises, and overheads like insurance and electricity. You could start a taxi service, a health club in a spare room (convert the garage if you sell the car), an employment agency, a video club, or a dating agency! If your new hobby/business is preferable to the hotel, then you could phase that out eventually. (The hotel business has given my husband the opportunity of becoming a writer: he writes poetry and novels, and the hotel guests stimulate his ideas for characters!)
10. Owning your own hotel affords you the opportunity to live in a beautiful part of the country - somewhere where you've always fancied living, whether it be the Lake District or the Isle of Harris, provided it's a good catchment area for guests. You could live in the city centre, if that's what you prefer. Isn't there somewhere you've always had a hankering to live but couldn't get a job there?
11. Your children are taken care of since you're always at hand to see to them. No more 'latch key' kids. Coming home to an empty house while mum and dad are working can be a desolate thing for a young child.
* * *
It’s amazing how many of our guests say "This looks like fun. We wouldn't mind a little
B & B. Do you think we could do it?"
Anyone can do it. Read on and see if you want to do it!
(Copyright © Joanne Muller 2001)
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