Some advantages of owning your own small hotel or guesthouse

Some advantages of owning your own small hotel or guesthouse by Carolyn Muller So many people think that buying a small hotel would be a nice place to retire to. Any hotel owner will probably be struck dumb, momentarily at least, when hearing this statement. Well, it will either give them a new lease of life or bump them off very quickly! Let's not be negative - there are lots of advantages. Here are a few: Escape the Rat Race! No more standing in a crowded train/underground/bus on your way to work! No more sitting bored to tears in your car on a cold and misty morning while the traffic 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! 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 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 to three weeks 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, golf, 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! 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 can take their holidays too seriously! 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. 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! 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! There are no debts. People pay up front - if you're sensible that is. 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 traveling, 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 it in as you phase out the hotel aspect. (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!) 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 center, 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? 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!