Part of the 'Complete Idiot's Guide' series.
Remember that great little Victorian inn you stayed at, with the fabulous breakfast smells wafting up the stairs, tempting you out from under the comfy down quilt in that big four-poster bed? As you sat there enjoying homemade muffins and the best coffee ever, you thought to yourself, "I could do this!" and thus hatched your dream of opening your very own B&B.
But how do you get started? Do you buy a fixer-upper? Could you turn your own abode into a home-away-from-home for travellers? And what about zoning laws? Taxes? Insurance? Employees? It's such a dizzying array of questions, that you start to wonder if this is such a good idea at all.
It is. This book holds all the secrets to opening and running a successful inn, including:
- How to determine if a geographic area of particular property will be profitable
- What a day in the life of a B&B owner is really like - good and bad
- How to write a business plan, get start-up cash, and market your new venture
- What Web sites can do for you (54% of all B&Bs have one) and what to include on yours
- What "house rules" to set up to keep you and you guests happy and safe - and what you need to do to keep your inn up to safety codes
- How to give your inn your own personal touch, plus photographs of other successful inns and why they work
