You’ve had your eye on hotels for sale for a while now and you are getting more and more excited at the prospect of being your very own proprietor. But what are you actually going to do when it comes to running it?
It’s all too easy to imagine running your own hotel as being something blissfully idyllic: full rooms, happy customers and a healthy bank balance. The truth is a profitable hotel is a lot more difficult to achieve than you would imagine. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to get right.
Ensuring the success of your hotel business is obviously your first priority but rather than tell you what to do, we thought it might be more useful to tell you what not to do by listing the top five ways of how not to run a hotel.
1: Have no Experience
Going into a career of hotel management or ownership is foolish if you have no previous hotel experience. We would all prefer to walk straight into an executive position but the truth is this is not a good strategy to ensure success. Make sure that you have adequate experience at the bottom of the hotel chain. This will help you understand how a hotel runs and thus manage your own hotel more effectively when the time comes.
2: Have no Money
Obviously you are going to need investment for your new business venture. Taking a bank loan to cover certain costs is almost a necessity but you are going to need your own personal money to invest too. Take the time to collect an adequate sum together in order to give yourself the best chance at success and don’t rush in.
3: Have a bad Location
The location of your hotel is going to be the ‘make or break’ of your business. Properties in nice areas are always going to be more expensive but you will have greater access to more customers and will be able to charge more for your hotel rooms as a result. Chose your location carefully to make sure that there is a need and a market for a hotel in the area where you hope to buy a hotel.
4: Be Rude
It may be an obvious point but it is still one worth remembering. Fawlty Towers is amusing to watch on TV but none of us would be laughing if we experienced that sort of service in the real world. As the hotel manager and/or owner you are going to be the ‘face’ of the business so you need to make sure that you are promoting the best possible image.
5: Be Disorganised
The key to any successful business is organisation, but with hotels this is even more crucial. You need to manage your hotel rigorously in order to gain success, so stay organised. The most important thing is to familiarise yourself with all aspects of your hotel business. Instigate a thorough hand-over and communication network with your employees from the start so that you always have the latest information on what is happening in your hotel. This will help you to stay organised and in control.
Rachel is a business blogger with a background in the hospitality sector and she’s always got her eye on guest houses for sale.