How to Open a Financially Successful Bed & Breakfast or Small Hotel: With Companion CD-ROM [Paperback]

Lora Arduser (Author), Douglas R Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

This comprehensive handbook with companion CD-ROM will clearly demonstrate how to set up, operate and manage a financially successful bed & breakfast or small hotel. Whatever your reason for wanting to open a bed and breakfast, keep in mind that at it takes more than dreams and rooms to achieve success, it is a business that must show a profit. This book will separate the romantic notions of owning a B&B from the business end. While providing detailed instruction and examples, the author leads you through finding a location that will bring success, learn how to draw up a winning business plan (The Companion CD-ROM has the actual business plan you can use in MS Word TM), how to buy and sell a bed & breakfast, basic cost control systems, profitable menu planning, Reservation Systems, successful kitchen management, equipment layout and planning, food safety & HACCP, housekeeping, successful beverage management, reservation networks, legal concerns, sales and marketing techniques, room rate formulas, arrival, billing, departure, learn how to set up computer systems to save time and money, learn how to hire & keep a qualified professional staff, brand new IRS tip reporting requirements, managing and training employees, generate high profile public relations and publicity, learn low cost internal marketing ideas, low and no cost ways to satisfy customers and build sales, learn how to keep bringing customers back, accounting & bookkeeping procedures, auditing, successful budgeting and profit planning development, as well as thousands of great tips and useful guidelines. There are literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your business. Learn new ways to make the kitchen, bars, dining room, and front office run smoother and increase performance. Shut down waste, reduce costs, and increase profits. In addition operators will appreciate this valuable resource and reference in their daily activities and as a source of ready-to-use forms, web sites, operating and cost cutting ideas, and mathematical formulas that can be easily applied to their operations. The Companion CD-ROM contains all the forms in the book as well as a sample business plan you can adapt for your own use.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL) (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910627304
• ISBN-13: 978-0910627306
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > Hospitality Businesses

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Professional Approach, June 8, 2006

By 

DeAnna Knippling "Word Nerd" (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Open a Financially Successful Bed & Breakfast or Small Hotel: With Companion CD-ROM (Paperback)

If you're planning to open a bed and breakfast as a hobby or with the notion that "you're not really running a business, you're just making profits in your free time," this is not the book for you. This book covers almost all potential areas that you'll need to know to run a professional B&B, and the level of detail will quickly dissuade anyone who isn't serious. That having been said, anyone who does want to run a professional bed and breakfast will find the information invaluable. The forms included on the enclosed CD pay for the book themselves--everything from employment applications to inventory forms, invoices, standard recipe cards, and kitchen safety inspection forms. The book covers all stages of the planning and setup process, including business plans, marketing and promotion, safety, and employees. Particularly useful is the section on marketing, something that most B&Bs that I've known tend to ignore. With a little creativity (and there are lots of suggestions contained in this chapter), your B&B can become part of the very identity of the neighborhood or city you live in, as in, "If you want to capture the flavor of X, go to this B&B!" The only change I would make to the book would be to make the section on writing business plans a more user friendly for those B&B owners who have never opened a business before. Nevertheless, the book contains lots of hardheaded business sense, presented plainly and clearly, with many good examples of existing B&Bs to illustrate the point. While you may not need all the information included when you first open your business, this book will provide you with lots of options for a time when you're able to expand. I recommend this book to anyone seriously considering going into the B&B business as a business, rather than just a way of pouring money down the drain!

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful, April 12, 2006

By 

Brandi M. Seals (Fayetteville, AR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Open a Financially Successful Bed & Breakfast or Small Hotel: With Companion CD-ROM (Paperback)

This book is absolutely great. It offers a realistic look into what it would be like to own a bed and breakfast. I assumed correctly that it would be a labor intensive gig, but the book pointed out so many things that I had never thought about - such as serving breakfast may require special licensing in my state/city.

This book is perfect for anyone thinking about owning and operating their own B&B. From room decorating to recipes from other B&B's, "How to Open a Financially Successful Bed and Breakfast or Small Hotel" seems to address everything a new owner would need to know, as well as offers tips on how to renovate and update existing bed and breakfasts. It offers a number of resources to make sure you are in compliance with you state and local codes, as well as tips on how to get financing for buying such a place.

There is a comprehensive guide that will tell anyone not current on the etiquette of meal service the appropriate way to set a table, serve the meal, and how the meal should transition. Tips are abundant on how to save time on cooking, cleaning, and basically running the bed and breakfast. There is also a helpful section on hiring and firing help.

The authors of this book have thought of everything. They even address how having pets or children would affect the business. In addition, the book comes with a very helpful cd-rom that offers a business plan in Microsoft Word that anyone can edit to fit their needs, several forms and a checklist of everything you will need to open your own B&B.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Introduction, May 8, 2006

By 

Lindsay Zortman (Vermillion, South Dakota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Open a Financially Successful Bed & Breakfast or Small Hotel: With Companion CD-ROM (Paperback)

"HOW TO OPEN A FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL BED & BREAKFAST: OR SMALL HOTEL" by Lora Arduser and Douglas R. Brown

This book was a fascinating exploration of the intricacies involved with opening a Bed and Breakfast. The authors were able to provide a step-by-step process for the beginning B&B entrepreneur. The book guides you in the decision to own a Bed and Breakfast, helps you decide on a location or to buy and existing B&B.

The authors make a fantastic effort to include real life business information such as how to make your own business plan and laws that will relate to your Bed and Breakfast business. They give you several checklists to help you format your mode of attack when starting your own business.

With a whole chapter devoted to computers this book is cutting edge in the Bed and Breakfast industry. Today everyone needs to have a web presence in order to market his or her company.

Guest are not going to be interested in a business plan. So the authors have developed several chapters on the operation of the Bed and Breakfast. They skillfully guide the reader from decorating, setting policies, what food you should serve, housekeeping, and your day-to-day staffing requirements.

A bonus CD is offered with the book and provides valuable samples of over 30 forms that are needed when starting and opening your own B&B. The CD is simple to use and will save any entrepreneur tons of time.

This book is a great introduction to the world of Bed and Breakfast owning and operation.