So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel: A Guide (Paperback)

~ Joanne Muller (Author)
Key Phrases: planning permission, tourist information center, restricted licence, Small Hotel, Joanne Muller, Tourist Board (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel is written with humor and tells it like it is, warts and all, the good things and the nightmares about running a hotel - the dream (with the nightmares!) lived for 11 years at the Rosebank Hotel in the Scottish Borders. It’s a ‘how-to’ book with a difference, anecdotal, full of practical, step-by-step advice, with warnings about pitfalls -- a buyer’s hotel guide for dummies! Reading this book will give you practical insights into what it is really like to own a small hotel and enable you to decide whether running a small hotel is for you.

About the Author

Carolyn Joanne Muller was educated at Frenchgate Independent School for Girls in Richmond, Yorkshire. She has written for Cosmopolitan and Fair Lady, and is author of two romantic novelsRapture at Sea, based on the return of Christ, and Spirit of Ecstasy, based on computer dating (both published by Writers Club Press). She has traveled extensively and for eleven years ran her own hotel in Scotland. In 2001 she and her husband moved to the Scottish Highlands where she runs the successful Internet accommodation guide Travel Accommodation U.K. (www.travelaccommodation.co.uk).

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse; illustrated edition edition (September 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595200958
• ISBN-13: 978-0595200955
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #688,383 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Informative and Definitely Funny!, November 15, 2002

By A Customer

One thing is for sure, no one could have written a book like this and not have gone through it! This author has pretty much detailed everything someone should know and do in order to run a B&B or a small hotel.
I had lots of fun reading this book and I'm not looking to run a business either! But I will say this, in just the first few chapters the author had me wanting to have a B&B of my own! She really has taken the time to give you all kinds of information.

Joanne Muller will keep you in stitches, laughing with all the little incidences that happened to her and her husband as examples of what to do and not to do. She explains it so well that you can actually picture it in your mind.
I like watching shows on television that are serious but have funny little skits and I want to tell you that this book would make a wonderfully funny show.

So whether you're seriously looking for information on the how's to run this sort of business or just looking to read something light hearted and humorous, this is the book for you. Even the little cartoon sketches in the book will definitely put a smile on your face. Actually some of them had me laughing out loud!

Thank you Joanne for sharing your knowledge and experiences with all of us. It's a very good read!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fawlty Towers at its best!, November 2, 2001

By	Charles Muller (The Scottish Highlands, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel is a realistic, anecdotal 'how-to' guide to the hands-on day-to-day running of a small hotel or guest house based on the author's personal experience in the Scottish Borders.

So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel is written with humour and tells it like it is, warts and all, the good things and the nightmares about running a hotel - the dream (with the nightmares!) lived for 11 years at a small hotel or guest house in the Scottish Borders. It's a 'how-to' book with a difference, anecdotal, full of practical, step-by-step advice, with warnings about pitfalls -- a buyer's hotel guide for dummies! Reading this book will give you practical insights into what it is really like to own a small hotel and enable you to decide whether running a small hotel is for you. The cartoon illustrations by Fred Ohnewald, a previous guest at the hotel from Germany, enhance the reading pleasure by highlighting some of the farcical situations described by the author. One illustration aptly illustrates the owner, an ex-university professor with three doctorates, serving breakfast with a 'balloon head' - a result of imbibing the liberal gifts of schnapps from his German guest the night before.

There were good times and bad times, and the good times outweigh the bad - though the few guests who left a bitter taste on the memory seemed to have left an overriding impression of a hotel not unlike Fawlty Towers. Indeed, the ex-owners confess that only now, after the sale of the hotel, can they enjoy the tortures and crises of Basil Fawlty, for at the time they were too close to reality!

Want to buy and run a small hotel? Sure, it's great - go for it! But you just may want to think again after reading this guide.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How true this book is!, December 3, 2002

By A Customer

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I congratulate the author on a job well done and to perfection.. I too owned a hotel back in the 50's that served breakfast, lunch and dinner and of course the food being much different in the States then over seas.. This book brought back a lot of memories for me..The hotel was a great deal of work but it had it's good times too..Joanne Muller tells it the way it is.. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the situations that she and her husband found them selves in and that would trigger a memory of my own..I could have read the book a lot faster then I did but I was having to much fun with it..
There are some people that you come across that are so easy to please but then again, there are some that you bend over backwards for and you still can't make them happy..
Knowing what I know now I think I would have given it a little more thought before getting into the business, What about you Joanne?..Though you did take a lot of your time to give lots of information for some one to get started in this business..
I want to tell you Joanne, you helped to bring back some of those memories and I want to thank you for that.. I find myself laughing even now that I've finished the book..Every once in a while , one of those memories creeps in and makes me laugh..The book was great!