Start and Run a Profitable Bed and Breakfast: Your Step-by-Step Business Plan

Sidney Allinson is the editor at the Royal Canadian Military Institute
and author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

At first glance, there’s something seductively simple about running a
bed-and-breakfast. After all, you just buy a few extra sets of linen,
spruce up the spare bedrooms, and you’re in business—right? Wrong.
As any haggard B&B veteran knows, there’s much more to it, by far.
Everything from cantankerous guests to complicated bureaucracy can
bedevil your cosy little hospitality business. Which is why anyone
deciding to take a flyer into running a B&B would do well to study this
book. The promise of its subtitle, “Your Step-by-Step Business
Plan,” is more than fulfilled. The authors own and operate a
successful B&B in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and serve on the local
bylaw committee, so they know whereof they speak.

The Taylors wisely start off by asking basic questions aimed at helping
readers find out if they are, in fact, cut out for the role. If that
hasn’t discouraged tyro hosts, we’re led through a series of
hard-nosed guidelines that cover every conceivable aspect of this
popular and low-cost way to become a “home hotelier.” Market
research, licensing, taxes, renovations, guest booking systems, and
house rules are just some of the basics the book tackles. It gives
particular coverage to financial and accounting considerations. From
menus to business promotions, cash-flow plans to sample worksheets, the
Taylors handle their subject with a thoroughness we are accustomed to
seeing in a Self-Counsel Press publication. Don’t open your B&B
without it!