AIBU to buy a hotel with no experience?

[Frockandahardplace]

As title, really. DH and I have a long held dream where we sell up and move back to the area from where we are originally from, buy a hotel and run a B&B. In reality neither of us have any experience running a B&B or any hotel experience.

A hotel has just come up for sale in our dream area. It has 5 bedrooms to be let out and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. DH wants to go and view it next week and hopefully move up there to fulfil our dream! In theory I am totally on board with this and really excited but in reality neither of us have a clue what we’re doing!! How crazy an idea is this? Prepared totally to be told I’m nuts.

With Brexit coming up, you've only got a few months to hire waiters called Manuel,from Barcelona, who can't speak English.

Very hard work.

My parents run a B&B when I was growing up- they did really well from it. They had zero experience and my mum is not the best at customer service (the customer was not always right in her books!). They had help from a cleaner every day but did the breakfast and some cleaning themselves. They had 12 rooms and made lots of money from it (my parents are now very wealthy). They then sold it to my sister who run it for 2 years to make enough money to buy a decent house outright- she then sold it as a private residence.

I don’t think you necessarily need the experience of hotels, but good customer service and an eye for detail is important. And like others have said, watch the hotel inspector! B&B’s set both my parents and my sister up for life- I would have taken the opportunity if I had been an adult when my sister sold it.

I was assistant manager of a luxury hotel and worked in hospitality for 5 years. It's hard work but also you need to know your trade, licensing, hygiene, service etc. I would either get yourself training and work experience in the type of trade you want to provide, or make sure you factor in salaries of people who have these qualifications and experience. Otherwise you will very quickly realise there's more to it than just smiling and cooking a nice breakfast.

People can and will complain about everything and anything and you need to be able to deal with that as it can ruin your business very quickly. Good experienced loyal service staff are worth weight in gold because of the difference they can make to the business.