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

I am going into business with a friend to open up bed and breakfast. This book, out of all of them, focuses squarely on the nuts and bolts on how to open a bed and breakfast. It comes with a CD containing forms that would be needed for operating your bed and breakfast. This book is loaded with pithy details aimed squarely at operations. It exposes many issues that you might not think of when planning your business, which I believe is a tremendous advantage in developing your plan. Everything in this book goes right to the point, starting with the worksheet to assess whether you are actually a good candidate for opening this type of business, and continuing on to topics of interest such as marketing, guest services, kitchen operation, integrating computers, and so forth. I bought this book as a gift for my partner since he will be doing most of the legwork in opening the business, but I was so impressed with the book that I purchased the Kindle version for myself so that we can be on the same page as we work through the details of opening this business. This book is aimed at opening a bed and breakfast in the United States. Our B&B will be abroad, so some sections of the book do not pertain. Nevertheless, this book is an invaluable tool for anyone contemplating this type of business.

The information in the book was exactly what I was looking for, as someone with no experience in hospitality industry. Very clearly written and understandable. The only negative side to the book was that it was a little old and outdated as to the technological advancements of recent years, but the basic information you need is in this book.

I would recommend this book to any one who wishes to go into the Bed and Breakfast business. The advice that is offered in the book has clearly given me all the necessary ideas to make my business a success. One thing that is very encouraging, is that one has to acquire all the attributes of a good manager by adopting the skills of good management, communication and friendliness to keep in business.

This book is not what it seems, and anyone looking for an authentic guide, written by experts in the industry, should look elsewhere. I was drawn to the book, in part, because of the companion CD-ROM. I also thought the first review posted here on amazon made the book sound exactly like what I was looking for. I am convinced that the first review was planted by someone within or friendly with the publishing group. It is largely baseless. The book provides only superficial guidance with little to no authority cited, and is essentially general basic knowledge which concerns starting any small business. Indeed, it appears that much of the book could have been written by substituting "small business" with "B&B" throughout a text written for small businesses generally. You will note that there is no information regarding the background of the authors in the listing. After I received the book, I was shocked to see that there is absolutely no information about the authors in the book. This troubled me immediately. I assumed the book would have been written by experts in the industry, with years of experience running successful B&Bs- I was wrong. Lora Arduser appears to be a professor of professional writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her bio (as of September 25, 2014) indicates that her scholarly interests "are in health communication and publishing and new media." Nothing in her bio suggests she is an expert in the hospitality industry- and being a professor would likely not be amenable to running a "financially successful B&B." Her CV (downloaded September 25, 2014) does not list this book by name, and the only connection to it appears to be a bulleted point under "Professional Writing/Editing Experience" (pages 5-6) which provides: "-Wrote foodservice trade books for Atlantic Publishing." Professor Arduser appears to be a contract writer. She researched and wrote this book (with with Douglas Brown- see below) for Atlantic Publishing Group, apparently with no expertise whatsoever. The lack of firsthand knowledge is evident throughout the book. Similarly, Douglas R. Brown appears to have no background in the hospitality/B&B industries. He too is a contract writer for Atlantic. His bio on goodreads.com indicates that he is a "fantasy and horror writer." I feel like I was completely mislead by the description and marketing of this book and its early reviews on amazon.

Nice book, a bit out of date. My real problem is the letter size, not easy to read...

Good

This book has so much valuable information! It lists many helpful websites, some of which are out of date, but you can simply google the organization to find it. Some however, no longer exist. This book is great at pointing out lots of things you don't even think of when considering a business like this. However if you are only at the Business Plan stage you won't use everything.

I purchased the book as a gift for my husband, but I found the book to be very informative and easy to follow.

The only problem with this is it is mainly aimed at the US market so if you are thinking of setting up in the UK it is not quite as useful. However I found it an interesting read and the CD rom that comes with it has a lot of useful forms for the budding owner such as application forms for staff down to cleaning rotas and so on all easily printable. The book goes through many areas from picking out the property to running it and various ideas for marketing and so on. I am looking to start a guest house and have read a lot of books on the subject and would recomend this to anyone thinking of doing the same. Best of Luck