What should I know before venturing into motel management??
May 28, 2015 6:26 PM Subscribe
Asking for a friend. Please give me any anecdotes or information regarding owning or running a small motel (ten rooms or fewer). I'd like to buy and manage a motel as a business venture. The location would presumably be on the way to a popular national park. Anyone with any experience like that?
Thanks!
My dad did this as a retirement project! He eventually grew it to 20+ rooms, then bought a second one. Apparently it's addictive. I worked weekends at the first one when I was a teenager.
I'm not really sure what kind of stories you're looking for, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
A few things that spring to mind:
- There is usually someone living in the owner's quarters (behind the front desk), though it's also common for two or three people to share a motel management job and just occupy that space on their workdays/nights. It's a good idea to line up alternates in case of illness/emergency/just plain needing a break.
- This one surprised me: it's a good idea to build and maintain relationships with bigger hotels in the area. When they fill up because of an event, they'll want to direct people to a reliable, clean, safe place. This is especially true in remote areas and small towns.
- It's still worth advertising in print media: tourism handbooks, local maps, even the Yellow Pages in some instances. I assumed everything had moved to the web, but tourists and older people are less likely to find accommodation online. That's not to say that online reviews and a proper website aren't super important.
- You truly can bleach anything out of a bedsheet.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:39 AM on May 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm not really sure what kind of stories you're looking for, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
A few things that spring to mind:
- There is usually someone living in the owner's quarters (behind the front desk), though it's also common for two or three people to share a motel management job and just occupy that space on their workdays/nights. It's a good idea to line up alternates in case of illness/emergency/just plain needing a break.
- This one surprised me: it's a good idea to build and maintain relationships with bigger hotels in the area. When they fill up because of an event, they'll want to direct people to a reliable, clean, safe place. This is especially true in remote areas and small towns.
- It's still worth advertising in print media: tourism handbooks, local maps, even the Yellow Pages in some instances. I assumed everything had moved to the web, but tourists and older people are less likely to find accommodation online. That's not to say that online reviews and a proper website aren't super important.
- You truly can bleach anything out of a bedsheet.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:39 AM on May 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
Your friend should increase his/her ambition in terms of size of property. There is much more financing available for motels than there used to be, so their upfront cash may go farther than they think ... the economies of scale when you go to 30 rooms from 10 rooms are simply huge. Same costs for advertising, signage, permits, legal, insurance (might be slightly higher), common area construction and maintenance, etc. A lot of costs that you think are variable (housekeeping, breakfast room, etc.) turn out to have a large fixed cost.
US National Parks are a HUGE destination for organized tours of foreign tourists, and they love to contract everything in advance with recurring vendors. A busload of people for two nights from country X arriving every Tuesday and departing every Thursday from April to October is a baseline for a lot of profitability.
If you possibly can ... have a bar. Nothing supports the bottom line like the 90% margin on liquor.
posted by MattD at 2:02 PM on May 30, 2015
US National Parks are a HUGE destination for organized tours of foreign tourists, and they love to contract everything in advance with recurring vendors. A busload of people for two nights from country X arriving every Tuesday and departing every Thursday from April to October is a baseline for a lot of profitability.
If you possibly can ... have a bar. Nothing supports the bottom line like the 90% margin on liquor.
posted by MattD at 2:02 PM on May 30, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Yellow Silver Maple at 8:29 PM on May 28, 2015 [3 favorites]