Cost: $485.00 (add $150.00 for each extra person) plus cost of accommodations where required
4 to 5 hours over 1 day covers the items listed below.
All Bed & Breakfast and Vacation Rental courses are taught one-on-one custom scheduled for you and usually taught on location at our B&B, or if you prefer at our QCollege.com
Legalities
- making it legal
- a business structure
- taxation
- income tax
- business license information
- zoning regulations
- building code and fire safety regulations
- permits
- identification signs
- fire regulations
- fire containment
- egress
- detection
- suppression
- insurance
Financial
- write-offs
- research costs
- miscellaneous start-up costs
- calculating business portion of home
- how much are my rooms worth
- helpful hints
- Reservation / Booking systems
This is the B&B / Vacation Rental Business
- where to begin
- what's in a name
- register your name
- what is a B&B
- can you operate a B&B
- who will be my clients
- smokers, pets, and children
- neighbourhood assessment
- tourist attractions
- know your competition
- advantages
- disadvantages
- skills required
- brochures and other print material
Setting up an existing Home - if you get to me before you build, or renovate I am also available for consulting both on site at your location, and/or blueprints
- renovations
- bedrooms
- extra touches
- beds and bedding
- bathrooms
- hallways and stairwells
- common areas
- guest eating area
- your private space
- decorating and upkeep
- gardens
- house rules
- wedding parties
- please don't come back
- stolen goods
- accidents
- asking for payment
Digital Marketing
- This is a separtate 2-part course about social media, web sites, blogs, channel partners, channel managers, OTA's, guest reviews including TripAdvisor
Odds and Ends
- B&B associations
- networking
- internet considerations
- accreditations
- Food Safe certification
- casual labour versus employees
- WCB
How To Name Your Bed and Breakfast and/or Vacation Rental
- Make a fairly long list of potential names before settling on one.
- Ask some friends whose opinions you trust to give honest input.
- Consider using your inn's location in the name. But be careful -- names like Inn by the Sea are overused.
- If your inn has a special history, consider working that into the name.
- Think about alternative meanings. For example, "Harry" sounds like "hairy" and might not always be particularly inviting.
- Say the name out loud several times, and have people who aren't familiar with it do the same. Names that are hard to pronounce aren't the most useful.
- Make sure it's fresh. Search for the name on the Internet -- if dozens of hits come up in any context, or if even a small handful of other bed and breakfasts are already using the name, throw it away.
- Think about how it will look in a logo. Long names can be hard to use on brochures and business cards.
- Look up potential URLs. If you want to be Smith's Bed and Breakfast, look up URLs like smiths.com and smithsbb.com to make sure a good one is available for you. And, since domain registration is relatively inexpensive, you may as well go ahead and reserve any domain name you might want in the future.
- Don't forget that someday you'll want to sell the inn. Personal names (e.g. Smith's Bed and Breakfast) generally don't pass on as well as names like Golden Eagle Bed and Breakfast.
- Think alphabetically. Some B&B directories list inns in alphabetical order. Apple House Bed and Breakfast scores better here than Yellow Frog Inn.
- Remember that naming your inn should balance all of these suggestions. AAA Bed and Breakfast might get you good placement in some inn directories, but it sounds stale and institutional.
- Make sure you like the name. After all, it's your bed and breakfast
Dieter Gerhard
northStudio | StikkyMedia | QCollege | QAcademy | BirdsofaFeather | MarineEcotours
T: 250-391-8889
T: 800-730-4790
E: dieter@birdsofafeather.ca
Other courses offered: