Holiday accomodation

We ran a B&B for a few years in Red Hill, about an hour south of Melb. I'm not sure about other states' rules, but in Vic we had to follow a few basic guidlines. It was surprisingly easy. You don't need lawyers to get started. Ring the local council and tell them of your plans. They will send out an inspector to view the property and let you know what, if any, changes you need to make.

It is s a good idea to do the local Tafe B&B course before you do anything else.

We had to install a hands free sink – we had 2 spearate sinks in the kitchen, so one had a hands free tap installed.
We had to install fridge temp guages and keep records.
No other changes required, but we converted one bedroom into a bathroom so we had 3 beds, 3 baths.
We had to provide guest parking. We had bought an ex-farm property on 5 acres, and there was an enormous shed used for farm machinery, so we had an automatic area.

I think from memory that 5 or less guests doesn't require a business registration. We had 6 guests, and already had a company name and business trading name so didn't need to do anything, but we registered the B&B name anyway as a separate business name.

A couple of tips:

1. Do it an area of high tourist demand with a good number of B&B's already there. They network each other well, and refer overflow bookings to each other. It is a good idea to invite all the local owners around to your establishment for wine and nibbles before you open for business. You will get to know them and they you, and start the network process. Also, it is a goodwill thing.
2. Register yourself with the local Tourist Accomodation Agency in that area. They will send business your way for a small fee.
3. Don't do any media advertising at all. Total waste of time for paid ads in phone books and newspapers; get a website up and running instead. The tourism agency will get you bookings, and word of mouth. That's all you need, but get a flyer and business cards composed and printed – short sweet, simple to read, maybe a photo.
4. Get a good accommodation industry software package for invoicing, bills etc. We used M.Y.O.B (very early version) and it was fine. The newer versions will be adequate.
5. Set up an EFTPOS/debit/Credit card payment system and take payments in advance.
6. Allow one night stays until you get very busy (you will). Many established B&B's which don't need the business don't take single nights, and they will refer them to you. We got most of our early booking from this (after wasting money on ads).
7. Use the best quality linen,towels, etc. Don't scrimp on anything. You will get lots of repeat business with a quality product.
8. Set up a separate mobile phone exclusively for B&B bookings and buy a good, compact bookings diary for you to carry around, and a proper professional one you transfer the "in the field" bookings to when you get home. People won't book if they get an answering machine. Be accessible at all times by phone.
9. Get very good insurance with $20 mill pub/liability.

One more piece of advice; don't expect to get rich doing this. It is a lifestyle job, and very work intensive, unless you pay someone else to do all the cleaning. It is almost all weekend trade; very little midweek unless you get someone in for a week booking, but most people who want to do that will rent a private house or go to a resort or motel.

It is adviseable to offer breakfast ingredients for the guests to do it themselves, but you need very good facilities for that – self contained cottages or separate kitchens. If you are doing the meals yourselves (as we did) you will do a lot more work and a lot less free time.
The self contained option is more hands off and frees you up – it is far less commitment and stress.

As for Holiday Accommodation; I worked as a real estate agent in a holiday destination for a while, and we ran holiday lettings out of the branch as well. The season for renting was short and labour intensive for both the agents and the vendors. Quite often the only time you can get holiday lettings is when you want to use the place yourself (summer, easter etc), and the cost of up keep can be high as you need to have the place cleaned, any furniture and other fittings replaced or repaired after each tenant. Most only stay for a week or a weekend, so the cleaning time and cost can be high. Holiday letting management fees can be high as well. This is offset by the higher rents, but in my opinion not enough to be attractive in a lot of cases.

In reality, many people buy holiday houses with the idea of using it themselves, and making an income out of it too, but they find the hassle isn't worth the money and they aren't able to use the place because of a tenant, so they give the idea a miss and use it for themselves.