Hi there
I'm new to the forum and also the world of B&B's. I'm in the process of working out the figures for my proposed B&B in North Devon and was wondering what you work on for % of occupancy per year.
No doubt I will have a lot more questions over the next weeks/months, please be patient with me!
occupany levels
I have to agree with you on this. I think the books will tell you to aim for 30% in your first year, but it really depends on the above factors. To be honest i only use it now to compair how we are doing compaired with previous yearscasasantoestevo wrote:I could not answer this one as I think it would depend on your target/market/price etc.
Nessie
And whether you want to be open all year or "just" May through end September, for example. A 10 month occupancy percentage would be somewhat different to, say, a 4 month projected occupancy percentage.
I would (did) look for July / August to be 60% occupied but the first-year occupancy for April through to end-September would be closer to 30 - 35%.
It also depends on how / where you are advertising and what your competition is locally. I suppose also it depends on how many rooms you have available.
I did find a rule of thumb for working these things out - though iirc I didn't think it was particularly scientific - and I've been looking for it. If I find it, I'll post it. Have you got a friendly tourist office person who might have some of the tourism accommodation figures for your area that you could try and factor in?
In the meantime, good luck with your calculations.
Edited to say:
Here is a way of calculating occupancy. I can't tell if it is the one I used a couple of years ago but I definitely used something similar.
http://www.thebandblady.com/calculating ... rates.html
http://bandb.about.com/cs/aspiring/a/make_money.htm
In fact, if you Google:
bed and breakfast calculating occupancy rates
...you'll get quite a few sites with advice and suggestions. Hope that helps.
I would (did) look for July / August to be 60% occupied but the first-year occupancy for April through to end-September would be closer to 30 - 35%.
It also depends on how / where you are advertising and what your competition is locally. I suppose also it depends on how many rooms you have available.
I did find a rule of thumb for working these things out - though iirc I didn't think it was particularly scientific - and I've been looking for it. If I find it, I'll post it. Have you got a friendly tourist office person who might have some of the tourism accommodation figures for your area that you could try and factor in?
In the meantime, good luck with your calculations.
Edited to say:
Here is a way of calculating occupancy. I can't tell if it is the one I used a couple of years ago but I definitely used something similar.
http://www.thebandblady.com/calculating ... rates.html
http://bandb.about.com/cs/aspiring/a/make_money.htm
In fact, if you Google:
bed and breakfast calculating occupancy rates
...you'll get quite a few sites with advice and suggestions. Hope that helps.
Last edited by Normandie on Fri Sep 10, 2010 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
we expected the same - Normandie - more or less but we found that the july/aug just did not happen like that, now in year 3 we are now full for the summer but in the first 2 years our april may june sept oct were far better (perhaps at 30%ish), we were surprised and dont really know, even now, what we did wrong/to change it.
Small businesses often take longer to grow than you may think, and you may change your mind about which market you want as you develop and that may set you back a bit before your advertising catches up.
We hoped we could live off our income by year 5 and planned accordingly, but we are going to put in an extra room for next year and this will ease the workload, and, hopefully, increase income.
Small businesses often take longer to grow than you may think, and you may change your mind about which market you want as you develop and that may set you back a bit before your advertising catches up.
We hoped we could live off our income by year 5 and planned accordingly, but we are going to put in an extra room for next year and this will ease the workload, and, hopefully, increase income.
I guess this is partly because when one is starting out there's no repeat business to pad out the new business. And in our case, we don't take kids under 12 (property isn't suitable though one day with much additional fencing, railings etc it will be) and of course, in July and August it's families who're looking for accommodation. So June, for example, turned out as busy for us as August. Which I'll have to address for next year.pete wrote:...but we found that the july/aug just did not happen like that
If Tracy is near a north Devon beach, her July / August might be much easier to fill from the start.
