How to start a bed and breakfast in South Africa

A bed and breakfast can be a great way to monetize your property, however, it comes with certain challenges. This is a guide on how to start a bed and breakfast business in South Africa.

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What is a bed and breakfast?

A bed and breakfast (b&b) is a lodging/house that provides overnight accommodation and breakfast. A bnb is basically a small private house that operates like a hotel. This house offers rooms to guests and serves them breakfast.

Tourists often go to B&Bs because they are cheaper or the hotels are fully booked, some prefer the intimacy of a small B&B.

Is a bed and breakfast profitable?

Any business can be profitable B&Bs can be very profitable depending on how you calculate profit. It would take some time to make profit if you went out and bought a house strictly for the purpose of turning it into a B&B, it would take time to recover all the cash you spent buying the property.

However, if by profitability, you mean the amount of money it brings in per month then that’s different. Let’s do some quick math if you rent out one room for R500 a night and you have 4 bedrooms then that equates to R2 000 per night. Which equals R60 000 per month. This is not bad at all for a small business; however, you are not going to have guests every single night.

You might have an occupancy rate of 60%, depending on where you stay, subtract operating expenses then you will have a better picture of how much you will make per month. Your occupancy rate might be low as 40% if you are not in a busy area or an area that attracts tourists.

Here are some guidelines to follow: starting a bnb in South Africa

1) Location

Get a house in a good location. The location of your house will have an impact in your B&B’s occupancy rate, which will in turn affect your profits. Try to establish your business in a location that attracts tourists.

You will need to do a bit of research to get a clearer picture of how many tourists come to your area. This is because people traveling for business purposes might also need your B&b, tourists are not limited to people who only visit your area for leisure and entertainment.

2) Setup the environment

The environment should be good, it’s normal for people to run B&B on the same house that they live in. However, you should make an effort into making your B&B appealing. The bedrooms that will be used by your guests should be clean at all times, try to change and wash the sheets on a regular basis. You don’t want your guests to be smelling someone else’s hair food on your pillow.

Make sure that the rooms are properly ventilated and have things like bedside lamps, charging stations, anything necessary to make your guests feel comfortable.

Don’t use the same bathroom as your guests if you are living in the same house, that’s just bad and it will scare potential clients. You guests should have a separate bathroom, the bathroom should look and feel fresh, try to renovate it and include all the modern furniture. You should also make a habit of cleaning the guest’s bathroom.

Here is a more detailed article on how to setup the rooms and bathroom.

3) Insurance

You will need to have some insurance; this is because some of your guests might get food poisoning and sue you. An insurance will protect you when you find yourself is such predicaments.

4) Finances

Tourism is highly seasonal, there are times when you will have a lot of clients, then there are times when you will have none. It’s best to keep savings and budget accordingly, you should also know when to reduce your price.

5) Marketing

There are a lot of ways to advertise a B&B, but the best way is digitally, you will get most of your clients through digital platforms. You can list your B&B on platforms like Booking.com and Google my business. These platforms will connect you with people who are looking for accommodation in your area.

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