Fact! There will be two distinct types of business that your guest house will see in a normal week. (and this includes guesthouses that are located in the suburbs, cities, historic cities, the sea sides up to a point, but not so much the country)
From Monday to Thursday you will have a mixture of business men, workers, people on courses and tourists, breakfast should start early for the workers  say 7am and go on until 9am for the tourists. All the workers will go home on Friday morning.
At the weekend Friday & Saturday breakfast should start later and end later, 7.30 to 9.30 we found is a good time. You will have Tourist, Weddings, Concert and Theatre goers, people going to sporting events, and family visiting. You’ll also find people tend to take their time and hang around for a chat.
Sunday’s can be mixed, workers for an early start Monday morning and people having a long weekend, on the whole you will find Sunday to be the quietest night of the week but breakfast times will vary stretching from the earliest to the latest time.
You must set definite times for breakfast, when people arrive tell them, “breakfast is from 7am to 9am”
If you make the mistake of asking them what time they would like breakfast, you could be doing breakfast all morning long.
Monday to Thursday   =          Business
Friday to Saturday      =          Social
Sunday                      =          Mixed
We now know the type of establishment.
We have a web site ready to go live.
We have a name for the Guest House.
We know what grade you want to achieve.
And we know the type of people who will be staying and when.
Out of the horses mouth, “Fire Risk Assessment” next post.
http://www.cornerstonesguesthouse.com/tariff/
Click here for our free  Fire Risk Assessment Procedure
I am looking at doing something similar in Shropshire and have found your website very good. Can you explain a bit more about what regulations or inspections are required before you can advertise yourself as a B&B or Guest House (I prefer your definition that a guest house does offer an evening meal and could get a better client than the B&B market). What % iccupancy do you normally achieve?
Hi Zoe
Are you in a village, town or city?
How many bed spaces do you have?
If you were taking just one or two people you could start tomorrow, you would be seen as low risk doing it on a small scale.
Its when you start making structural changes to accommodate guests that thing can get a little intense.
Most of the regulations and inspections are basic health and safety, don‚’t be put off by them.
Health and safety food wise is making sure everything is clean, your fridge and freezer should be well managed
(everything labeled, expire date and where you bought it from),
I have a template form that I use that I can let you have, send me your email and I’ll attach them.
Also I’ve been approached by the local Fire Officer just last week and he is about to make an appointment to look at my ‚Fire Risk Assessment‚
I’ll be putting that on our web site as a free document before the assessment and then again when the Fire Officer as gone over it.
It all depends on how big your going to be, a sign in the garden will have the above knocking as well as guests.
Occupancy % we were at 87% last year, that’s very good, but something tells me in the present climate it may be a little lower this year.
Comment or email any time glad to help
Kind regards
Tony