3380 setting up a bed breakfast in italy

Hi there,

In answer to your questions about starting a B&B

If you do not have experience of running a profitable business in the U.K., why should you be able to do it in Italy? Without the proper information, from the proper places, with regard to licences, health and safety, taxes, required training, bureaucracy, permissions, marketing, market research etc., you are taking an enormous risk and not giving yourself the best chance of succeeding. A good place to begin is to talk to people who have made a successful move and pick their brains. Also you need to visit the local Commune or Camera di Commercio.

Start with a business plan, just as you would in England. You need to know the income you require, the income you can expect and how you can achieve it. What will your expenses be, how will you cover them until you are profitable and how long will that take. You should not think that you can open the doors of a renovated property and have people queuing to get in (unless you have been on the tele.). After all it would not happen in England, without proper and widespread marketing and promotion, so why should you expect it to happen in Italy.

What will make you different to anyone else, why would clients come to you rather than anywhere else and where will your customers come from? You should have a good idea of the answers to all of these questions before you set out and in my experience it is the people who have planned properly, that have made a success of their move and are living a much more fulfilling life now than they were in the U.K.

Good luck,

Linda

[url]www.intouchitalia.co.uk[/url]

Well done, Linda, couldn't have put it better myself. And actually even being on tv doesn't guarantee visitors.. ~As well as a business plan, research is esssential - what's close to you - who is the most successful, where will guests come from? which nationality are you aiming for, what licenses, what courses must you do if you are serving or handling food. Have you run any business in the UK. Once you know you have a winning forumula, how are you going to sell yourselves, and what do you know about web marketing?

However, everyone should have an adventure, just do the sensible stuff as well, and if you decide its for you - remember not all guests are great, its a 24/7 on duty and it hard work looking after anything to do with the public.

Good luck, and let us know what you do

Thanks for all your replys, i will take all on board!. We know the pitfalls of buisness,not completely clueless. Nothing is easy, but its good to hear it from people who have done it already and have experience. Thanks again, and if we do venture down this road , i will keep you posted. Brendon.

Didn't mean to say you were novices, just emptying my head onto the forum. Happy to help with anything we can. We had run businesses before, but some stuff out here is hilarious - would prefer to tell it off the record though - don't want to upset anyone!

Look forward to your tales.

Pam

Bed and Breakfasts usually gain exemption from the normal regulations on hygene, disabled access, fire escapes, IVA (=VAT) registration etc. that hotels are subject to, provided they conform to a few basic rules. These may vary from region to region, but generally speaking they are;

[indent]No more than 6 letting rooms

Single and double rooms have to have a certain minimum size and specific basic furniture (bed, chest of drawers, mirror, chairs)

Emergency bell pulls installed in the showers

Breakfast to consist only of pre-wrapped croissants/rolls/biscuits and packaged orange juice, plus coffee tea etc.

Prices displayed as official documents in each room
[/indent]

You apply for registration at the local tourist board and then the local vigile will call and inspect.

Hi Pam, no offence taken, we appreciate your expertise. It is not a definite decision anyway. By the way your website is excellent!, brava! We will keep you posted!. Also thanks to all the other threads. Brendon & Sallie.

This despicable ruling about wrapped croissants (some rubbish about food handling from Brussels) doesn't seem to be universally obeyed by some b+bs!
I had "the best breakfast ever" in a superb b+b nelle Marche - fresh fruit salad dressed with yoghurt, fresh bread made in the kitchen, ham and chese if you were of the German persuasion, jam, etc. etc - maybe the owners knew that some petty bureaucrat wasn't going to drop in and denounce them (or more likely the owner was the local vigilo!)

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]Ah so this is the reason that I get such awful breakfasts...and what a stupid rule.In the UK one of the main reason's people stay in a B&B is the lovely home cookede breakfast and surely a big draw for guests would be to sample local fruits/jams with homemade breads etc.

I stayed in a lovely B&B in Pescara and it would be a great place to take your inspiration from.In Sept she was full all the time I was there and she did a home-made breakfast...one day even scrambled eggs ( not great done with Olive Oil) other times her own tomartoes and Mozzarella cheese! Villa Del Pavone was the name!

If you can offer a really good service you will get guests returning and although the first years will be tough after that you should be fine.Don't forget to look for web sites who will have a link to you ie Estate Agents,National Parks,car Hire.if you are any good with word you could write an article for an ezine and that will get you free publicity.

good luck

Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

You can still get decent brekkies in England? - the land which seems to me to be totally populated by health officers and other people paid loadsa money to spoil your life!!
It seems to me that the sort of people best adapted to running a b+b are exactly the sort of people who want to offer their home made jams etc. It is an insult to their innate hospitality for some government, or European, monolith to legislate against them doing this.
Life is driven by lawyers and the seekers of compensation who they encourage.

Hi Brendon,

We're in the same process of converting a very beautiful country house into a bed and breaksfast and I generally agree with all the comments made. Marc, your information is spot on, although as you say each commune does seem to apply the rules differently.

We are fortunate in that one of us is Italian and now living back permanently at the house during the work that's being done. Having knowledge of the bureaucracy that exists is really useful, even though still baffling to him at times!

The most important thing to my mind is focus. Know what you want to do, make sure you can afford it (and add 25% to that figure) and make sure you have enough financial resource for the first 2 years of opening, as building a good reputation and a steady income takes time (and a bad one no time at all).

We have a very firm idea of the style of B & B we'll be offering and we took into consideration locality and places of interest for our target market, style of rooms and of course local competition. There are 101 other things that need to be looked into, but don't be put off. Draw up a list, prioritise and then go for it!

At the end of the day, we're not looking to make our fortune ( I can do that in the rat race of finance I'm in now!).

You'll find plenty of people here that will point you in the right direction and help wherever they can.

All the very best of luck.

Russ

Is there some way of overcoming the cellophane wrapping issue 'legally' such as an equiavlent to a UK food hygiene certificate or having the kitchen inspected by a USL official?

There very probably is some route which a b+b can take to bring the kitchen and food preparation areas up to a certain specified standard - the trouble is that most of the literature on b+b accommodation mentions this plastic euro croissant solution, because it is cheap!!
Hopefully a simple b+b wouldn't be expected to go all stainless steel, and have separate rooms for veg preparation etc! I think this sort of legislation has simply gone far too far - don't we all occasionally have a meal prepared in a friend's ordinary kitchen, and live through it!! :)

Hi there,

We run a B&B at our farmhouse in Kent, so can't give you any help with the specifics of Italian requirements.

There are basically no legal requirements in the UK if you have 6 bed spaces or less (but you need public liability insurence).

What you do need (not legally, but in order to get into certain publications and to get the business) is a tourist board (or AA or similar) rating. The ratings are based on very strict guidlines for each catagory.

We are 4 diamond, with a Silver Award for excellence. To get this the quality is incredibly high - the guests eat (and how they eat!) off limoges porcelaine and sleep in the finest egyption cotton sheets etc. Fitting out cost a FORTUNE. We can't get 5 diamond because one of the ensuites isn't big enough.

We ask people to provide written feedback and rate us (on things like cleanliness (the inspector runs his finger over the tops of the picture frames looking for dust), service etc) on a scale of 1-5 (5 highest). We are disappointed to get any fours (its usually 5 or even 5+), but getting there isn't easy.

The bookings are slow to come, and the overheads are high (breakfasts, laundry, breakages) and then there's the labour. But it is very rewarding to meet new people and we get a buzz from knowing that our standards are as high as we can make them. We get repeat booking because of it.

I would say make sure that you will have a market, and don't expect to do more than (or even enough) to cover your running costs for some time. But if you pitch it properly, market it properly and deliver a first class product to your customers, then it can be very rewarding.

But the days of nylon sheets and greasy over-cooked food is over, I'm afraid. :)

Thanks to everyone who has put their thoughts and views over on the Bed & Breakfast thread. We will now digest all the info!. Brendon.

I read in Italy magazine about Cashmere sheets. That would be a special treat for a traveler. If you go to the Italy Magazine main page look for the section that has local news you'll find a link for Umbria and Le Marche , and in that section there's an article called, "Cashmere sheets to be sold in jewelry shops". I have no idea if something like this is of interest to you (might be too expensive), but worth reading about. :)