Managing a Holiday Cottage Business

When we converted a listed barn in North Yorkshire, the plan always was for two of the three cottages we designed to be holiday cottages. This plan was a bit of a gamble for all sorts of reasons. Finance with big building projects and with listed buildings is always something of a challenge. This project was no diferent!

The problem we had was convincing the banks of our vision and how this would improve the chances of filling the holiday cottages  for as many weeks of the year as we could. What was so radical about our plan? We were convinced that people on holiday want quality accommodation. The banks and business advisors were convinced that we were designing the holiday cottages to too high a standard. Not only that but we had decided to make the cottages bike friendly so we included a bike cleaning area and a lock up for bikes. This was based on our knowledge and research that showed us many people cycled the tracks and lanes around this area as well making good use of nearby Dalby forest. This part of the plan was seen as a bit eccentric.

So a year on how are we doing? The cottages are well booked and one of main successes was to obtain a five star rating from the English country cottages, based on the high standard and comfort of the accommodation. Because there are not too many 5 star cottages in this area we come up on searches for accommodation on their web site.  We have also attracted business customers out of season, mainly because the accommodation feels like a home and not a holiday cottage. Even better we are now starting to attract attention from cyclists!