How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 27

Christmas and New Year is a very specific market, based around meals and
entertainment; most B&Bs close for this period for a rest, but if you serve meals and
drinks and have open fires in Winter, you may find that this is a key profit-making time
for you.
Differential pricing for occupancy
In hotels or B&Bs there is never just a “room rate” in practice. Single, double and
multiple (eg family) occupancy are all usually priced differently.
Of course, the “standard” occupancy of a room is two, as people tend to come in twos,
like the animals in Noah’s Ark. This means that most, if not all, your rooms should be
for two.
It is never worth making a room a true “single” room – ie with one single bed – unless
it is too small to fit a double bed. Even your single travelers (especially business
people) will prefer (and probably expect) to sleep in a double bed. In practice, if you
have no single rooms, you should accommodate your single bookers in a room for two:
a double or twin.
If your costs are on a “per room” basis, why should single travelers expect to pay less
than couples? In rational terms, a single booker uses the same room facilities, and eats
one breakfast rather than two, so should expect to pay the price of a room for two, less
the price of one breakfast. It is as simple and unarguable as that.
However, the hotel and holiday industry in the UK has historically charged on a “per
person” basis (mainly because it makes the prices look cheaper), so the single
occupancy differential in fact has to be presented as a “single occupancy supplement”
to the (half double) per person price rather than a discount against the double room
price. This in presentational terms looks as if it discriminates against single people
(even though it does not), and journalists have encouraged consumers to feel cheated
by writing many a piece on the dreaded ‘single occupancy supplement’.
The ‘Single Supplement’ Myth
"In the travel world, there are perhaps no two words more guaranteed to elicit an
incendiary response among solo holidaymakers as these: 'single supplement'. Internet
forums simmer with remarks about the injustice of having to pay extra for seemingly
using less" – so began an article in the Daily Mail (6 Sept 09). We have lost count of the
number of articles, “readers’ rants”, blogs and internet posts about the so-called
“iniquities” of the single supplement, and the evils of the B&Bs and hotels guilty of this
‘outrage’.
It is time to shoot this down – as it is a myth and a nonsense, as a moment’s common
sense will show. We need not be at all apologetic about this issue – it simply needs
explaining properly to our guests.
Take a B&B charging a fairly typical £70 for a double room, or £50 for single occupancy.
It is only because of the British habit – led by tour operators – to quote on a per person
basis that this gets seen as couples paying £35 per person, and singles being “penalised”