Part One: Planning and Preparation
Chapter One
“Individual is Beautiful”
"B&Bs are one of the glories of the British tourist industry...
the antidote to the claustrophobic uniformity of chain hotels.
Britain’s vast network of B&Bs is something that foreigners envy
but appear unable to emulate." The Times, 12 June 2008
"Out with hotels, in with B&Bs….
British bed and breakfasts are set for a revival as hotels are now so expensive
that most families cannot afford to stay in them" reported The Times
on 12 January 2008 . Adam Raphael, editor of the Good Hotel Guide,
is reported as saying that "B&Bs offer the best value", and that
B&Bs "offer the best breakfasts in Britain".
"For elegant accommodation, look to the new breed of
homely yet stylish British bed and breakfasts"
Sally Shalam, The Guardian, May 17 2008
“If this trend continues, there will soon be no need for luxury hotels. Designed
with flair and confidence, run with painstaking attention to detail and offering
the kind of sociable welcome that no hotel could ever match, they are a joy to
stay in”
Walter F Stowy, the hotel inspector for The Sunday Times, on judging the
“Top 10 B&Bs in England” in April 2005.
"What B&B stands for now is 'more bang for your buck' - a room in a new wave
B&B is basically as good as, or better than, a hotel room - at half the price."
Nikki Tinto of i-escape.com (quoted in The Guardian, 17 May 2008)
“Pillows are feather, coffee is Illy, jam is home-made, and breakfast is whenever
you want it to be. The British B&B has upped its game.”
The Times 25 April 2009
You can be ahead of the game in the hospitality industry. After the increasing
blandness and uniformity which was a trend of the sixties, seventies and eighties as
hotel groups sought to impose consistent corporate styles across branded chains, now
the new trend is back to individuality. The buzzwords in hotel group boardrooms are
“uniqueness” and “personality”, and hotels which had been expensively refitted to be
exactly the same as their branded counterparts in every other city are now being given a
new corporate makeover – to look like individual, unbranded hotels or, at the top of the
market, like private houses.