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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real-life Fawlty Towers!, 2 Nov 2001
So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel is a realistic, anecdotal 'how-to' guide to the hands-on day-to-day running of a small hotel or guest house based on the author's personal experience in the Scottish Borders.So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel is written with humour and tells it like it is, warts and all, the good things and the nightmares about running a hotel - the dream (with the nightmares!) lived for 11 years at a small hotel or guest house in the Scottish Borders. It's a 'how-to' book with a difference, anecdotal, full of practical, step-by-step advice, with warnings about pitfalls -- a buyer's hotel guide for dummies! Reading this book will give you practical insights into what it is really like to own a small hotel and enable you to decide whether running a small hotel is for you. The cartoon illustrations by Fred Ohnewald, a previous guest at the hotel from Germany, enhance the reading pleasure by highlighting some of the farcical situations described by the author. One illustration aptly illustrates the owner, an ex-university professor with three doctorates, serving breakfast with a 'balloon head' - a result of imbibing the liberal gifts of schnapps from his German guest the night before. There were good times and bad times, and the good times outweigh the bad - though the few guests who left a bitter taste on the memory seemed to have left an overriding impression of a hotel not unlike Fawlty Towers. Indeed, the ex-owners confess that only now, after the sale of the hotel, can they enjoy the tortures and crises of Basil Fawlty, for at the time they were too close to reality! Want to buy and run a small hotel? Sure, it's great - go for it! But you just may want to think again after reading this guide.
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