Starting a small business in a foreign country is not exactly a walk in the park. I'm not saying you couldn't succeed with a B&B but what exactly do you know about running one in Canada? Business license laws, taxes, fire regulations, etc. etc.

Then there is the simple matter of breakfast. In a successful Canadian B & B you can't get away with just saying, " bacon and eggs? OK". You'll have to learn to ask how they want their eggs- over easy, sunny side up, poached, scrambled, hard boiled, 3 minute soft boiled. At least. Then there is the toast. White, brown (that means brown bread toasted, not white bread toasted brown as I have had B&Bs in the UK think I was asking for), sourdough, doorstopper, etc. How do you want your bacon? Soft, crisp?
Not everyone wants bacon and eggs though so you will also have to learn how to make pancakes (Canadian pancakes) and french toast as a minimum.

Then if you end up moving to Quebec, all the above is out the window and it's a whole new ballgame when it comes to breakfast. Oh yeah, you also have to learn to take the order in French.

Seriously though, starting a small business is not as easy as people sometimes think. Starting it in another country no matter how close the cultures are to one another is even harder. If you don't at least have experience at home, a job might be a better bet.

Starting a business in any country can be daunting - you still have to learn about all the regulations and I doubt the British layman knows all the in's and out's of running a business in the UK either. What you don't know, you learn and then you enlist the help of a knowledgeable Accountant.

Hmm well you could have hit on a fundemental flaw in the poster's designs if he/she cannot cook!

Thankfully for the poster, French is rarely spoken in the Okanagan.

Why? I owned and ran my own business in the UK - and I am a mere woman, god forbid!! I then sold my business in the UK and moved out to Canada without my husband to start up another business here in Canada. I wouldn't say it is any more difficult starting up a business in Canada than in the UK, if anything, it has been far easier here as there are multiple Govt organisations with comprehensive websites just waiting to help you out and give you assistance.

Changing beds and cooking breakfasts are not exactly rocket-science so unless the poster buys the wrong type of house, in the wrong area then I cannot see how they would not succeed..........unless they are useless at cooking!

I agree with you, and by the sounds of things, it looks like you have been doing well for yourself, even without your husband here with you, like you mentioned above.

So it sounds like worldweary was doing a lot of assumptions there. Even if french is an issue, you can always hire a bilingual person to help out, most companies do it.

Hi
B&Bs We have become very good friends with a couple that we stayed at there B&B in Summerland Okanagan and they will soon be close neighbours, I must say there B&B is absolutely fantastic the very best I have ever stayed in, and believe me they work incredibabley hard and still wouldn’t say that it would make a full time living on its own. The Lady of the house is up at 4.30 am cooking home made breakfast and doesn’t finish most nights until 9 PM, most probably don’t work this hard at it though and they still are only 50% full for the hole year. We stayed there last in May and the cost for the wife and me was $90 for a large bedroom and bathroom full kitchen and lounge, private balcony and Hot Tub plus a five course Breakfast every morning, plus lots moor. A lot of these businesses look attractive until you realise the amount of work that goes into it behind the scean.
There is a highlights programme on Championship football about one hour a week I think it was sportsnet but not 100 % sure, I would think that within a couple of years you will be able to watch like Sky TV on high speed internet although at a cost. I have been a season ticket holder for my club for 30 years so will miss it beyond believe, but hay we will be promoted to the premiership this year and there are normally about six live games if you pick the right channels

I don't think I am making assumptions at all and the french thing was intended as a bit of a joke. Thus the smiley.

I've lived in 4 countries (not counting Canada) and met many expats in all of them. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think they can move and start a business without having thought it through or looked at their experience in relation to the business they are thinking about. For example, France is full of expats who have FAILED to succeed in the B&B type business. Greece and Spain are full of expats who have failed in the restaurant and bar businesses.

The reasons are pretty much universal. No knowledge of the business beforehand; no local knowledge to allow competing with locals; no market research; insufficient start-up capital.

I don't know if any or all of those apply to Leadman, but what I was trying to suggest gently is that some thought has to be given beyond the, ' I think it might be a good idea' point.

I have personally watched dozens of people arrive in a new country with expectations that bore no resemblance to reality. I'm no longer amazed at how little thought some people can put into this kind of thing.

If it was that easy to make $18,000 a year with a B&B as Tiaribbon seems to think (and assuming the poster can afford to buy a 5 bedroom house in the Okanagan outright since he couldn't pay the mortgage from $18,000), the country would be covered in them. I suggest the start of some good research would be to see what the average income for a B&B is in Canada.

When someone writes a post as Leadman has here and says, 'we were thinking of starting some kind of holiday lets............any ideas were would be the best place.', it doesn't exactly indicate to me that a whole lot of thought or research has gone into it.

Maybe reading a post like this carefully before throwing out encouragement without caution would be a good idea.

Am glad you agree then, that people can kid around and joke, without you telling them to go to some chat room then, like you did in a previous thread?

Why would the country be covered in them? Not everyone wants to run a B&B - there are literally millions of different types of jobs that make really good money, but not everyone wants to do them.

None of us know Leadman's position - he may well be able to purchase a 10 bedroomed house outright.

Again supposition - perhaps he is just asking for recommendations and a bit of advice; no different from someone asking how much money they should budget to cover their monthly bills when they move here.

And maybe some positive comments are equally as constructive.

Fine, let's ask him.

Leadman are you planning to arrive with $1/2 mil or more to buy a place and live on while you build a profitable business?

Last time I was in Montreal in 2003 I seen football every weekend I was there, in fact I seen more of my team than I would staying in the uk - yes you do have to watch live at ridiculously early times!!! Now that was in a major city but...

ESPN2 and a another cable channel had "soccer" on every week with at least one premiership game each that I watched in my appartment so how come people arent watching football when they're in canada???

Dont get me wrong hockey is much better to watch in the flesh, baseball was good at the expos (shames its gone) and it was worth driving to toronto to see the raptors ( i also watched football on yonge street when visiting) but this guy aint going to miss football if hes willing to pay for cable or is moving to a major city that has supporters clubs showing the games.

Now cricket well its only in fashion cos England won... so it aint going to last anyway

My point proven: Let's hypothesize here for a moment - the B&B that Mike stayed in only has 2 bedrooms for rent, at 50% capacity for the whole year that means that they only rent out 1 room all year round at $90 per night.......that equals $32,850 per annum! Now I realise there are outgoings here aswell, however if the B&B is owned outright then the profit is great no matter how you look at it! I also doubt very much that the B&B that Mike stayed at had only 2 bedrooms though, if it had 4 at 50% capacity then the figure per annum rises to $65,700, now that is quite a respectable profit in anyones book, just for cooking 4 breakfasts and changing 2 beds each day.

Is it just me, or is 4am a bit early to be starting to cook breakfasts for guests who likely won't arrive at the breakfast table much before 7am?

I have an acquaintance who runs a B&B in Calgary. Her B&B has three double bedrooms with en suite bathrooms.

It does indeed sound like hard work. In addition to the chores mentioned above, cleaning, laundry, and keeping her yard (garden) in immaculate condition, she spends time responding to e-mail enquiries about availability. She tells me she spends at least half an hour and often an hour with each arriving couple. She said that's how long it typically takes to give them tourist brochures, answer their questions about the city, give them directions to nearby restaurants, etc.

That said, running a B&B gave her one thing that her original profession of nursing couldn't give her. When she became a divorcee with three young children, she was able to be with them when they got home from school in the afternoons.

I also must say that she was most judicious in her choice of house. While she lives on a well treed residential street, she's in a relatively close-in neighbourhood, a stone's throw from the TransCanada Highway that tourists use for accessing Banff, from a train station that makes downtown very accessible, from a shopping mall and from a pleasant restaurant / shopping district.

Jasper townsite has many establishments that call themselves "home accommodations." They are similar to B&Bs, but they don't serve breakfast. Many of them include kitchenettes or full kitchens in which guests can prepare their own breakfasts. I imagine they would be less work than a B&B.

If a person had the capital to set up self-catering apartments or cabins, I imagine they too would involve less intense, hands on work than a B&B. We once rented a furnished cabin in the Okanagan for a week. It was in a complex that had a dozen or so cabins. The couple who owned the place lived onsite and kept an eye on it throughout the week.

The rentals went from Saturday to Saturday. I imagine the owner-managers had a few intense hours of cleaning after one batch of guests had checked out on a Saturday morning and before the next batch arrived on Saturday afternoon. They may even have hired people to help them do it. I didn't see that part of their operation in action.

During the rest of the week, however, I didn't get the impression that their workload was unduly heavy. The husband used a miniature tractor to mow the lawns. They wandered around the grounds and mingled with guests a bit. They were friendly but not obtrusive. I imagine that they would have responded to maintenance issues from time to time (plumbing that malfunctioned and things of that nature).

My Calgary acquaintance's clientele is more or less evenly split between business and leisure travellers. She runs her B&B year-round. I am guessing, but haven't heard this directly from someone who does it, that a B&B establishment in the Okanagan could run from the spring through the summer and into the autumn but could close down in the winter. That would give the owners some down time.

I've seen on the Internet that there are associations that B&B owners can join for mutual support. For example, here is an announcement from Canadian Bed and Breakfast Association:

I think you are being quite naive Tiaribbon but let's wait and see what Leadman has to say about his situation if he responds.

ok here goes.

on arrival, get jobs,place toddler in nursery, i have a lgv license and wife is an accountant/office manager, i also have plumbing certificates to the equivalent of 3rd year apprentice, my first trade is stained glass manufacturer, I'm not sure if there's a market for stained glass in the okenagen area, however i am aware of the type of stained glass that canadians have, lets say its not very technical when you compare it to the traditional stuff we do in blighty, so wages may be a problem there.

i hope to work for 3-6 months, whilst all the time assessing the area, we hope that this will be long enough to find first, the right area and secound the right place, many things need to be thought about, not just trade, i.e schools and family life, i hope there are driving agencies in the okenagen, the uk has many drivers that will only work for agencies for flexibility, you can allways earn when you have an empty b&b, would not fancie long haul to begin with, family, strange country and all that.

my wife's keen enough on the b&b type operation, I'm all for buying a house with land and developing a log cabin operation, i would hope to bring 350 to 400,000 canadian dollars with me, we would need to furnish the house from top to bottom, buy a car, most likely a peoples carrier for ferrying guest about,i would hope that within 2 years we could both earn enough to just run our operation and not worry about working for other people, i could also make stained glass, you dont need much in the way of premises for that.

the log cabin operation could be funded partly by us and maybe a family invester, not forgetting the bank, it is only a possibility, but I'm sure i would enjoy it, you can always expand if things are going well enough.

then again, we might just enjoy working, as long has the wife and daughter are happy and we do stuff i dont realy care how it pans out, as long has it does.

cheers anyway for your responses
leadman.

No one seems to have pointed out that in a country where most people get only two or three weeks vacation, and where travel is either expensive (air) or slow(long distances by road) there is probably not the demand for B&B accomodation there is somewhere like the UK, where 4 weeks is the norm and you can get anywhere you want to go relatively quickly.

I dont know anything about it, but I suspect three things are vitally important. Location , Location and Location.

Actually that wasnt it at all. You forget I spent 7 years living in LS6. Leeds are my "second" team, and I used to watch them here in the Prem all the time. Sadly I miss that now for obvious reasons, although my friends tell me I'm not missing all that much. No offence intended!

By the way, it doesnt pay to make assumptions about people here, I'm not a scouser, but I did grow up near Liverpool.