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Exterior of River Wye Lodge, a Large Riverside Holiday Cottage in Herefordshire

Get The 12 Step Holiday Cottage Business Plan

Even (Holiday) Cottage Industries Need Plans to Be Successful

To have a successful holiday cottage business, you need more than just a holiday cottage and adverts on My Favourite Holiday Cottages and other leading self-catering directory sites. Your success will heavily influence how you market and manage your holiday rental business. For that, you need a plan.

Like many people, holiday cottage owners can prove amazingly resilient to the idea of setting aside a reasonable amount of time to prepare a business plan. And yet, it's equally impressive to hear people who have committed to designing a plan commenting on the increase in bookings and revenues they have achieved as a result. They also say that having a plan to stick to makes managing the business much easier and simpler.

When working on a task managing or marketing your holiday cottage, ask yourself why I am doing this. What will it achieve that is important to the success of my business? If you say exactly why your actions will help you achieve a key benefit (more bookings, increased rates, saving time, lower maintenance time/expense, etc. then you need a plan written down with critical aims, objectives and tactics.

Read the Lodgufy article, which identifies the questions you should ask to help you draft your plan. In addition, this 12-Step Business Plan for Vacation Rentals template from Lodgify addresses the obvious and not-so-obvious things you need to consider on the road to economic success. 

Don't be put off by the jargon-like feel of the titles. The 12-Steps are:

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Company Analysis
  3. Industry Analysis
  4. Customer Analysis
  5. Competitive Analysis
  6. Operations Plan
  7. Marketing Plan
  8. Distribution Plan
  9. Revenue Management Plan
  10. Financial Plan
  11. Key Milestones and Business Future
  12. Appendix

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