Holiday home statistics

It's not only important to keep a record of all your guest details but also of all your overheads, net and gross income. Using this information will help you improve your holiday home business for the following year.

Compiling records 

I even calculate costs of water, gas and electricity per booking by taking meter readings on each changeover. Do families with infants create more costs or less? What percentage of guests come from outside of the UK and do they provide a higher or lower percentage of income per head? What about the difference in costs per booking from clients from the various booking sources? Which of those booking sources takes the highest fees from your advertised rates? How many last minute bookings do you get? How many queries have you had for short breaks and were they profitable enough or did they make a loss?

Maintenance costs will vary from year to year 

Perhaps it is wise to make notes of which bookings created damage above and beyond normal wear and tear. Consider how to make changes to avoid the cost happening again.

Annual costs

The overall general costs of utilities, mortgages, services, insurances, fire and safety reports, taxes etc., can be divided by 52 weeks per year, by the amount of weekly booking, or perhaps more accurately per booked night. Doing this I worked out the average number of weeks required to break even and to decide how many weeks we should aim for to make a profitable income. This gives savings to use for rainy days or perhaps to make a bigger dent in any outstanding mortgage.

These are all things that you can use to target your marketing for future seasons, decide on your minimum nights stay, the lowest rate you are able to accept after giving discounts, which type of guest group to avoid or deter.

Services and supplies 

Many service providers and suppliers will increase prices year on year. Using these records you should also be able to find areas where costs can be reduced such as finding cheaper deals on insurance, switching to new energy providers and telephone/ internet providers such as this: Online Exclusive - Plusnet Fixed Price Unlimited Broadband & line rental £19.99 for 12 months plus £50 Reward Card and £5 activation fee
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