what to pay interim innkeeper

We have a 2 room B&B and I am interviewing people to cover while we are out of town. How do I figure out a salary? They would work by the day and not sleep here. Duties would be checking in guests, setting out our self serve breakfast, tidying up the room for multi-night guests, checking people out, keeping kitchen clean and some cooking. We will have a cleaning person for in between guests and cleaning the whole house on a regular basis. I think my daughter in law would take care of the reservations and call the interim person to tell them guests are coming. I appreciate any information anyone can give to me. Thank you. Anne McMath, Winding Way Bed and Breakfast & Art Gallery, Rockland ME

How long will they be doing this? How busy are you?

If they are experienced interim innkeepers, they should already have their price structure and tell you what they would charge. From your description, it sounds like instead of an interim innkeeper, you're actually interviewing someone local and when I've done that before, we paid by the hour.

The first time would be 2 weeks. We have no reservations but my daughter would call them if we did. Then I would like to pay them per room per day. What so you think ?

How long are you going to be away? With just a 2 room inn, I would just close the place, block the rooms and go. Is it during a busy time of year? We had a 3 room place and we just close. I don't want the hassle of dealing with strangers in my house and wondering what they are doing and if they are doing things right. If you do get innsitter, I would only choose someone who is experienced in B & B's. You are asking for problems with someone who has never done this before.

Why stay open if you have no bookings? and pay for someone to COME over?

windway said:

The first time would be 2 weeks. We have no reservations but my daughter would call them if we did. Then I would like to pay them per room per day. What so you think ?.

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windway said:

The first time would be 2 weeks. We have no reservations but my daughter would call them if we did. Then I would like to pay them per room per day. What so you think ?

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If you paid per room per day with only two rooms, uh how much is that worth? I guess I don't understand, with the two rooms, and doing this at all?

How long do you want to stay in business?

I have 3 rooms. In June 2011 I closed for the month and went to Europe when I was gifted with a plane ticket. June is busy season but there is no way anyone could stay in MY quarters and there is no other place for anyone to sleep. Any time I am going out of town, I block reservations and go. Got a lady to come in once when I already had reservations and something came up. She was a local and OK but I did not feel good about it. I had checked on the services of a professional innsitter and it would have cost me more than I was going to bring in. The advice given already really is the way to go - close and enjoy your trip. Otherwise you will be worrying about how everything is going, are the guests happy, etc.

windway said:

The first time would be 2 weeks. We have no reservations but my daughter would call them if we did. Then I would like to pay them per room per day. What so you think ?.

Click to expand...

windway said:

The first time would be 2 weeks. We have no reservations but my daughter would call them if we did. Then I would like to pay them per room per day. What so you think ?

Click to expand...

Let me get this straight. You want to hire someone for a 2 week period to keep their schedule totally open in case somebody books and only pay them per room? Doesn't sound like that would be fair to the person you want to hire. I would be afraid I wouldn't have their loyalty. Also, why would you hire another person to do housekeeping?? If there's only 2 rooms whoever you hire should do everything. Unless you expect to be very busy or your rooms are very high end ($$$) it just doesn't seem to be worth it for either side.

Could the housekeeping person do the check-ins, etc? At least that way you're only having to let one extra person into the house while you're gone. Is there another B&B owner in town who would do this for you? If you're not going peak season someone else might be able to come over if the guest were left a note on the door to 'call this number'. Just be sure the guest knows that in advance. (We try to do favors for each other but 2 weeks would be too long for any one inn here to look out for someone else's place.)
Something else to consider- does your town and your insurance allow guests in the house with no one else there? I've never checked the Maine state code on that because we close when we want to go out of town. (If you don't also live in the house right now I guess you've already answered that one!)
This is totally a side note but you have all kinds of rates on your site that are completely different from what is showing up on your booking engine with bedandbreakfast.com. And, you have a resnexus link on your site that is going to a page advertising for them and not to a booking page.