I'm the odd one, mom and pop motel, no employees, 8 rooms. We don't offer breakfast, but average 2 beds per room so perhaps more linen. We didn't have any experience either, just sounded like something we wanted to do, going on 24 years now and still love it. Started in our late 40's, now in our 70's, until recently Maxine did the lions share and I worked a weekday job and assisted evenings and weekends.
Similar area, Western North Carolina, ski business generally mid-December to mid-March, warm weather business from mid-May through October. I'd call us a life style business, we earn a life we enjoy. Most profit has always gone back in the business, we lived on the salary from my other job. Your success may well depend on your financial position and the cost of the property that interests you.
The work can be steady, I don't think of it as hard, but like any home there is always a job that needs doing. Much of our business centers around weekends and holidays, good mid-week business only in certain peak seasons, most time you will see a pattern and find ample time to run errands or take off for an afternoon without harming business.
Our first few years we took no holiday time, then started for many years taking long weekends at Easter and Thanksgiving when child was out of school, but in the last few years have locked up and took much of April and November for our holiday, at 72 either we take some time now or maybe miss the opportunity.
In our early years we answered the phone round the clock, soon found folks that called in the middle of the night often cancelled in the light of day, these days I answer the phone 9 to 9, but that may include returning a message from the machine if we are away from home. Folks do at times check in at late hours, ski season folks tend to be younger and many don't arrive until late.
Again we don't serve breakfast, not sure how we would fit that job in to our schedule, would have been difficult in the earlier days when I left the business to head to a day job..
