Hotel and guest house owners: fill the winter with long stays

Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch have a large stock of small hotels, guest houses and aparthotels, and most of them know the same calendar: full from Easter to September, then a long, thin winter. The rooms are still there in January, and so are the fixed costs. This page is for owners who would rather fill November to March with long stays than close floors or discount rooms to cover the heating.

Where the winter guests come from

The people who keep a property busy in winter are rarely on holiday. They are contractors on construction and infrastructure projects, people relocating for a new job, NHS and university staff on placements and fixed-term contracts, households placed by their insurer while their home is repaired, families visiting someone in hospital or at university, and remote workers who want a few weeks or months by the sea.

They book for weeks rather than nights, they arrive midweek as often as at the weekend, and they want the same few things: a clean, quiet room or apartment, reliable wifi, somewhere to work, parking and, for the longest stays, a kitchen. Many of the rooms and apartments in a seaside hotel or guest house already have most of that.

Flexiestays: the channel for winter and long stays

Those guests book on Flexiestays, the Flexiestays group's own platform and Bournemouth's number one for winter and long stays. Sea Breeze Property Services is part of the same group. Flexiestays charges only 8% on the bookings it brings.

The big holiday sites are built around short breaks. Flexiestays is built for people who need somewhere to stay for a while, so a guest house room offered for four weeks, or an apartment offered for three months, is shown to the people looking for exactly that.

What we can take on

What we offer depends on what you have.

Self-contained apartments and serviced units. If your building includes flats or apartments with their own kitchen and bathroom, whether in an aparthotel, a converted house or an annexe, we can manage them as we manage any short let: the listings on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Flexiestays and more than 20 other channels, daily pricing, every guest message, 24/7 guest support, check-ins and inspections. Cleaning, linen and maintenance are arranged through trusted local companies you pay directly, or your own staff can carry on. The commission is 16% of booking revenue, with no retainer and no monthly fee. Serviced accommodation management explains how we run units for business and longer stays.

Hotel and guest house rooms. We do not run hotels. If you have rooms within a hotel or guest house, talk to us about distributing them on Flexiestays for winter and long stays. You keep the building, the reception, the breakfast and the housekeeping; Flexiestays brings the long-stay bookings.

Rules and costs to check first

Long stays in a hotel are not the same, in law, as long stays in an apartment, so check a few things before you change how the building is used.

• Business rates. A hotel or guest house is normally already rated as a business. Self-contained apartments can be assessed separately; for self-catering units the test is being available to let for 140 nights and actually let for 70 nights in the previous 12 months. The Valuation Office Agency decides, so check your own assessment.
• Planning. Hotels and guest houses fall in use class C1 and self-contained dwellings in C3. Turning rooms into permanent flats can need planning permission, so speak to BCP Council before converting anything. Letting existing rooms for longer stays is a different question from changing the use.
• Length of stay. A guest in a serviced hotel room is normally still a hotel guest. A self-contained apartment let for months can raise tenancy questions. We use the right agreement for each stay.
• Fire safety and insurance. The fire risk assessment for the building should reflect guests staying for weeks, and your insurer should know how the rooms and apartments are being let.

The holiday let regulations guide covers the self-catering rules in more detail.

Planning the year

Long stays work when they are planned around your best weeks. Easter, the school holidays and the summer stay with your usual guests at your usual rates. Winter and long stays are given end dates that clear those peaks, and you choose which rooms or apartments go on Flexiestays and when. How we run a property through the colder months is on the winter let management page, and stays of one to six months are covered under mid-term let management.

Talk to us

Tell us what you have: how many rooms or apartments, whether they are self-contained, and which months are quiet. We will tell you honestly what we can manage, what Flexiestays can distribute, and what you should check first.