Setting Up A Catered Chalet Business

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@Timberwolf, Very Happy

A snowHead

I've never complained about slow WiFi. Especially if we're with the kids. Slow WiFi is a bonus, helps getting them interested in other stuff and for longer, as they usually are OK, we played a board game, it was nice, now can we please go back to playing Minecraft? Last winter we didn't bring any computers or tablets. They still managed to get my mom's smartphone when we weren't around!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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@sugardaddy, Laughing

have you ever been on a snowHeads bash? They're all in the same block of apartments and they're organising this evening on snowEvents!

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@Mountain Addiction, This shower issue is totally ridiculous, but I just can't quite let it go. Why do you quote this figure of five hours a day? It's just not relevant. Why not quote 35 hours per week or 630 hours per season? They are equally irrelevant. The only relevant issue is whether the water has time to reheat before the next time people have showers. If your system couldn't reheat the tank between breakfast and early evening, then you have a problem with the system. Either it's too small, doesn't work or else you have a supply problem. If you are grumbling about the amount of water/electricity used, then I sympathise but you have to offset that against the weeks when people take fewer showers.

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@maggi, Checkout Maplin, cctv cameras that look like smoke detectors are easily installed Toofy Grin

You'll never trust a hotel bedroom or gym changing room smoke detector again Confused

After all it is free

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No question, running a chalet is gash.

Scrubbing the can at 7am is no fun.

But every chalet has to provide hot water 24hrs a day.

It is 2016. Not 1916.

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@foxtrotzulu, knowing how the French water heating works, this suggests to me that either they had the water heater switched to only heat up the water between 10pm and 6am on cheaper rate electricity, or that the heaters were just woefully inadequate for the number of guests. My own apartment is somewhat smaller, sleeping 4. In 10 years, I've only had one complaint about hot water, and it turned out that they'd sneaked in an extra visitor. My heater is set to heat overnight only, and there's always been enough for 4 of us to use whatever we needed too. We've ran out once or twice in the evenings when our sons have been with us, but it has always been hot again before bed, as I can switch it onto continuous if I need to.
Many private chalets were never intended to be hotel style accommodation, but were built as second homes for families, and have not necessarily been upgraded to cope with chalet-style holidays.

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Has no-one in France heard of an LPG tank and a combi boiler?

OP... There is your market, looks like you could make enough of a mint to buy several chalets in several resorts for your own personal use wink

Well I haven't a clue what an LPG tank is but we've had no issue with hot water and never had to put any limits in place, so I'm guessing we have one of those Confused

You know it makes sense.

@Hells Bells, Those were my thoughts. Wrong equipment or wrong electricity. Ten people all having 15 minute showers twice a day is sufficiently unusual to stretch the bounds of credibility, but what gets me is that Mountain Addiction is completely unable to see that there might be something wrong with a water system that cannot reheat within 8 hours and that therefore it must be the fault of the guests. I'd quite understand that few HW systems can supply enough water for 10 people to have a 15 minute shower all within a few minutes of each other, but that is apparently not the problem.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@miranda, it was meant tongue in cheek. I'm sure most chalet providers manage fine.

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I'm one of those people who suffers from night sweats unless a bedroom is cold. I can control that at home as the heating goes off before I go to bed and comes on again before the alarm goes off. Hotel/Chalet rooms are different. Normally it is impossible to control the temp unless you switch off the radiator completely but that usually means the room is freezing in the morning. As a result, I have a shower in the morning and again in the evening. I'd be well pissed off if the place I was staying in could not provide enough hot water for me to do that.

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@Gaza, at least it would be a 'refreshing' shower after a hot night!

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@flangesax, Shocked

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Frankly I'm a bit surprised that everyone has such high expectations of hot water availability in ski chalets. Now granted I haven't been on a chalet holiday in years but it was pretty common when I stayed and worked in chalets to run out of hot water. It's quite possible to do it in our apartment if it is full and people choose to have baths. It would also be true in most people's homes if all the rooms were full (when the family is staying for xmas etc). Normally it takes a little planning and give and take to balance supply and demand.

Now I take the point that if you are paying for a holiday then you might expect the operator to have invested in an oversized water heating system to avoid the need to make compromises. Fair enough. Except I'd have thought most chalets on offer are not owned by the chalet operator and the owner may not be willing to invest. For example, I worked in a very nice chalet on the piste in Courchevel 1850. Water supply was a bit of a pain and did take a bit of gloss of what was otherwise an excellent property in an amazing location. The operator had been trying for years to persuade the owners to put a bigger tank and heater in but their response was "No and if that is a problem I have a long list of other people who would like to take it for the season...". A few guests moaned, we apologised and but then they got on with shorter suppliers and checking everyone else had showered before they drew a bath. Very rarely did it become a serious problem.

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@miranda, how do you get your heating and hot water Miranda? Gas tanks or oil tanks supplying a boiler that does he heating and hot water or electric heating?

I think recently built, purpose built large chalets which are fun as catered establishments should have sufficient capacity to cope with all this showering but the problems no doubt are arising in the older buildings that just weren't built with such high standards.

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I think most people round here use oil and yes we have oil tanks + boiler. This is in fact an old building but was completely gutted and renovated with new heating and water system 10 years ago so, yes, that probably helps!

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@jedster, I think most people expect there to be enough hot water, in principle, for the stated number of guests to be able to have showers after skiing. I also think that most guests are pretty understanding about the fact that a chalet is not quite the same as hotel and that hot water systems do sometimes struggle to cope. I think what put people's backs up was:
1. The comment that guests should not be having a shower in the morning, and one in the evening. Many hot water systems will struggle with 10 near-simultaneous showers but every system should be able to reheat the water given eight hours rest. The 'luxury' chalet we stayed in this year really struggled with hot water at times, but the
2. MountainAddiction's attitude that the problem above was solely the fault of the guests.
3. Mountain Addiction's slightly prima donnaish attitude towards her 'professional kitchen', guests who don't know the health and safety regs and an air of 'well, I've done what i'm meant to do so if it goes wrong it ain't my problem'

I thought Mountain Addiction was a man.

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Whilst finding some comments by MA odd, I would say that there are many threads on here about £500 chalet holidays which seem to include unlimited food, drink hot tub quickly hand shandy before dinner, transfers and other freebies, some even have flights included. You pay your money you get what you pay for , and if cheap is what you like don't complain that you can't have two showers a day. If you are less price sensitive and like a better quality chalet, unlimited hot water is a given.
I now prefer to have an apartment but eat out in the evening. My choice my money, but expect unlimited hot water .

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I think you are all a shower (snigger) of wets (snigger2).

One of all time favourite accommodations was the much missed Rifugio Guglielmina. No heating other than the lounge and restaurant, no hot water and only the best rooms had windows that closed tightly enough to keep the snow out on a windy night.

Had some quite spectacular nights up there Sad

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Whilst finding some comments by MA odd, I would say that there are many threads on here about £500 chalet holidays which seem to include unlimited food, drink hot tub quickly hand shandy before dinner, transfers and other freebies, some even have flights included. You pay your money you get what you pay for , and if cheap is what you like don't complain that you can't have two showers a day. If you are less price sensitive and like a better quality chalet, unlimited hot water is a given.
I now prefer to have an apartment but eat out in the evening. My choice my money, but expect unlimited hot water .

@under a new name, Rifugio, as in Mountain Hut, yes? Different experience? Not a pampered family vacation?

You know it makes sense.

Remember staying in Jamtal hutte and paying for a shower token. This got you the 'luxury' of a two-minute shower which is more than adequate for a scruff like me.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@sugardaddy, the Rifugio Guglielmina was a very special place near the top of the mountain above Alagna. I never stayed there but i had a couple of lovely lunches - sort of cabbage and bread and cheese as i recall, total comfort food that was so good I went back the next day for more.

They used to offer a spectacular new years eve party for a limited number of guests. What a pity the place got burned out a couple of years ago.

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@andy1234, I'm lucky enough to be married to a Champoluc quasi-local and we spent many a happy night up there and maybe?3 New Year's from when it was standard rates and nothing special apart from various dishes made from the donkey who'd carried the party Prosecco up the hill and then to the last one, a couple of years before it burned down when it was a not at all cheap but hugely if latterly excellent riot.

Little sorts out a raging NY hangover than stepping straight out onto your skis at 3,300m with a big bowl of powder to ski... wink

They had in fact provided hot water by then, which is a pity as the fire started in the new boiler room.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@bertie bassett, I think H_T's point was that if you can find a suitably profitable non-winter occupation, the winter is no longer any problem.

I refer to my list of optimal and non jobs above.

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@under a new name, thank you for that further insight into the sadly missed Guglielmina Very Happy

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Amusing that in this 4-page extravaganza of arguing about showers, the OP never posted again!!

Maybe all the boiler talk's put him off Laughing

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Yes it could be the idea went off the boil. Or got put on the back burner?

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If I was the OP I'd have long since given up the thought of running a chalet. People wanting 2 showers a day? Shock horror!

After all it is free

It was never going to happen anyway, even without everyone piling on and telling him what a difficult life you have running a chalet.

OK, I'll bite. Other than the douche debate there doesn't seem to be much positivity in this thread about running a chalet company so I'll try and redress the balance a little. I post on here occasionally on another account but as I am still running our company I'd rather remain anonymous.

My wife and I didn't have any hospitality experience when we started and neither of us had done a season or run our own business before we headed to the Alps. We run a small chalet company in one of the larger resorts in France and have done so for 7 seasons. We are planning for our 8th and beyond. In previous seasons we have run a chalet ourselves but now have staff doing the day to day tasks of cooking and cleaning etc for us.

It is very hard work running even a small chalet company. Between winters we are constantly working on marketing and sales to ensure that we can carry on living in the beautiful surroundings that we currently enjoy. We do open in the summer to modest success but the winter could sustain us year round if required.

During the season we work very hard to ensure that standards in the chalets are maintained from week one to week eighteen to twenty. Letting things slip even briefly would result in a blow to our reputation and that could be very damaging. Basically we work our backsides off to make sure that the staff are happy and doing what we expect of them. We provide a full menu for them to ensure that there is a high standard of food provided that works on our budget.

I don't think we necessarily work harder than we used to in civilian life but we do have a very intense period during the winter when it can be hard to maintain the focus and discipline required to keep going. If you were going to run a company with your partner or a friend you would need to think hard about if you can cope with that pressure.

We don't get many difficult guests but when we do we work very hard to manage them and their expectations before they arrive in resort and during their stay. We have always said that if we keep the chalet clean and warm and the food tasty and on time as a minimum standard then people can't have anything to complain about. If we add value on top of that then people start to get more out of their holiday and will come back and spread the word to fellow skiers and boarders. To date this has meant no bad reviews or complaints. If we do get complaints during the week we tend to be firm but fair. A bottle of fizz to have in the hot tub and an apology tends to go an awful long way even if we don't feel like we have done anything wrong.

Budgeting can be difficult with outside factors such as poor snow being a factor but we tend to fair pretty well. Start with a worst case scenario and work upwards. I don't believe that the margins are all that different between higher and lower end chalets but could be wrong about that. A luxury end chalet may cost a lot more but the overheads increase in line with that. Occupancy is the key along with a tight hold of your costs. It's easy to keep guests happy with expensive wine and spirits and high end ingredients, but less so to work on a budget which keeps the guests and business owners happy.

So why do we do what we do? Well it is very satisfying to have a successful business which helps people enjoy their holidays. You get instant feedback when people are happy and enjoying themselves. We get to live in a stunning part of the world and while we don't earn as much money as we would in the UK the snow, views and mountain air are all just as good no matter what your bank balance. Even with a relatively small business we pay a mortgage on a small house out here with what we earn and don't have to work anywhere else outside of the winter to support ourselves. We live modestly but don't want for anything. Before our circumstances changed we rode 3 to 4 times a week during the season which I maintain is a realistic ambition if you are organised and things run smoothly. Our lifestyles here suit us very nicely. We will never be rich doing this but money isn't everything. If we got rich all we'd want to do was ski more and dream of moving to the mountains!

Hope that provides a more balanced view of things. I'll happily answer a few questions within reason.

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@chaletcompanyconfidential, great first post, welcome to Snowheads

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Setting Up A Catered Chalet Business

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