B&B or Hotel? What's in a name?

[Owens88]

Reading this thread I wonder about the emphaiss/dependency on the notion of 'family run'.

While I can see a 'Market Positioning' based on the notional benefits of a family-run ambience I cannot for the life of me see how legally enforceable regimes could apply on that basis. Don't employ any staff unless they are relations by blood or marriage ?

(NB This is completely different to 'sharing the facilities of the family occupying part of the building'which I think is part of the chambre d'hote ethos)

 

But good luck to all who are giving a good service.

John

 

[mascamps.com]

I think you're right about it being difficult to police a definition that had as part of it "family run". My point of the "family run" aspect is that I think that was the underlying reasoning behind the origin of the 5/6 room limit as it was intended that the CdH should be a supplement to the family's income rather than an income in its own right. Therefore, as merely a supplement you'd hardly be expecting to have to employ people to run the thing, certainly not doing key things like greeting the guests and cooking.

I think that, in practice, when you go much beyond the 5 or 6 room total you would be forced to employ staff as you simply couldn't do it all on your own and my thinking is that that's why the limit was actually set at that level. Certainly any documentation that I've read very much emphasises the family aspect but, as you say, that isn't a definition that could realistically be used in law.

Where I think problems (or "issues" depending on your point of view) have arisen is that since they originally definied the CdH and gites in law all those years ago a growing number of people have started to run the things as standalone businesses. Certainly when you get to a place with 6 CdH rooms plus 5 gites I don't really see that being anything like the original thinking in terms of ambiance or anything else. To my mind anything of that scale is a holiday complex and not really a CdH/gite place. The one place locally that's that size is actually larger than the local hotels and presumably needs to employ a broadly similar number of staff too (OK, not in the cooking & greeting aspects due to the self-catering nature of the gites but I know we'd not be capable of cleaning a place that size on our own so there must be a small army of cleaners employed).

 

Arnold