Thread: Hello all!!!

Was just wondering if any of you have any advice for me!! my mum & I are thinking of tasking the leap of faith & relocating to Spain (poss Costa de La Luz or some such area) to take over a B&B/guesthouse business.

We have no clue where to start, as it all seems such a mine field!!!
Any help/advice very welcome!!!

Hi there cornish-bird
Welcome to the AbsoluteSpainForum!
I have moved your thread to the "Doing business in Spain" forum. You might want to specify a bit more about what sort of aspects of starting a business you want advice on so that the answers you get are as helpful as can be.

Somewhere on the various expat sites I read a good piece of advice. It is not a good idea generally to try and start a new business in a new country if you have not done that business in your own country.

I have been here in Spain for a few years, travelling around I have not seen many B&B /Guest houses. Thats not to say there are none, nor that it would not work.

To find out about all the in and outs you would need good spanish and/or a gestor to wade through all the different elements required. EVERYTHING in Spain takes sooo much longer than you hope expect and need.

This is not a step to be taken lightly. Presumably you are talking about a Casa Rural. If you are thinking of taking over an existing business much of the paperwork will already be in place but there will be a lot more paperwork and heartache before you are up and running and I would have thought that purchasing a going concern would be a fairly expensive exercise.

As ValL says, try to find a gestor who is experienced in such work. That is a gestor not a lawyer.

As an Ex-Hotelier, I would not encourage anyone at this time to consider going into the Hospitality Industry unless they were fully experienced and totally funded. These are hard times and going to get harder . I think this advice applies either here or in the UK.
To run any business in Spain I really believe that at least one person involved should be completely fluent in Spanish, especially if that business involves providing a service directly to the public, the vast majority of your potential customers will not speak English.