Keep your B&B open or close it over Christmas and New Year? Decide in September, not in December

It is September, the summer has just wrapped up, and the festive season still feels a long way off. Yet this is the moment to decide what you will do over Christmas and New Year. Not because guests are already booking in droves (although the first enquiries do start to arrive), but because in September the decision is still a choice. In December it is a fact: either your calendar is full and you are committed, or it is empty and the revenue is gone.

This article helps you make that choice deliberately, and then set it up so you never have to look at it again.

First the honest question: do you actually want to?

Many owners of a small B&B live in or next to the property. Staying open over Christmas means serving breakfast on 25 December, preparing rooms on 31 December, and possibly a guest ringing the bell at 11 pm on New Year's Eve because the key does not work. That is not a problem — it is the job — but it is something different from renting out a room in July.

Ask yourself three questions before you look at the numbers:

1. Who carries the load? If your partner or children help with breakfast or cleaning, this is a family decision, not a business decision.
2. What is your alternative? Some owners are at home over Christmas anyway and find a few guests in the house more cosy than tiresome. Others want that week away.
3. What did you do last year, and how did it feel? If in January last year you thought "never again", trust that feeling now rather than the revenue.

There is no wrong answer. A B&B that closes for two weeks and restarts rested in January loses less than an owner who is worn out by February.

Then the numbers: what does staying open cost and what does it bring in?

If you are unsure, calculate per period rather than for "the holidays" as a whole. The festive season consists of three clearly different weeks:

• The week before Christmas (roughly 18 to 23 December): usually quiet. People are preparing celebrations at home. Christmas markets and cities do attract visitors, but often for a single night.
• Christmas itself (24 to 26 December): strongly dependent on your location. In a city with a festive atmosphere, or a rural setting where people want to "get away for a bit", this can be full. Elsewhere it is quiet.
• The week between Christmas and New Year (27 December to 2 January): for most B&Bs the strongest week of the entire winter season. Guests stay longer, are willing to pay more and often book early.

Set against that what being open costs you: heating rooms that would otherwise stay cold, breakfast shopping, possibly extra cleaning help, and — harder to express in euros — your own time on days when most people are not working. If you only stay open for the week around New Year, you keep most of the revenue and the smallest share of the burden.

A useful tool: look in your PMS at occupancy and average room rate for the last two festive seasons, per week. More on that in Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. If the week before Christmas looked empty last year, you do not need to put energy into it this year.

Three workable scenarios

Scenario A: fully closed. From, say, 22 December to 3 January. Simple, restful, and entirely legitimate. Do block it now, so no booking arrives in November that you would rather not refuse.

Scenario B: only the week around New Year. Closed at Christmas, open from 27 December to 2 January. For many small B&Bs this is the best balance: Christmas at home, then the best week of winter. Consider a minimum stay of three or four nights here, so you do not have a new arrival every day.

Scenario C: fully open, with packages. If your location or your audience allows it, turn the holidays into a product: a Christmas package with an extended breakfast or an aperitif, or a New Year package with a late check-out on 1 January. How to put one together is in Creating packages and arrangements. Charge a higher price and apply a stricter cancellation policy, because a cancellation on 23 December is rarely refilled.

Rates: higher, but not random

The festive season is one of the few moments when a small B&B can charge a supplement without embarrassment. Guests expect it. Keep it logical, though: a supplement on New Year's Eve and the nights around it is normal, a supplement on 19 December is not.

What works well:

• A fixed holiday rate for 24 to 26 December and for 30 December to 1 January, clearly above your regular winter rate.
• A minimum stay of two nights around Christmas and three or four nights around New Year. How to set that up without creating gaps is in Setting a minimum length of stay.
• A non-refundable rate for the New Year nights, possibly alongside a slightly more expensive flexible rate.

What you should not do: give a discount in November because it is "not full yet". The festive-season booker decides late. Someone who looks on 10 December and sees a free room simply books it at the regular price.

Lock it in today in your PMS

The biggest risk of "we'll see" is that an OTA delivers a booking for 25 December in November that you did not want. Then you have to cancel, with all the consequences for your ranking and your peace of mind. Fifteen minutes of work in September prevents that:

1. Block the dates you are closed in your PMS, for all rooms at once. A good PMS pushes that block to Booking.com, Airbnb and your own website, so you are not accidentally available anywhere. In BedFlow PMS you do this from the calendar with a single block across all rooms; the how and why is in Blocking your calendar for own use or maintenance.
2. Set your holiday rates as a rate rule for the chosen dates, not as a manual adjustment per night. That way they stay in place even if you change your base rate later.
3. Set the minimum stay for the same period.
4. Adjust your cancellation policy for the New Year nights if you want a stricter arrangement.
5. Add a note to your guest communication. If you are open, let your confirmation email say what guests can expect: breakfast times on public holidays, whether a restaurant nearby is open, and when you are reachable. That prevents most questions on 24 December.

Communicate your closure, not your doubt

If you close, say so on your website and in your Google Business Profile. "Closed from 22 December to 3 January — we look forward to welcoming you again from 4 January" is clearer than an empty calendar people search in vain. Guests who stayed before and are now planning a Christmas break may book for February instead of not at all.

If you are open, say that actively too. A short email to previous guests in October — "we are open between Christmas and New Year, and a few rooms are still available" — is the cheapest marketing there is. How to set up such an email is in Email newsletters for your B&B.

In short

• Decide in September, and decide per week rather than for "the holidays".
• The week around New Year is worth it for most B&Bs; Christmas itself depends on your location; the week before usually is not.
• Closing is a perfectly valid choice. Just block it now, across all channels at once.
• If you stay open, do it with a higher rate, a minimum stay and a stricter cancellation policy.
• Let your PMS do the work: blocks, rate rules and minimum stay are set once and apply everywhere.

Want to lock in your festive season now without logging into five extranets? Try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days, no card details required. Rates are on the pricing page, and the documentation explains how to set up blocks and seasonal rates.