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New life for rural buildings and lands
Background
Abandoned, unused or under-used buildings and lands have the potential to be turned into profitable business activities. In the recent years, the demand for isolated, quiet, and pastoral areas has been increasing. The effect of the pandemic has amplified this trend, especially as people living in urban centres are searching for local and domestic destinations for a getaway. There are different options to accommodate guests, from offering simple camping ground to a more exclusive hotel like experience.
However, if you are looking to invest in the hosting sector you may consider hosting other types of guests than overnight stays. For instance, offering working places for employees looking for quieter place to work for few days or maybe hosting local entrepreneurs looking for an office nearby. Welcoming larger professional groups for seminars and conferences could also be an option depending on your facilities and ambitions. Finally, hosting larger private groups for family gatherings and events is an interesting strategy if you want to get more bookings in the weekends.
Your buildings could also be used or renovated to serve other purposes than hosting. For instance, Gårdfisk saw unused farm buildings as relevant to start a land-based fish farming business. Mushroom production, storage facility or microgreens production are other examples that could fit your unused buildings.
Requirements
The first requirement would be to have access to building or land, including essential service facilities to ensure good hosting conditions. Make a quick research to understand what facilities you may need: parking, electricity, bathroom, laundry room… The list can get long but depend greatly on your aim.
Moving to the hospitality sector can be a big change depending on the current activities of your business. It involves one to be service-minded, patient and have strong interpersonal skills.
To attract customers to your venue you need to be comfortable managing your own marketing and advertising activities. The development of specialised platform can help you to attract your customers. Having close access to touristic natural and cultural attractions and activities but also being accessible by public transportation will also facilitate the flow of customers.
Benefits
As any other new business activities, renting your building capacity will increase your revenues. If well manage you could be looking to increase to profit and find a complementary revenue during part of the year.
Hosting customer on your premise can open the opportunity to offer other complementing services like catering, outdoor activities or training and skills experiences (see strategy Sell Rural Experience).
Challenges
Entering a new sector is a challenge per say. Learning new relevant skills, systems and tricks takes time. Do not underestimate the time and energy to fulfil your customer’s expectation. If you have access to unused buildings, you will certainly need to invest to renovate them. It is essential before investing to analyse the risk and potential involved with the investment. Contact your local rural development agency to investigate if your project is eligible to support for investment.
Developing your business could also mean recruiting extra work force which can be challenging if it is the first you will have to manage staff and all administration it involves.
Extra readings
- Learn from COCONAT, a german business offering workation retreat place in rural setting
- European Federation of Rural Tourism
- European center for ecological and agricultural tourism
- Agri-tourism Worldplatform
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