B&Bs are the sustainable heart of local communities

British B&Bs are "the world’s best",- and they are ultra-sustainable too. Writes David Weston, Chief Executive of the Bed & Breakfast Association

At its best, tourism should be sustainable, and support local communities. Here in Britain, there is a perfect example: our world-renowned B&Bs. Yes, British B&Bs are "the world’s best", say TripAdvisor’s 120m users: the top two in the world, 6 of the top 10, and 15 of the top 25 are British.

But guest satisfaction is not sustainability (though that satisfaction comes, in large part, from providing an authentic, local experience). B&Bs are sustainable not because they are often high quality, but because they are always small-scale, low-impact, and embedded in their local communities on a truly micro level.

I you stay in a group hotel, much of your tourism pound will go to head office and cascade down long national and international supply chains. At the other end of the accommodation scale, B&Bs keep most of that tourism pound within the immediate village, let alone the region. Supply chains are typically much shorter, and local: many B&Bs buy their breakfast ingredients from local farms – even, in some cases, using eggs from their own chickens, for instance. Not only do B&Bs thus tick the box for a lower carbon footprint, but they also provide guests with the individuality and authenticity that more and more of us now seek.

And many of our more economically fragile communities – in remoter rural or coastal areas, for example – do not have hotels, because there is insufficient business to give a hotel viable occupancy. The only tourist accommodation there is typically in B&Bs – so the tourism spend in the local pub, village shops and nearby attractions depend on those B&Bs supporting that community. Should the local B&Bs close, the knock-on effects would impact many local businesses and the jobs that depend on them – even if, in many cases, those businesses do not even realise it.

This lack of "traceability" of tourism spend is one of the many reasons why Governments have always under-valued our industry. The turnover of pubs, shops and cafes will not be counted as "tourism spend", so the tourism businesses that (at least partly) support it will not be credited.

And B&Bs support more livelihoods even on a direct basis than, say, budget hotels, because there are more owners and staff per guest bedroom in the B&B than in the hotel.

It is the small scale of B&Bs that make the benefit to their communities so local: the economic benefit I have described, but also the social and cultural benefit that comes from guests staying with local hosts and receiving one-to-one individual service. A B&B owner knows the area so well that he or she can recommend to each guest, adapted to the guest’s preferences, what they might enjoy most to do and see – usually biased towards the local and individual too. That is a cultural benefit that won’t be found in a Travelodge or a Hilton.

And these economic, social and cultural benefits from B&Bs are complimented by environmental benefit too: tourists in B&Bs are housed in small numbers across many existing buildings, rather than aggregated in large-scale developments. This is a fundamentally better use of resources. B&Bs often fund the re-use of older, previously under-used buildings.

But does any of this matter? Yes: B&Bs may be individually small, but added together, they represent well over £2 billion of (direct) turnover and some 25,000 micro-businesses right across the UK. Add in that multiplier effect of their guests’ spend on local businesses, and this is a very significant, sustainable part of Britain’s tourism economy.

David Weston is Chief Executive of the Bed & Breakfast Association – the UK trade association for B&B and guest house owners.

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