so ...breakfast in a hostel?

[DullM]

@anonymoose, I agree that a hostel with only 20 guests (which means around 4 rooms) is a really risky and unsubstainable business. It won't even be enough to pay the rent, staff, and electricity. In China, most hostels have around 10-50 rooms. Around 10% is a dorm room which have 4-6 beds per each, and the rest is a private room catering to a richer tourist who wants less institutional feeling and more chances to socialize with other tourists. And you may need to invest at least Y300,000 to run a mini-hostel in some second- or third-tier ciies, or 3 million to have a medium-sized one in Shanghai or Beijing. The scale of an accommodation you mentioned is more like to a fairly big homestay rather than a hostel.

Running a hostel can't make you rich, but its income is relatively more stable especially for the first-time entrepreneur.

@Skylee and @imron, I'm also thinking of offering a discount in a cafe attached to the hostel and ask my customers to pay for the breakfast. Running a cafe is not easy though, but it's definitely a plan in the second phrase. When I'm choosing the location, I actually make sure that its location is convenient enough to have a in-house cafe or club.

@imron, do you remember the price of some dishes in the hostel attached to the Jinghua Hotel? The price I saw in Chengdu is around Y25-30 per a set of burger, Y25 for a rice dish... do you think it's a reasonable price?

[imron]

The Jinghua closed about 6-7 years ago. Even if I could remember the prices, inflation would probably make them impossible today. I just remember that unlike other places it didn't feel like you were being ripped off everytime you ordered something 'western' but made entirely with local ingredients (omelettes, burgers etc).