I'm doing an AU that involves Chloé, one where she manages a small bed and breakfast (a Gîtes?) with her father. What can you tell me about hotels in general in Paris (pricing, management, amenity options, etc.) as well as how they vary between price points?
Hmm would you be talking about a guest house (maison d’hôte)? Or an inn (auberge)? A boarding house maybe (pension de famille)?
I usually hear of a gîte (without the S because it’s singular haha) in rural contexts, but I do see on the internet that it counts like a guest house even in a city.
About the management, the Paris tourist office provides a few valuable informations. Basically what you need to know before we go further is that Paris is a very touristic city, and because of that, hotels follow very strict rules to provide quality and security to the huge number of tourists that Paris welcomes everyday.
There are a few golden rules that all hotels need to respect in Paris, as required by the Ministry of the Interior:
To declare the establishment
To inform the clients (as in perfect transparence)
Hygiene within the establishment
To respect security and public health laws
To make my establishment accessible to all public (adapted access and rooms)
To respect public tranquility
I’m just summing up everything because French law is quite thick, so this is going to be a very light post.
Pricing
We said it in an earlier post but the cost of living in Paris is way higher than in the rest of France. One of the examples we had mentioned is that the price of a small studio in Paris would buy you a 4 rooms house in the north of France.
For the record, the high cost of living also implies higher salaries. Not because people are wealthier, but because the salary needs to follow the cost of living and vice-versa. That said, everything in Paris will therefore be more expensive.
It works for hotels too.
However, it is important to note that London remains more expensive in terms of hotels, and that New York’s average is almost the double of Paris’.
Paris Référencement gives you a selection of hotels per standing along with an average price, and as such :
2-star hotel: Starting at 45€ per night (around 50$)
3-star hotel: Generally between 70€ and 100€ per night (around 78$ and 112$)
4-star hotel: Starting at 150€ per night (around 168$)
5-star hotel: Starting around 270€ and goes around 1620€ per night (around 302$ and 1816$)
It is important to note that these prices are only currency conversions and that they do not reflect in any way the purchasing power parities between the United States and France.
It is also interesting to add that prices might differ depending on the hotel’s location as well as its category. As such, a 2-star hotel might price as much as a 3-star because it’s located in a famous neighbourhood.
In terms of boarding houses, inns and guest houses, the pricing goes over a very wide range. Starting from prices as low as 48€, they usually don’t go over 150€. Their main strength is the location. If they’re in a good place, they can afford to rise their prices.
A boarding house near the Jardin de Luxembourg can afford to ask for 70€ per night (which is a bunch if you’re planning to stay for a week).
The reason is that they’re usually managed by the owners directly who pay for everything individually depending on the clients they have. They do not get company prices, and they usually handle everything on their own, including cleaning and cooking. This causes them to have to adapt their price to the minimum wage which is very controlled in France (which is around 68,32€ a day for a monthly wage of 1480,27€).
For the record, the average cost of living in Paris is of 2 256€ per month
Management
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by management. Do you mean supplier prices? Or hiring?
Supplier prices require a consequent order. The quantity makes the price lower than buying everything per unit. I cannot help you with the prices though, but depending on the popularity you want to give to your small bed and breakfast, the choice of going for a supplier order or a unit order remains yours.
Would it be less expensive to buy a few things that won’t rot? Or is it not enough?
For the hiring, the Labour Law is quite controlled in France. You have to declare the person you hire, and pay them above the minimum wage. Firing is very very tricky because you need to have a chaotic antecedent with your employee and have legally and officially warned them about 3 times with a signed paper. Not only that but you need to make sure they have enough to live after they’re fired, and the firing process is long as well, you need to warn beforehand, at least a month before and blablabla. It’s only a small part of it, but you get my point. This entire tricky law makes employers pretty doubtful when it comes to hiring because they can’t get rid of the employee very easily. French people love paperwork.
But I do believe the new Labour Law in France allows the workers to sign their own deal with their employer and bend certain aspects of the law if both parties are okay with that.
You also need to know that hiring a minor person is tricky too. I’m going to try and be very short about it:
The contract needs to be a fixed-term contract, in other words a temporary job and has to be paid as much as any other adult.
A minor under 16 can only be hired during holidays that are at least 14-days long.
Minors cannot work more than 8 hours a day and without a 30 minutes break at least after 4:30 hours.
They get 2 days where they cannot work, and have to not be working for at least 12 hours (for minors between 16 and 18 years old) and 14 hours (for minors under 16).
Minors cannot work by night (they can’t go over 8pm, and can over up to 10pm if they’re over 16)
A medical examination and the authorisation of the legal representative of the minor prior to work
The labour inspection’s authorisation is required 15 days prior to the start of work if the minor is between 14 and 16 years old.
For the anecdote, if you buy a guest house, it usually takes up to 3 years to start making it profitable in regards to the possible building work, the bills, the purchase itself, etc…
In terms of labels, all owners of guest houses and inns need to refer the the aforementioned Tourist Office (of your city, or region) to classify their establishment and gets stars. They need labels, and the stars depend on:
The equipment
The services
Sustainable development
These criteria change every 5 years depending on the evolution of the norms and the stakes of the government.
In terms of required services for a good hotel, the French government put up a nice document online It’s 30 pages of tables, isn’t that great
Don’t feel scared by the screenshot I’m gonna add, I’m gonna explain what you need to know and focus mainly on the management.
From left to right, you have “Economic hotels” “Mid-range hotels” and “high end hotels”, the last column being about very very high end hotels.
I’m going to focus on 1-star and 2-stars but feel free to send another ask if you want more information from this table.
Economic hotels
More known as 1-star hotels. The first line of the table (common to all types of hotels) just repeats the golden rules I gave you at the beginning of this post. Now the second line is about positioning.
This type of hotels is required to provide at least 8 hours a day at least of welcome. It has to provide private or common sanitaries and a hall of at least 20 square metres.
2-star hotels
The main difference is that the minimum welcome hours are now of 10 hours.
The minimum hall superficies have grown by 10 square metres and the hotel has to be speaking at least one european language aside from French.
Amenity options
Since most hotel control depends on the stars of your establishment, I’m going to give you the strict minimum for a very very basic hotel and from there, you can add whatever you want.
What matters isn’t what you end up putting, but the minimum asked.
Opaque hiding from the outside (either through walls or fences, the goal is to give discretion to the clients)
Soundproofing
Electric equipment and sanitaries
Heating (depending on the climate)
Telephone in all the rooms and a switchboard to contact the reception
50% of the rooms have a TV or at least one common room has one.
Good state and cleanliness of all areas frequented by the clients
Good state and cleanliness of all the equipment used by the clients
Furniture for the required equipments (table for the telephone for example)
That is for the most basic requirements. That earns you a 1-star hotel according to the most recent regulations of 2009. Room-service is, in case you wonder, not a requirement for economic hotels. It is, however, mandatory for 5-star hotels.
THIS IS FOR WHAT I MANAGED TO FIND ABOUT HOTELS. The topic is very wide but this post tried to be as exhaustive as possible without being too off-topic.
One last advice is that laws always try to be the most idealistic possible, and all of this probably might make France look like a hotel paradise. But France is flawed like any other country and there are still hotels that do not respect all these laws. The government cannot check all the hotels, and hotel keepers don’t all have the patience to read all these papers or have any ambition to make their hotel big.
So realistically, there will always be bad hotels.
However, I wish you good luck for your AU, and remain at your entire disposal for any further questions!