The hospitality industry is an industry that primarily focuses on customer satisfaction and meeting the leisurely needs rather than basic everyday needs of people. Hospitality is one of the fastest growing global industries, and it adds one new job every 2.5 seconds.
A lot of sectors are included in the hospitality industry and some of them are; transportation, restaurant, general tourism and event planning. The food and beverage segment represents the largest percentage of the overall hospitality marketplace with nearly 7 billion in revenue in the united states alone in 2013.
The hotel industry grew from $133 billion in 2009 to over $176 billion in 2014 in the United States. The hospitality industry contributes US$7 trillion annually to total world domestic gross product, and it employs approximately 266 million people, which represent 9.1 percent of all jobs worldwide.
The hospitality industry is indeed a very profitable industry, and it has a whole lot of sectors that an aspiring entrepreneur can comfortably latch onto and make tidy profits for him or herself in a short while. If you want to start a business in the hospitality industry, here are 50 business ideas you can consider.
Best Hospitality Business ideas
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Open a resort
Resorts are exclusive locations that offer luxury accommodation and other activities such as sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving and surfing. You can always rely on the natural beauty of the particular location you have chosen to build an alluring resort that can attract visitors to you.
To diversify or to get people of various tastes, you can install spas, amusement parks, casinos or night clubs to take care of nightlife. To get patronage from tourists, your resort should be the perfect description of a tropical paradise.
You can have various kinds of rooms to suit various pocket sizes such as guest rooms, suites, villas and unique lofts that offer modern amenities and spectacular scenery. This business is very capital intensive but can offer great returns on investment if properly promoted.
One of the major areas of hospitality is hotels. People always need where to stay when they are away from home, and building hotels are one way to draw in tourists.
Adding breakfast to your offerings may help you get frequent patronage because it is on record that people prefer hotels that offer meals than ones that don’t. This business is very capital intensive, so you have to prepare for it. You can equally skip the hassles of building a big hotel and just start a small and manageable bed and breakfast.
Nothing speaks carefree as a place where people can let down their hair and dance the night away. The stress relief gotten from clubs make it part of the hospitality industry. You can set up a club where you serve the choicest drinks and meals, and where the DJ is not lacking in his or her duties. This would sure give you a good name in the industry.
4. Produce and sell allergy cards
People are always excited when they visit a new location, and they usually want to get a taste of the local cuisine. A lot of people cannot do this due to certain allergies. An allergy card enumerates all foods that the holder of the card may be allergic to so they can present it to local restaurants and save themselves from having allergies.
You can setup a business that produces such cards in the native language of various countries and sell such cards to travelers and tourists. People who travel with allergy issues often look for allergy cards in the new location where they arrive. You can initiate a business of providing allergy cards in many languages as home based basis.
One major area in the hospitality industry is transportation. People would always need to move around, and you can provide this service for a profit if you have some cars at your disposal.
You can start shuttling people that arrive at the airports to their final destination, and you can also handle luggage services. To promote your business, you have to ensure that you give out your numbers to happy customers so that they can further contact you to take them to events and tourist attractions in the area.
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Organize boat tours
If you live in an area with a major water body, you can start offering boat tours. It should be noted that tours given from a boat gives tourists a completely different view of the area.
You need to get to know the different routes, the wildlife on display, and any famous landmarks or homes on the waterside. Also, try to conclude or accompany the tour with a relaxing stop-off at a local, authentic pub so your guests can relax.
7. Start a parent help agency
Parents usually have a full hand while travelling with their children, and having to also man several boxes of luggage would definitely stress them out. You can start a parent help agency that can help parents transport their luggage, while they just go with their children.
The idea behind this business is allowing parents to leave behind all baby necessities in your care; then you can just order them online and deliver the items to your client’s holiday destination, thus making traveling lighter and easier.
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Start a destination wedding service
A popular trend for adventurous couples is destination weddings, or getting married in a faraway location. If you reside in places like tropical islands with pristine lakes, snow capped mountains and scenic views, a destination wedding service may be a smart business for you to start.
You can offer wedding planning, or help couples who decide to get married on the spur of the moment during their vacation get the necessary paperwork they need, including an officiant, a location, photographers etc.
9. Organize ghost tours
A ghost tour is a special tour that takes visitors to locations with paranormal activity or history. These tours are typically done in the evenings to enhance their effect, and a live tour guide is often used. Ghost tours are also called spirit tours or haunted tours, and they are only for people who are interested in the paranormal. You can also visit the most unusual restaurants and bars in the location to liven things up for your guests.
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Open a steam bathing center
One other business that screams hospitality is a steam bathing center. A steam bath is a steam-filled room that is used for relaxation and cleansing. Having regular steam baths is said to provide a variety of health and beauty benefits, and it is suitable for almost anyone.
It is a fact that anyone who goes on vacation would like to take advantage of the period to relax and as such they are always eager to go for a steam bath. In order to supply this necessity, you can open your own steam bath if you are familiar with the essentials.
To make your business profitable, you can choose to locate it next to a hotel or resort, and you can also arrange with the management of the hotel or resort to make it part of the services they offer their clients when they pay to stay at the hotel or resort, so your money can be deducted by the hotel and paid to you.
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Open a food mart
It is a known fact that food businesses are profitable business because people would always eat. When starting a food mart in your area, you should take account of the different tastes of the visitors that flock there and endeavour to stock food and local produce that would appeal to them.
You can specialize in quick, convenient, ready to heat and ready to cook items; you can go for instant lunch, dinner and school snacks; or you could just go for desserts and other frozen foods. While picking foods for your mart, ensure to make provisions for Halal and kosher products so as to cater to those that prefer it.
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Start an ethnic eatery
Certain tourist destinations get a lot of visitors all year round and these visitors come from different ethnic backgrounds. If you are a chef and you live in such an area, you can start an ethnic eatery to cater to the different types of ethnicities that visit your community.
You have to first conduct a survey to find out which ethnic group frequents your island so that you would not prepare meals that nobody would eat. You can equally serve food from two or three ethnic groups, or as much as you can handle. A lot of people who miss their traditional dishes will definitely love to patronize you.
Yoga is getting ever more popular, which means yoga centers are more in demand than ever—making this another physically rewarding hospitality related business idea. If you are a certified yoga instructor, you can open your own yoga center where you get to teach people this ancient art of relaxation and meditation. This business would surely pay your if you have the patience to grow your center.
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Become a tour guide
A tour guide is a person who provides assistance, information on cultural, historical and contemporary heritage to people on organized tours. If you live in an area where travelers frequently visit and if you love meeting new people, starting your own local tour company is arguably the best business idea that will give you both of those perks.
You can comfortably start guiding people on tours while still working your own full time job. If you have a trusty van or vehicle, you can arrange to take people to tourist attractions at your convenience.
A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism related services to the public on behalf of suppliers such as airlines, car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, travel insurance etc. A travel agency is one good business to set up in the hospitality industry because people would always go on tours. You can help tourists arrange their trips, accommodation and tours for the duration of their stay.
A taxi service is another hospitality related service that aims to help tourist get around. You can make available taxis to take people to their various destinations. Effective publicity and good service is what would enable you carve a comfortable niche for yourself.
Some people are very independent and would always want to drive themselves around no matter which continent they are at any particular point in time. This set of people would always want to rent cars when they arrive at new places in order to explore the scenery the way they want.
You can start a car rental service to cater to visitors who would prefer to ride themselves. You can make available cheap as well as expensive cars in your rental service and you can as well rent motorcycles and bicycles to cater to every pocket.
A craft is an activity involving skill in making things by hand. If you have any artistic skills or crafty hobbies, you might just have one of the essential building blocks of a successful business, especially if you reside in a tourist location because visitors always value indigenous crafts.
If you have accumulated quite a number of handmade crafts, you can set up a small shop in the city shopping center where you get to sell your crafts. You can also approach other crafts people and offer to market their products too.
People always like to preserve unique experiences for life, and when people embark on tours, they always want to have reminders of that experience. This would make a photography business a sure hit wherever it is set up. You can position your services in places where tourists frequent.
You should be able to take artistic photographs to keep your customers coming back. For example, if you are able to take well-timed pictures of someone riding the waves, diving or doing just about anything, then you would succeed with the business.
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Open a surf shop
If there are surf beaches close to you, this can present a great business opportunity for you as an entrepreneur. You can make money by opening a surf shop that is stuffed with various surfing equipment.
Most tourists who are visiting your island would like to surf but they may not come with their surfing equipment, which allows you to make money from this business. Your surf shop needs not only sell but could also carry out rentals of surfing equipment.
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Organize fishing tours
Most islands are usually fishing hotspots, and most tourists like to engage in the fishing activities when they travel to such islands. If you have a boat and are business savvy, you could turn this activity into a money spinner by offering fishing tour services and taking tourists out to the reef.
This will really be beneficial to your business especially if you have unique fishing spots that tourists would love. You need to be smart in this business, and ensure that you are always on the lookout for special spots.
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Start a community museum
If you love arts and culture, and your community has a lot of history that is worth sharing, you should consider starting a community museum, a place where the art and culture of your community can be preserved. Many tourists are bound to visit such museums whilst on vacation.
Apart from the revenue that this business will generate from visitors and tourists, your business will also receive grants and funding from individuals, donor agencies, corporate organizations, as well as the government.
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Start a translation service
Speaking French, German, Polish, Japanese or any other language for that matter, and then assisting natives of those countries, could be a lucrative little venture.
Having a reliable translation service would help people be more relaxed wherever they are. Another way of selling your services is to translate brochures, documents, menus and even websites into other languages for local hotels and restaurants.
Private escort firms provide security for individuals most especially tourists and other kinds of visitors who would want to move from one location to another with valuables, which could involve cash, jewelry, art and other of such kind of valuables.
Before you startup this business though, you have to make enquiries about the various licenses and permits you would need. However, this is a business that is guaranteed to bring you good income.
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Open an online lodge booking site
This is another fantastic business idea that can bring in a good income. Tourists often require a place to stay, and most are comfortable booking for their lodging before they arrive. You would need to network with lodges, bed and breakfast places, hotels, motels and so on, to get them listed on your site.
To do this business and make money, you would need to agree on a commission or percentage that you will get once a customer books for lodging through your site. You would need to massively advertise your site to both lodges and customers.
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Sell swim suits and other beach paraphernalia
Beach hotels abound, and these hotels always have an abundance of activities that occur at the beach, and you cannot go to the beach, or go swimming for that matter without a swimwear.
This is a business that a smart entrepreneur can go into and make money especially as some tourists usually do not travel with their bathing suits, mats, buckets, spades etc. preferring to buy locally. Your shop can be located close to the beach so that it would make it easier for those that are without to get one for themselves.
A water park is an amusement park that features water play areas such as swimming pools, water slides, splash pads, water playgrounds, and lazy rivers, as well as areas for bathing, swimming, and other barefoot environments. If you reside in an area that is mostly hot and humid, you can set up a water part because this recreation activity would be more attractive to tourists, even locals more than an ordinary amusement park.
Though setting up a water park can prove very capital intensive, but you are sure to recoup your investments in a short while if you properly market your park and if your park has loads of really entertaining water facilities.
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Start a Tropical village exploration service
Tourists when they go on vacation in tropical islands often like to explore the villages. You can cash in on this desire to start a business if you reside in a tropical island. During peak tourist seasons, you can organize group tours to enable the visitors explore the village. It is best these explorations are guided to avoid accidents.
Thousands of tourists are drawn to tourist centers every year, which inevitably means thar there are many people who return home with gifts for family and friends. Opening a gift shop is a sound business idea, and it is even a needed service.
Try to differentiate yourself from other tourist shops by offering authentic merchandise instead of only selling generic items such as T-shirts, key chains, and mugs.
If you can, offer items made by local artists and crafters like artisan jewelry; postcards made from art prints by local artists; music CDs of local bands etc. To add more revenue to your business, launch a website where customers can buy more gifts later. By selling your merchandise online, you can reach people all over the world, and market your business to future tourists.
If you reside in an area that has some of the world’s most delicious, exotic, and fresh ingredients, then you can take advantage of this bounty by opening a restaurant. You do not have to open a large location if you do not have the finances and sponsorship.
You can instead offer intimate dining for select customers. The key to success in this business is offering local cuisine as opposed to other specialties. Another option is to open a bakery that serves traditional breads, pastries and desserts.
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Become a travel/hospitality blogger
You can blog from just about anywhere. But if you enjoy spending time at tourist attractions, then travel blogging may be the right niche for you. Note that you have to move around to bring your readers news about the different places that exist in the world.
So, don’t just sit at a place – you need to hull your butt around – practically. As a travel blogger, travelling is just one of the many things you need to do to keep your blog successful.
You also need to reach out to would-be advertisers, respond to potential advertisers, edit photos and videos to post, assemble promotional materials, pitch travel and hospitality contacts, write for other sites, Facebook group networking, tweaking site design, tracking financials, link building, doing keyword research, reading other travel blogs, and maintaining a presence on social media.
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Build a shopping center
One very good attraction of tourist destinations are shopping centers where visitors can find things indigenous to the areas, and where locals can sell their produce.
This is a great hospitality business idea. You can start a full shopping center that is packed with all sorts of different shops including fashion shops, perfumeries, souvenir stores, plenty of bars and restaurants. Building a shopping center can be capital intensive, but you can get returns on your investments in a few years especially if your center is quite popular.
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Open a sauna
A sauna is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities.
People take sauna baths to relive stress and relive various health complications. This is one good business to start in the hospitality industry. A lot of visitors would indeed want to take advantage of their holidaying period to pamper their skin and improve their overall health.
The world is filled with exercise buffs who would want to stay fit wherever they are. This then means that a fitness center is a necessity no matter where you are. If you are a certified fitness trainer and you love to train foreigners, you can open a fitness center to take care of both visitors and locals that are very conscious of their health.
Another business that an entrepreneur can successfully launch in the hospitality industry is a seafood restaurant. This type of business can be highly profitable if you live in an area that has abundant rivers where these sea animals can be freshly caught.
If you are a skilled chef, you can whip up very delicious and unique seafood dishes that people cannot resist. From tender sushi to lobster dishes and even shrimp kebabs, you can give everyone a taste of their favorites and even something more.
If you can make something unusual but attractive that will serve as a visual reminder of a visitor’s day to a certain area, then you have a good business on your hands. Selling of souvenirs is one business that would thrive in a tourist concentrated area. If you cannot make these items yourself, you can search out skillful local creators in your area and offer to sell their works.
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Start an airport baby space
Traveling with an infant can sometimes become burdensome, and because of that, many airports are now setting up areas where parents can attend to their babies. If you research and notice that a particular airport is lacking such services, you can setup your own private baby space in the airport and charge parents a nominal fee to use your facility.
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Start a Luggage Delivery service
Another great idea is to offer door to door luggage delivery for travelers and tourists. This helps tourists with bulk luggage to go directly to their hotels without going through the hassle of waiting for their luggage. You get to collect these luggage and deliver them straight to the hotel rooms of your customers. This is another profitable hospitality related business idea that would not cost you an arm and a leg to set up.
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Hospitality Business Networking
The hospitality industry has gone a step further from travel agencies. There now exist agencies that take care of all aspects of your tour or travel down to the tee. These businesses are called hospitality business networks.
What these agencies do is that they set up a service system online where business people can enter their flight details as well as the purpose of their travel on the management tool used and the company will help them contact and make connections with the people or businesses in that area the business traveler would like to meet up with.
40. Start a catering service
Catering is another business idea that takes its roots from hospitality. If you are a qualified caterer or someone who is interested in the business, you can start a catering service that caters to weddings, birthdays, official and unofficial events.
41. Start a bird guide/tour company
Because of the different species of birds that can be found in places like tropical islands, you can start a bird guide or bird touring company to take visitors on tours to watch the birds in their natural habitats; that is if you live in such a place.
You can start small at first and just offer bird tours where you guide visitors to some great bird watching spots that people would likely not find on their own. Book everyone yourself, take care of everything yourself until the idea catches on and you have too many customers to handle all alone. You can then hire guides and start selling the package with travel agencies on commission basis.
42. Start a coffee shop
It is a known fact that people cannot do without their daily coffee fix. Create homemade cakes, buns and breakfasts, and pair these feasts with fresh hot coffee or cocoa drinks, to entice both visitors and locals alike. Memorabilia and a stylish décor will enhance the experience, and these venues can also be used to host networking events and live music/arts.
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Ayurveda Tourism
Ayurveda is a therapy that promises holistic wellness. The natural herbs and oils used in the therapy are of great medicinal value as is said in the Vedic literature on Ayurveda. There is a strong potential for the growth of Ayurveda tourism globally. Ayurveda tourism is one of the most trending small business ideas in the hospitality industry, and you can start it with moderate capital investment.
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Become a community Tour Guide
Personal or community tour guide business is getting quite popular now. If you are living in an area that has a lot tourist’s footprint, you might consider starting this business. You can comfortably operate this business from home. Other than local classified advertising, you can also get clients from other businesses operating in the travel and hospitality industry.
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Give Eco tours
Ecotourism is traveling and visiting new unexplored places that protect the environment and also looks after the welfare of the local people residing in that area. Ecotourism is one of the great choices for nature lovers who also love adventure travel.
Ecotourism business industry makes up 6% of the GDP all over the world, and you can start this business with minimal capital. Just ensure you are familiar with these tourist destinations, and you are able to publicize the business.
Hookah bars have become very popular in recent times, and tourists, even locals are always attracted to them. This is one hospitality business that comes alive in the evening. Because of its novelty, people see it as a way to hang out with friends.
A truly passionate entrepreneur can initiate a hookah bar lounge business with strategic planning and substantial capital investment.
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Start a Vacation Property Rental Agency
If you are living in a high-traffic tourist are, you might consider starting a vacation property rental service business. You can become a vacation property rental agent and help people have a great vacation away from home. This business is not so demanding as you can work from your own home. If you are not into properties and rentals, you can take a course to jump-start your new career.
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Open a Curio shop
People on vacation are always seeking to purchase souvenirs for those back home. To fill this need, you can open a curio shop in your area. In this business, you need to provide your customers a variety of artifacts to choose from as well as making sure not to charge exorbitant prices that are likely to drive them away to your competitors.
Every piece of art has a story and if you make known to your customers the cultural value of each one of them, with a friendly smile, it will be difficult for them to resist buying from you and thus, boosting your curio business.
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Become an Online Tour guide
If you live in an area with a lot of tourist activities, one obvious business to do is to become a tour guide, and you can do it online. You do not need an office to rent and employees to hire. Just launch an effective website explaining what services you offer and how businesses and individuals can use your help.
You will have to invest money into a good website with proper SEO to drive organic traffic. You will need an impressive portfolio and at least five testimonials received from happy customers.
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Start an outdoor restaurant
Nothing can beat the pleasure of having dinner under the night sky, with the stars as your only cover. You can take advantage of this pleasure that can only be enjoyed when winter and the biting cold is no more to start an outdoor restaurant.
You would surely get patrons if your restaurant is well situated and you prepare a variety of meals. You can also provide bands that your guest can dance to while they lounge around or drink.