Two Aussies took over a hotel in paradise. They lasted eight months

How many of us have played with the idea, in our heads at least, of starting our own small hotel or guesthouse?

I’m not talking about opening an Airbnb where the hosts have little contact with guests.

I’m thinking about that cute hotel on a beach in a magical setting. The country house that has been converted to a homestay. The townhouse in a small village that’s now a B&B.

Paradise imperfect… Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka.Credit: iStock

Places where owner-managers have a personal touch and are in the hospitality game because they truly love meeting people, exchanging stories and seeing their guests happy.

Over the years, I’ve had some memorable stays at hotels where the owners were great characters – very present, helpful and full of charm. It’s a real skill, as I imagine the demands of some guests and the management of staff would put a few cracks in those grins.

I’ve often wondered if I could ever do the same thing.

So many small things annoy me about hotels – no bedside reading lights, doonas in warm climates – that I’d love the chance to get it right. I’m under no illusion it would be hard work, but it would be fun and rewarding, right?

Well, maybe not.

I’ve just finished reading Big Trouble Coming (Valentine Press), an entertaining memoir about running a small hotel in Sri Lanka. It’s written by Australian Dasha Ross who, with her husband, the late John Pinder, renovated and managed a 15-room beachfront hotel in the surfing haven Hikkaduwa in 2012-13.

Ross and Pinder, who had been married 25 years, became unexpected hoteliers when a friend invited them to run his hotel for a year while he was on leave in the UK.

“Eat, pray, run for your life”: Dasha Ross and her late husband John Pinder had a difficult time trying to run a hotel in Sri Lanka. Credit: Tim Bauer

Ross had taken a redundancy from the ABC, where she had been a production executive in documentaries for many years. Pinder, a legendary figure in Australian comedy who had started Melbourne’s groundbreaking Last Laugh theatre restaurant in the 1970s, was without a project, having just lost the sponsor for a comedy festival he had planned.

The couple thought “Why not?’

They accepted the gig with the best intentions. It would be the true sea change many couples dreamed about at this time in their lives.

“Eat, pray and run for your life,” is how Ross now describes the experience.

The location seemed like paradise, even though the place was run-down. But the couple had plenty of ideas and enthusiasm.

They were “Sri Lanka’s most inexperienced hotel managers” but they were creative, well-travelled, open-minded and entrepreneurial. They’d lived in New York’s Harlem and in Barcelona. Pinder, a large man who wore yellow glasses, had overseen nightclubs, festivals and even a rock’n’roll circus. He was probably Australia’s pre-eminent showman and ringmaster.

The task was daunting. The hotel had terrible Tripadvisor reviews for cleanliness and poor service. It was often empty, despite being situated on one of the most popular spots on the south-west coast.

Rising to the challenge, they refurbished a hotel they call “Faulty Palms” in low-cost style, hired and trained new staff and introduced a chef they knew from Barcelona, who created delicious new menus. Guests started arriving in a steady stream based on word-of-mouth, attracted by its boho coolness and the warmth of the hosts.

And it might have worked, except they hadn’t figured on an angry former hotel manager who undermined them at every step, endemic corruption and an owner in the UK who preferred to keep the trouble he created at a distance.

In the end, they lasted only eight months.

Ross says the couple misunderstood how rigid and hierarchical the Sri Lankan social system was. As managers, they were inclusive and encouraging, but any constructive criticism they made of the inept former manager was a loss of face for him.

In one terrifying incident, Ross had to face down the manager when he threatened them. Finally, the violence was so palpable they fled with a few possessions.

As Dasha Ross says, no one in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel got death threats.

It’s a salutary lesson about the complications of following your dream, especially when it involves doing business in another culture.

The corridors of hotels are strewn with stories of people who miscalculated the challenges of hospitality.

My dream of running that cute Sri Lankan guesthouse just got put on the backburner.

When it comes to hotels, I’d rather be a guest, even without a reading light.