After a decade in Korea's guesthouse world—from front desk to operations director—one truth stands: the work still feels like love, not labor. Here's why some people never leave.
12. Still, I Love Guesthouses.
Writer: CHLOE, Operations Director at Suksobaljunso (https://brunch.co.kr/@merrychloemas)
Editor: ONDA's Somora Manager
CHLOE, Operations Director at Suksobaljunso
Hi, I'm CHLOE, co-founder and Operations Director at Suksobaljunso—a company that specializes in guesthouse operations outsourcing and training.
I started in the hospitality industry as guesthouse staff. Then I broadened my horizons as general manager of a franchise guesthouse chain and later through sales and partner support roles at ONDA, an integrated booking management service. Now I'm back focusing on guesthouse operations—living and working in that world again. I want to share the operational know-how I've built from playing different roles and running properties with different concepts.
Photo by Florinel Gorgan on Unsplash
Why I Can't Quit Guesthouses
My relationship with guesthouses started as work. I experienced guesthouses as staff first, not as a guest. I've stayed at more guesthouses for work than for travel. They say when something you love becomes your job, your feelings change. But for me, guesthouses were work from the start—and it was work I loved. Maybe that's why I was able to keep that pure affection for so long.
That pure love for guesthouses has let me accumulate diverse experiences in the industry—including writing this piece. One of my bucket list items was to write consistently enough to publish a book. Contributing columns to Magazine ON has helped me practice writing steadily, bringing me one step closer to that goal. The fact that all of this started with guesthouses is reason enough not to quit.
Saying goodbye to a Russian family who stayed for two weeks. Choosing guesthouses was my decision, and I wanted to give it my all.
The truth is, no one pushed me into guesthouses. My love for them was my own choice, and I wanted to take full responsibility for that choice. Maybe that sincerity came through—now people sometimes ask me not to give up on guesthouses. Now that "guesthouse" has become one of my defining traits, I can't quit.
Unfortunately, the "you'll hate what you love once it becomes work" rule eventually applied to me too. Over time, my feelings became a love-hate relationship. I lived through both the boom and the bust, and sometimes my affection for guesthouses would surge; other times, just hearing the word "guesthouse" made me cringe. But my feelings for guesthouses kept growing. Partly because it's what I've poured my time into longest—but also because I simply couldn't escape the magic of guesthouses.
What is it about guesthouses that has me so hooked I can't let go? I decided to answer that question myself. So I started writing. And this is the final chapter.
Between last December and now, I've written 13 pieces—and a lot has changed for me in that time. Thanks to these essays, I've taken on new properties, launched a YouTube channel about guesthouse operations, and spent time away from the operator's seat to think about operations objectively. But the most satisfying result? I finally understood why I was so devoted—even obsessed—with guesthouses. In the end, I rediscovered the passion I'd been losing to the grind of daily operations.
"Reclaiming Peace of Mind"
When I took on my 11th property overall—7th as an outsourced operator—I was deep in a slump. I wanted to find or create something innovative in guesthouse operations, but I kept spinning my wheels. The reason was simple: I had no mental bandwidth for new ideas. I was chained to operations, constantly exhausted, fixated on boosting sales and occupancy rates. I'd completely lost myself.
So I forced myself to take regular days off and tried to stop thinking about guesthouses, even briefly. A property's condition mirrors the operator's condition—the moment I lost my peace of mind, gaps started appearing everywhere in the property, making everything more painful. If I didn't rest, those gaps would multiply and recovery would become impossible. That's when I started letting go of my near-obsessive attachment and looking at the property from a distance, from a different angle. Getting regular rest while running a property is incredibly hard. But trying is what matters. So I made time for other things I enjoyed, gave myself space to breathe, and worked on viewing the property with fresh eyes.
What brought my affection back was visiting new spaces. Ideally, I'd visit well-run properties with great reviews—but when time was tight, cafes, restaurants, exhibitions, and other cultural spaces helped just as much. Any place where the space itself matters could offer hints for running my property.
The benefits of these visits were twofold. First, I could learn from good examples—space design, interiors—and apply them to my property. Second, I could switch from service provider to service receiver, which let me reflect on and improve my own service. If you run a space, it's best to visit similar lodging spaces—but even other industries work. I recommend visiting great spaces as often as possible, for both enjoyment and learning.
"Activities Born from Love for Guesthouses"
The various activities I tried to escape my operational slump helped me fall back in love with my property. The first thing I tried was launching a YouTube channel about guesthouse operations. You can easily find guesthouse info online, but video content was scarce. Especially from operators sharing their side of the story—guest reviews are everywhere, but operator insights? Almost impossible to find.
Before launching the channel, we held free monthly offline training sessions, and the sign-up numbers confirmed strong demand. But offline sessions were limited by time and location, so many people couldn't attend. We kept getting requests for online alternatives. Plus, YouTube itself was growing rapidly—the need for video content was clear.
So we created and shared videos on YouTube: operational know-how, objective information, and lessons learned, all explained simply. Producing this content forced me to revisit expert knowledge, reflect on my experiences, and view operations objectively.
We launched a YouTube channel called "Yeohaengdam" (Travel Talk) featuring guesthouse operations content.
The second thing I tried was experimenting with common space utilization. Traditionally, all our property spaces were exclusively for guests with reservations. The first rule of successful operations was guest satisfaction, so we focused entirely on the lodging experience. But in reality, many properties' common spaces sat underused and neglected—and limiting them to guests alone became a threat to operations.
Spaces come alive when many people visit. Activity attracts more people. But at the time, our common space was just somewhere people passed through briefly, and when it died, the entire property's atmosphere dimmed.
The easiest way to revive a space is to use it. But that's also the hardest way. Without a clear purpose or target audience, no one visits. Guesthouse common spaces typically serve as rest areas, breakfast areas, info hubs, or social spaces—but if few people use them for these purposes, the space loses its function. Since our common space sat empty most of the year, we needed to change how we operated it.
The small change? Opening the common space to non-guests. Hotels have restaurants, cafes, banquet halls, meeting rooms—all accessible to non-guests. We wanted to do something similar: revive unused guesthouse spaces and make them available to everyone.
We held a traveler program using the property's common space—the rooftop. @Mullae-dong
An experiment using empty space at the property: "Mullae Rooftop Project"
Our property had a great rooftop. It felt wasteful to use it only as a laundry area year-round, so we planned a program to actively utilize it. We hosted travel programs anyone could join on the guesthouse rooftop—open to guests and non-guests alike. During these programs, even neighborhood residents passing by naturally dropped in and joined. We discovered the possibilities of diverse common space utilization, and I finally broke free from my slump.
Discovering the Magic of Guesthouses: A Work in Progress
To activate common spaces, we've tried Korean cooking classes, seasonal parties, tours, movie/sports screenings—but making any of these sustainable enough to become the property's signature was difficult. Still, I realized that just shifting perspective a bit can open spaces to more people and create experiences—and that act itself energizes the space and fuels operations. Discovering the magic of guesthouses is a work in progress. So it's too early to quit. More importantly, I haven't yet achieved my biggest career goal: running my own property. So until I become a real guesthouse owner, I plan to stay with guesthouses.
In a broader sense, guesthouses are "spaces" that provide lodging or sleeping accommodations. Within the wide framework of space, guesthouses still have endless possibilities to explore. A space becomes somewhere you want to stay—or somewhere ignored—depending on who and what fills it.
The same goes for guesthouses. I still want to be someone who makes guesthouses into spaces people want to linger in. I want to keep adding wild ideas to guesthouses. Just as lodging culture has emerged, disappeared, and evolved over time, it will continue to change. In less than a decade, Korea has seen guesthouses, share houses, B&Bs, co-living, and more take root. I'm excited to see what new lodging formats emerge next. If I get the chance, I'd like to write about "new forms of lodging culture, new lodging formats" next time.
I hope I'll still be around as lodging culture continues to diversify. And with that, I close this series on my experiences and thoughts about guesthouses.
[Series Index]
(People in Guesthouses) 01. Prologue + I Am Guesthouse Staff. 02. A Guesthouse Staffer's Day: 25-Hour Close-Up. 03. Why Did 'Gestaff' Emerge in Guesthouses? 04. What Guesthouses Need Most: People.
(Running Guesthouses) 05. Concerns of Guesthouse Owners 06. There Are Many Good Guesthouses in the World, and Many Bad Ones. 07. Well-Run Properties Have 'That Thing.' 08. Guesthouse Standards
(Starting a Guesthouse) 09. Is a Guesthouse Lodging, Service, or Real Estate? 10. The DNA of Guesthouse Operators 11. Do Successful People Succeed? Do Good Properties Succeed! 12. Still, I Love Guesthouses.
