Travel - Owning the Value Chain

Owning the value chain is a piece of business jargon. In the context of SpeedBreaks I guess it means owning more of what we do. The very first couple of ski holidays we ran, for example, we used the products of other tour operators. Organising holidays ourselves has increased the risk for us and created more work but has also improved our margins and given us more control over the product we sell.
The next step, and an idea I've been grappling with, is whether we should get into the business of owning property - specifically a hotel or a ski chalet probably in the French Alps. Funnily enough we had the same idea with our original speed dating business, speeddater.co.uk After speaking to lots of people about the idea the consensus was that setting up and running a bar in London was completely different from our speed dating business and therefore it was not a good idea to get involved. With our travel business on the other hand I think there's a much stronger case for owning more of the value chain.
On the plus side we now have enough volume in the business to be able to fill our first property pretty much to capacity (14 or 15 weeks in the winter and about the same in the summer. Also on the plus side I think the right property could be a very good medium term investment and running our own hotel or chalet ought to improve our margins and give us even more control over our product (minibuses with SpeedBreaks emblazoned on the side spring to mind)
Unfortunately the potential difficulties are considerable. First of all we'd need to raise the money and we're talking at least a million euros to buy anything worthwhile probably closer to two million (are any friendly Angel's reading this?). Perhaps a bigger worry is whether the business of running a small hotel or chalet would take our focus away from our core business (producing and marketing holidays for single people and single travellers).
I've just been through the experience of buying and renovating a house in France so I've no illusions about how difficult it can be to find good builders who turn up when they say they're going to in France. If a chalet 'renovation project' slipped by three months, say, it could be financially disastrous if we'd already sold holidays into a property we thought was going to be ready for Christmas 2008!
What does anyone reading this blog think we should do? I'd love to know.