IT’S the end of an era for the owners of Pitreavie Guest House who have decided to put the business up for sale after 20 years.

And they’re going out on a high as they have just received a top award from the hotel industry.

The guest house on Aberdour Road is providing such a top-class service that it is now in the top three per cent of accommodation worldwide for customer satisfaction.

Online hotel search engine HotelsCombined praised the business after analysis of more than a million hotels across the globe.

Husband-and-wife team Jim, 69 and Elizabeth, 65, O’Rourke said they were “chuffed” with the achievement.

Jim told the Press: “It’s great to see your hard work getting recognised. We do love what we do.

“We see so many different people coming through our door and it’s hard to know how you are doing so we’re so chuffed about it.

“We just celebrated our 20th anniversary here so it’s a celebration of a few things and of course we’ve decided it’s time to sell so the guest house will be going on the market in the next few weeks.”

HotelsCombined said they had processed 200 reviews from a variety of different websites, forums and social media, resulting in an incredible score of 10 out of 10.

“It’s hard to imagine that a little place in Dunfermline would be so high up in the ratings,” Jim added.

“We like to think that we keep things to a high standard and we offer the personal touch.

“There are a lot of different personalities from across the world that stay and I think we make people feel welcome.

“It’s important to have a chat to people to see how their day has been and I think that must shine through.”

Pitreavie Guest House was once the Sheriff Clerk’s home when it was built in 1923. It then became a doctor’s surgery before being turned into a hotel in the 1970s.

There are five rooms but with just a two-person team, Jim and Elizabeth never stop and work long hours.

Jim said: “We must work about 100 hours a week.

“Breakfast starts at 6am and a lot of the time we have guests turning up in the early hours!

“We give so much of ourselves so it’s great to see that it pays off and we do get a lot of our guests returning.

“I used to work in the prison service and retired from there when I was 50 so now that I’m coming up to my 70th birthday I think the time has come to relax!

“It’ll be an end of an era but we might get a life now!”