Coco

I know the VF question seems to be an annual one and I appear to be flooding this section with queries at the moment but it's my time of year for re-assessing advertising and my website.  As I've said in previous recent postings, I am delighted with the amount of bookings I am taking (best year so far).  However, I have not had a single enquiry from Visit France.  I know people have moaned about them in the past but they have always been my best source of bookings by far, with Great Bed and Breakfast close behind.  I have noticed that the number of B&Bs advertising in my section of the site has dropped from about 18 to 8, so others must be noticing it too.  I have also noticed that they are no longer appearing on the first page of searches, which presumably is compounding the problem of not receiving enquiries. Are others finding the same?  Has anyone heard anything more about Greatbedandbreakfast.com?  I've sent two more emails since my posting on the subject and still no response.  It's such a shame as it was a great source of income but I don't feel inclined to send any money off to renew an ad until I've heard something from them to assure me that they haven't disappeared off the face of the earth!

About 10cm here in basse-normandie this morning and it's just stopped.

Hope it keeps up for you Cerise!  We too have had guests in for two weekends in January and have two weekends in Feb booked as well as a booking for March.  Last year we had one night in January and not another thing until Easter!!!

Oh I'd have been disappointed if they'd cut down on the regional stands and Loire wasn't there.  As Will says, we had a fine time getting tiddled at 10.30 in the morning.  Imagine a wine tasting that early with ten wines to try!!!! [Www] And not one of them a bad one!

I'm still flabbergasted at the rate of bookings.  I noticed an old posting on the gite forum that has re-emerged from last October about the number of early bookings for gites for 2007.  I wonder whether this is having a knock-on effect to B&Bs because January has traditionally been busy for us for summer bookings, but as I said before they've always been one night enquiries.  Yesterday afternoon alone I took 1100 euros worth and they're all 4 nights plus that are booking at the moment.  I'm already up to a quarter of the whole of last year's takings so I'm a very happy bunny! [:D][:D]  California seems to be the hot spot for bookings at the moment - what happened to their two weeks annual leave a year?  I can't believe they're wanting to spend their entire annual allocation at my humble little B&B but that's the sort of enquiries we're getting! Miki said his bookings are up for the time of year too.  Is it a regional thing or are you lot darn sarf experiencing it too?

I've just had an email from them offering a one-off £35 renewal charge for life.  Perhaps they were revamping their site over Christmas and are now back in circulation.

Yes it's Tripadvisor that we are on.  It has brought us loads of business and one lady was even prepared to put her email address on there so that people could contact her for more information about our place.  The people that stayed last weekend were examples of those that found us via Tripadvisor but at the same time said they are really cynical about how genuine the comments are.

[quote user="zeb"] A little off topic, I know, but do any of you worry if your guests don't leave a message in the guestbook? Some friends have a gite and they are always concerned if there isn't a message left at the end of a stay - they chew over all the possible reasons why for days![/quote] I'm like Miki, I just leave the guestbook on the side so that they can write in it if they like.  Of course, I have occasionally wondered if people have chosen not to because they haven't been happy but generally I put it down to the fact that they can't think of anything different to say than is already there, they haven't even noticed it, or of course, we have had one or two (usually in two's [;-)]) of people who wouldn't want it known that they had stayed here at all .... they're usually from Paris, here for one night and don't want to bother with breakfast, prefering to get up later!!! [Www] The best internet "guestbook" of all of course are the independent traveller sites where people can put their own views, good or bad, after they have returned home and can also remain anonymous.  Even those aren't failproof though.  We have some excellent reviews on one such site and over the last 12 months I have had as much business via that site as from many of the paying sites I advertise on.  However, I still get comments from people saying that they take the comments with a pinch of salt as I could be getting friends to write the reviews.  There again, why did they book with us having read the reviews if they're not going to believe them?[8-)]

Ridgmount Hotel,  67 Gower Street WC1 (020 7580 7060)  clean, basic, family run hotel at well under £100a night, with a good breakfast.  But apparently only half the rooms have ensuite.  Or so my ex-boss who lives across the road tells me.  His son and daughter-in-law from New York stay there when they are in London.  Walking distance to British Museum, several tube stations, Covent Garden etc.

I've just been having a little look at some other members' websites.  I notice Quillan, on yours you have scanned in samples from your guest book.  A very good idea I thought, as although I reproduce quotes from mine there is nothing to say they are not total fabrications - at least, as you say, it would have taken you a long time to reproduce all those different styles of handwriting yourself!  "I'm going to do that" I thought to myself today.  Then I thought, I wonder where you stand legally on this?  Can you just reproduce people's comments in their own hand without their permission?  And aside from the legalities, do you ask each one if it's OK to do so from a personal privacy point of view? I've made this a posting rather than a PM because I thought it may be of interest to other B&Bers.

... Also known as allbedandbreakfast.com.  I originally advertised on this website and always had good communication with the owners.  However, I had noticed that bookings, which were good, seemed to have tailed off, then I realised that my ad had probably expired.  It's still on the site but contact details and a photo have been removed, presumably because I am no longer regarded as a paying advertiser.  I can't find anywhere on the site to renew my subscription and I've emailed them three times to ask how to do it but had no response.  Has anyone else had similar problems with them?  It would be a shame if they are no longer trading as we got quite a lot of business via this site.  I notice that several other members are listed in the same way as I am.  Did you not want to renew or have you had the same problems as me?  I also noticed that my entry (and others) says "Awaiting photo" but I know there was one there originally.  I never got a reminder to renew either.  All very strange.

[quote user="Will "] In theory it is supposed to be a rotational system so everybody gets counted eventually, but in practice the figures can be manipulated at will. As an example, Normandy's demographics showed it, quite reasonably, to be populated mainly by farmers. This bucolic image was not good enough for its rulers, so they decided that more counts should be carried out in the towns and cities than the communes below a certain size, in order to reflect the region's 'true' status as a place for sophisticated, wealthy, well-educated townies rather than us poor country bumpkins. [/quote] That's very interesting Bill because, although we are one of those small communes, when we took part last year the people who were chosen were the Maire, who also works in a notaire's office, the deputy maire who is a ventilation engineer, a single woman who is an accountant and ourselves, foreigners and B&B owners.  I think us four households are the only people in the village who are NOT farmers.

They did ours about this time last year and even then it isn't everyone, it's only selected households (presumably random).  In our village of 172 residents only about 6 households were "censored".

Oh that's sad.  To be quite honest in recent years we've watched the RS programmes more for Chalky than him.  I did wonder last time I was watching though how much longer he would last - he must have been knocking on a bit.

Or are bookings just coming in differently? I always get a flurry of bookings in January, usually family one or two night bookings for either end of their two week gite holiday in July or August, amounting to maybe a thousand euros worth of lettings.  However, this year, come New Year's Day I had zero bookings for 2007, as of last night I had taken 3,500 euros worth - all a minimum of 3 days and only two of those bookings for August - one for 5 days and one for 4 days! Is anyone else experiencing this kind of an increase in early bookings?  Is it going to last?  Why is it happening?  They're from all over the world, so it's not one particular country's economy being good.  They have been made up of predominantly Americans followed by Brits, then French and Australian.  One guest we had in last week wondered whether perhaps more Americans are holidaying in France because the dollar is so weak against the pound.  Any thoughts?

I've tried doing this with B&B Clair and outside of July and August it varies incredibly from year to year. 2004 June was packed, which was probably due to the 60th anniversary of D-Day but since then June has been scarily quiet.  2004 was also amazing for Easter bookings and enquiries, 2005 we were empty and last year we had bookings but not excess enquiries.  The two periods that have proved to be consistantly busier than I expected is 1st to 15th September and the first fortnight in November (two French bank holidays helps I suppose)  Consequently my peak season now runs from 1st July to 15th September and mid season now extends into November.  Only yesterday I got an enquiry for twelve nights in the family suite from 30th August - very rare in a B&B!

Oh no, don't mention the shutters!!!  The other night OH went up to one of the guest bathrooms because he heard banging (no not that sort!) during those wild winds, and realised that one of the shutters had become unhinged.  As he leant out of the window to catch it it flew back in and hit him on the head.  I can't type what he said because it would just be a line of ****s but I'm afraid I couldn't help but laugh - you see, only two hours earlier he had cracked his head on a beam and almost knocked himself out and now he was standing in front of me, looking like a baby unicorn with the bump coming out of his forehead.  It was one of those evenings where, as we sat across the room from each other every time I looked at him I started giggling and then he started swearing again!

[quote user="Snobunny"]I contacted Good Housekeeping about this problem - sad I know, can't live without it.  Anyway, they told me that the problem is caused by using too much soap powder.  On no account should you use fabric conditioner as it makes the problem worse.  You should occasionaly wash the towels with water softener added and you should always line dry, but not in direct hot sunshine - which makes them go like boards. Haven't tried the water softener thing but the other advise has helped. [/quote] Well I followed all of those instructions (without realising it - apart from no fabric conditioner that is) for my first three years in B&B and the towels were getting harder and harder until we finally fixed up the tumble dryer that had been donated to us and it's restored everything to perfect fluffiness, so can't say that in our case I am particular impresse with Good Housekeeping's advice!

[quote user="Susan"]I haven't had many cancellations, but one was a group who had booked all 3 gites and they had to cancel due to someone in the party being diagnosed with cancer and having to undergo treatment during the summer. I think it would have been difficult to refuse the refund of deposit in those circumstances, even if I've had the "no deposit refund" clause in my Ts and Cs. [/quote] That's a stricky one Susan and my response is "don't do as I do, do as I say"  Last summer we had an American couple book 5 nights in peak season in our B&B; I hadn't taken a deposit because it can cost both parties money to do bank transfers etc, I have got into the habit of asking my US and Ozzie guests to reconfirm their booking within 5-7 days of their intended arrival date.  So far this seems to have stopped the problem of "no-shows" I had in my first two seasons.  However, this couple reconfirmed 5 days before their due arrival date but then the day they were due t arrive I had an email to say that she had had a miscarriage and was being flown back to the States.  To be quite honest I didn't believe the story (couldn't quite see a woman who had just had a miscarriage bothering to go out in a foreign city and find an internet café to send such an email), but just in case there was the slightest chance that it was true (and being such a sensitive condition) I didn't chase them for the money - but I was 250€ out of pocket and under the circumstances, had they paid up front they would most certainly have been able to claim back under their travel insurance. In the case of your three gite booking their travel insurance would certainly have covered the gite containing the ill person, I don't know whether they others would have been able to claim back or not - there again, you have to look at it from the stance that if the insurance company didn't feel the other two gites should be reimbursed why should you pay them back their deposit. It's tough - but you are in business and their misfortune shouldn't become yours and the circumstances led to you being a lot more financially worse off than them!

As far as I was aware you have to actually get a letter from them more or less saying that, otherwise there's no proof that you ever even applied.  Certainly in our case we got a letter acknowledging receipt of our application and that if we had heard nothing by a certain date we could take it that we could go ahead.  Of course, someone else is bound to tell you I've got it wrong!

Sorry, double posting!

[quote user="KathyC"][quote user="Coco"] Just had a look at the video clip - LUVELY!!!  Reminds me of being on the old SS Uganda heading for the Falklands - the bow used to disappear under the waves and you wondered if it was going to keep going down or whether it would ever come up again!   [/quote] I went on a cruise on the Uganda, for fun! Along with another ship (forget the name) it was used for educational cruises, in my case to Algeria. I can remember that going through the Bay of Biscay was not a happy experience. Nowadays I have problems getting from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth! [/quote] It's a ship that lots of people of a certain age rmember from their school days.  I can remember thinking that at last I had made it on board when I was working on her (my parents could never afford to send me on the school cruises). It was having all those kids dormatories already kitted out that made it so perfect as a troop ship,  ooooh me, the nurse and 900 squaddies, what memories! [:$]    I was also on her final trip back to Falmouth which was very sad.  One of the last "true" cruise ships with lots of brass, wood panelling, beautifu etched glass doors, and (are I say it) huge elephant tusks in the doorway to the restaurant.  Happy memories... especially of those South Atlantic storms!![;-)]

Don't know about it making French historians stutter, it made me stutter!  Can you imagine it - France being part of the Commonwealth with the Queen as their Head of State!  I think there might have been a second revolution!  I'm constantly asked here in France why the UK tolerates a "useless" royal family but being a keen royalist myself I always jump to their defence, but it's usually quite a hard battle.

Just had a look at the video clip - LUVELY!!!  Reminds me of being on the old SS Uganda heading for the Falklands - the bow used to disappear under the waves and you wondered if it was going to keep going down or whether it would ever come up again! [quote user="Mayennaise"]After 16 years he discovered the cure - have a decent breakfast!! He never had a problem after that with being seasick.[/quote] Quite right too - a deckhand on one of my first ships told me that it is true - the greasier the better!  It was great sport on the Uganda when we were taking troops to the Falklands.  Sit down to breakfast with a group of army officers and order the full works - set us up perfectly for the day but we would watch as each turned green in turn and made their excuses for leaving the table - and I thought they were suppose to be real men!

This thread explains a lot to me - I hadn't seen it earlier.  My sister-in-law recently booked Stansted to Dinard flights to come and see us in April.  At first she told me the flights were £9.99 each.  By the time she had actually paid for her and her husband, and their baggage(!) the total bill was £142!!![:(]  Likewise a friend booking the same flight two days later has paid £188 for two tickets!!!  The ferries will soon be rubbing their hands in glee - in the past friends have flown into Dinard because it's so much cheaper than the ferry but at this rate (if it weren't for the fact that they're only coming for the weekend) the St Malo ferry would have been MUCH cheaper for the four of them in one car.  At this rate Ryanair soon won't be able to call themselves a low cost airline!