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No Bookings for 2011


maz100
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We have a gite in the Charente and have no bookings this year apart from one week in August. We are on Owners Direct and had 2 full seasons in 2009 and 2010. Is anyone else experiencing this and if so how are you handling it ?

MAZ100
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maz100

Do take a look at  http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/ as there is lots of discussion on there about letting property and some of it may be useful to you. 

[I]Perhaps this year people are not booking their holidays until the last minute. Good weather in the U.K. a late Easter and all the May bank holidays, have possibly contributed to the delay,  some people may not have felt the urgency to book their Summer holidays well in advance.

I hope you get some bookings soon.
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we are concerned about bookings this year as its been the worst in 8 years - so far !

maybe it will be a very late year for bookings as one member wrote due to various factors.

as well as late easter , may holidays , recession ,staycations in home country etc

i would suggest the market is in a general state of over supply for example

holiday rentals site has 68,848 properties in France.

if you search key dates you will find tens of thousands of holiday properties are projected to be empty even in August.

In France there are far too many "gites " of one sort or another.

new entrants should look elswehere in my view.
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We have 36 available weeks each summer. Last year we sold 22, the year before 19. Currently we have 12 weeks booked.

We think this year has been very slow and are not sanguine that the vaunted last minute bookings avalanche will happen. Maybe get anothe couple of weeks if we're lucky. Bad year.

I should add that we cater to a specialist market and note that the other very few gites that cater to the same market are similarly underbooked. And that's with one establishment fewer this year than last (one place with 2 gites has closed).
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the secret in these difficult times is a regular clientele - for the 4th year running we have the same guests staying in both our gites in same order as previous years from 4th June till 20th August......so have been almost fully booked since last summer with only 6 weeks of new bookings for the rest of the season.  Enquiries are very few & far between.  Next year could be completely different for us of course if they choose not to return for a 5th year.  Do find that OD tend to bring in the last minute discount seekers who rarely return as always looking for a 'deal'  Our regulars have been generated from Chez Nous & Holidayfrance direct for UK & pour les vacances for French market.  For our B&B the last 2 years & probably this, our occupancy has taken a nose dive.  Again we have many regulars who keep us afloat, but had no guests or even an enquiry for the months of Oct 2010 till April this year.  April was surprisingly busy with the French market, but May & June are a desert.  All my colleagues have a similar story to tell.  Lets hope the period for July-September is better, but a lot depends on the weather - a lot of French are staying at home this year & have had 2 regular UK families cancel due to change of circumstances... hard times for us all.
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Hi,

This is only are second season and this year we filled up by februrary, we found it has been very busy and had people in the gite every month this year so far. maybe it is the area or who you are advertsing with.

we are in valon, aveyon

chris
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This is also our very first year of renting....we were hoping to get 8 weeks, we got 20 weeks booked by the end of February....not complaining :)

still getting inquiries but not many as we keep all our calenders up to date, even this weekend I had a flurry of inquiries...but no availability!! I guess a lot of people are booking late this year as all of a sudden they are starting to call and email....

You can never tell really why one year is good for someone and bad for the other....I can only hope it will be like this next year! (we are in central Brittany btw)

good luck.

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Well our B & B Had a fantastic April we scrapped through May just up on last year but June looks like its falling off a cliff unless everyone is VERY last minute not helped by the fact our village has a 4 day fete at Pentecost and we can't open as its just too noisy , keeping my fingers crossed but must hold our nerve!
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For the first time in nearly ten years, a very very popular and lovely gîte complex is actually advertising vacancies for this year in our commune. I know the owners and have visited the site and since they first opened they have been with Clévacances only and always been full but not this year it seems. Obviously a sign of the times and people either going elsewhere less expensive,camping or caravanning or staying at home. It has been very busy here already this year in April and May for some reason with a lot more out of dept cars and camping vans about so perhaps people are taking advantage of cheaper times and splitting the summer month into two chunks instead. Last year our tourist office had lots of properties who had no bookings at all and they are all inspected so are not fleapits that some private ones can be.
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We had a meeting of the commission for tourism last night in the mairie and the adjoint made a point of mentioning that only herbergement known and registered with the mairie would be included in any publicity from now on as all holiday letting propeties should be registered with the mairie and all that entails such as taxe de séjour etc.
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  • 1 month later...

We are camping in August but having read this topic, thought I'd have a look at Owners Direct for August to see what is around out of interest. Lots of availability for the dates I'm planning on and thats for a mid week to mid week booking! That does suggest that bookings are down - perhaps this is largely due to the exchange rate?

Anyway, the old old issue of supply and demand comes into play - do owners want some income and try and attract some bookings with a discounted price or hold out for what they charge?

If the former then is a lesser rental income better than no rental income at all as I would assume that there are fixed costs to cover whether the property is occupied or not?

If the latter, then trying to maintain the profit of the high season weeks might lead to no bookings especially given the wide choice available and cheaper too.

As a potential renter, given the exchange rate then anything priced in euros is a lot more costly and perhaps dismissed out of hand once above a set rate whereas a rate in pounds is stable. However, what I would expect to see, is the market adjusting to the over supply. So, up to you owners, those with no bookings, you need to make your property more attractive. Those that have bookings, obviously have got things right, repeat bookings must  be hugely welcome in current times!

Just my view! The reason we are camping - property far too expensive to rent in high season!

Rgds

A

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[quote user="Andy"]

The reason we are camping - property far too expensive to rent in high season!

Rgds

A

[/quote]

You can only afford a cloth roof you got a cloth roof [:D]

I get asked by a lot of brits about a heated pool, ok in May possibly June or September but they just don't understand you don't need to heat a pool in July/August. We took the cover off the pool last week as it topped 31 deg.

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No not quite, I could finacially afford to stay in a gite for a couple of weeks if we wished, at the inflated prices being charged, choose not to! Now Easter or early May, that's a different proposition!
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