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Did 2009 actually turn out to be a bad one for Gites/CdH's ?


baypond
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I have been reading back over a multitude of gite posts, garnering information on what is required as a uk resident with a maison secondaire if I was to look at holiday lets. I have to say, I am not convinced it is something I really want to do unless totally neccessary.

However, while rummaging around it was clear in early 2009 that there was a lot of concern about the forthcoming season. Now the peak season is over, it would be interesting to hear in % terms how much booking actually suffered. My guess is that they will have been pretty much unchanged?

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For us at the end of our 6th season 2009 has been our best year ever in the gites (fully booked Easter till November) & the family gite is fully booked for July & August 2010 by repeat bookings.  B&B has been a bad year - currently between half & two thirds of our usual income, with almost 80% regular guests.  Only a couple of new British clients this year, rest have been French, Belgians, Dutch, Australian & New Zealanders & Americans.  Have several repeat bookings for summer 2010.  The main difference we have noted this year is that very few people are eating out in restaurants - have made a tenth of the usual number of restaurant bookings for guests & all the restaurants in our region tell me they have had a bad year.  So for us it has been a record year for self-catering, & a bad year for B&B - who knows what 2010 will bring???
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In our 8th year....about the same as last year 32 weeks between the two gites. Will never see the 44 weeks taken during the years of the 'rush to move here syndrome'. Had to accept one week bookings though during peak period as guests have reduced their time over here. Gave up b/b four years ago after we renovated the barn conversion.
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Difficult for me to say yet as we're open all year and season not yet over, but I estimate we'll be about 25% down for the B & B - also 6th season.  Most of our bookings were regulars plus new French plus this year Spanish (maybe they're staying nearer to home too).  Very few new English customers.  Less French customers staying a week or more and  many more French customers taking short breaks.  Other B & Bs in area report same or worse and most gites seem down too - except for smaller cheaper gites catering for couples.  Campsites locally are doing well!  Restaurants have suffered badly and one well known one locally said re thought takings would be down about 40%.  Most worrying sign of the times to me was that I've twice in recent weeks been to Toulouse and been able to get to eat in Marché Victor Hugo at lunchtime without booking or queueing, plus been able to get parking in Cordes-sur-Ciel on a Saturday morning - previously unheard of.

At local functions we have noticed more people bringing picnics and local fête meals have had much less numbers booked.  I guess it will pick up again as I get the impression that it is more about fear of having no money than an actual lack of cash.

 

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Hi

Last year was a record year for us & this year we have beaten it by 3 weeks across two Gites.

Bookings arrived much later including 3 individual bookings for September over the last couple of weeks.

We open 6th Jun - 19th Sept only so very happy with 95% occupancy.

I feel next yr will be good because of the Brits who got wet feet staying at home this yr.

Steve
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yes think that is one reason why we are having an action replay in our family gite next summer - they all came complaining about the bad weather in UK, raved about how wonderful it was here & went back to more wind & rain......hope many more will come for B&B next year after having a long, wet & probably expensive summer holiday in UK this year. 
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We are Uk resident with a maison secondaire as a gite and this year is much the same as last (24 weeks), the only difference being the bookings for August came in a bit later than normal (folk fed up with the weather?) It's a 2 bedroom gite in tourist town so cheaper than hotels and we're getting bookings for 2010, a bit earlier than last year, again maybe because of the weather.

Lets hope all the bookings continue and sterling recovers a bit for the visitors!
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Was totally panic-stricken in June about no bookings.   Last minute, fully booked 1st week July to end August, full for Christmas/New Year, and have confirmed bookings for Feb holidays (skiing nearby).  Still some availability if anyone interested [:)]  Could do with some BS weekends for the autumn though.  Could have let 8 gites for new Year week no problem!  No Brits though - all French/Belgian/Dutch.

Fi

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[quote user="baypond"]It seems to me that the Brits are only just catching on to the fact that you can have a summer holiday in the mountains with temperatures still up in the 30's. More and more people I know are taking summer trips to the

Alps and Pyrenees.

[/quote]

The Vosges are rather splendid too [:D]

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We (B&B) are still full up to the 17th Sept then we drop to 50% occupancy till mid October, we close the last weekend of October till next year. Most of our trade has been from within the Euro zone although we have a few Brits now. We have only had a couple of Canadians, one American and one Australian this year. Thank god for the French, they have been the bulk of our business. I built a totally French website last year, separate from the English one with its own web address but a link between the two. This seems to have helped a lot as we have had record numbers of French. That may of course be a red herring in the current economic climate. So over all a good year but the its not over till we close and tot up the money.
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Pretty much the same as last year here. I had predicted an increase on last year, but after an initial busy spurt, bookings slowed somewhat later in the season, so I doubt if there will be any increase.

Pretty much exclusively French guests this year - whereas last year had a mix of Germans, Dutch and Spanish.

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What I don't understand is why you are all so rotten about poor old jon.  He is an inoffensive character and he is proud as punch of the things he has done and is doing.

Perhaps I am just being dense or emotionally completely unintelligent (whatever emotional intelligence means) but I fail to see why he gets up so many people's goats.

I'm not the sweetest person in the world (despite my name which incidentally is meant to be sardonic) but I have a lot of sympathy for the poor chap.

He's just a complete innocent, like a large, wanting to please Labrador and I do think people are unnecessarily cruel and ganging up on him.

Ok, Ok, perhaps he sets himself up for some of the taunts but let's just pat him on the head and tell him he's a good boy, shall we?[:D]  He'd quite like that and why not make someone's day?

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Please lets not get into a discussion abpout a past member, it would probably lead to deletions. Let's not go down tha road :

 You may not submit posts which :

  • Are insulting, abusive, racist, sexist, or derogatory in any way to others, whether they are individuals or companies, users of the Forum or not. This includes material sent via personal e-mails through this forum.
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    [quote user="Russethouse"]

    Please lets not get into a discussion abpout a past member, it would probably lead to deletions. Let's not go down tha road :

     You may not submit posts which :

  • Are insulting, abusive, racist, sexist, or derogatory in any way to others, whether they are individuals or companies, users of the Forum or not. This includes material sent via personal e-mails through this forum. [/quote]
  • The above seems a bit strong to me, I hardly think that Sweet17 was planning on doing any of the above especially as she didnt know that Jon (I thought that he was in fact a she) was (now) an ex-member.

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