Gite Bookings!!

[Clair]

Who doesn't?[:D]

I've had a call for a potential booking w/c 26th April. After enquiring about the rental cost, the caller asked if this was my "best price"! I aked her what she had in mind and she suggested a 25% drop...

[Quillan]

The thing I discovered about advertising to the Dutch is that there are quite a few websites but unfortunately they seem to want descriptions etc in Dutch, this can be helpful for the Dutch (or should I say Flemish) speaking Belgium's as well. Fortunately my neighbours are Dutch and I have been able to get them to translate the important parts of my website for me. Tthe Dutch can speak reasonable English (as RH said) and also look on English speaking websites which makes it important to have the Dutch language equivalent of Gites (well self catering to be more exact) as part of your keywords on your website and register with google.nl so they can find you.

More recently there seems to be an upturn in bookings (for our B&B) but it's still not as good as last year. Looking through my statistics at when people actually book the English don't always do so a year in advance (actually it appears to be a very small percentage), they can be between 9, 6 and 3 months. The French often leave it till almost the last minute, like weeks, but then a small few do book 6 to 9 months in advance. It's really hard to put a fixed time but needless to say there is still plenty of time for anyone to book. Actually I would love to get hold of some gite statistics (all we have is data taken from forums) as we are adding three to our portfolio for next year.

As I said before the true figures will only come to light at the end of the year when you get the old calculator out and tot it all up and compare it against previous years. With regards to predicting the future I watched News Night last Friday when they asked three experts about how far house prices in the UK will fall, number 1 said 5%, number 2 said between 10 and 15% and finally, number 3 said 30 to 40%. To my mind there's a big difference between 5 and 40% so it shows that even the 'experts' don't really have much of a clue. I'm also reminded of the inaccurate reports about the 'health crisis' for Brits in France. So I wont worry too much about next year for a while. One advantage of gites, as already mentined, is that you rent them as long term rentals to both English and French alike. This is something us poor old CDH/B&B owners of course can't do.

Anyway, good luck.

[Ian]

After a bit of rapport building and establishing my potential customer status (!) I nearly always ask for a discount: houses, cars, holidays, shops, haircuts, tailors ...you name it including gites!  (I'm not Dutch!)

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Another consideration I forgot to mention, is what happens next year to air fares, especially amongst the low cost carriers.

There is an expectation that the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet will

have to substantively increase their fares next year, because their

fuel cost hedging runs out in the Autumn. Both airlines as a result are

predicting a substantive reduction in profits in 2009 and their shares

prices have fallen accordingly.

Meanwhile in the USA, low cost carriers are falling like nine pins!

Rumour in the oil industry has it that certain European based low-costs are having constraints placed upon them as to the terms of credit they can obtain when buying jet fuel. No-one wants to be too exposed to what is being perceived as increased-risk customers. This impacts the airlines' cash flow adversely, so it is likely that they will have to raise prices soon whatever their hedging situation, just to put some more cash in the bank.

Is there any good news at the moment?[:)]

[Sunflower]

[quote user="Quillan"]

The thing I discovered about advertising to the Dutch is that there are quite a few websites but unfortunately they seem to want descriptions etc in Dutch, this can be helpful for the Dutch (or should I say Flemish) speaking Belgium's as well. Fortunately my neighbours are Dutch and I have been able to get them to translate the important parts of my website for me. Tthe Dutch can speak reasonable English (as RH said) and also look on English speaking websites which makes it important to have the Dutch language equivalent of Gites (well self catering to be more exact) as part of your keywords on your website and register with google.nl so they can find you.

[/quote]

 

I think I might have the solution to your problem about adversing on Dutch/Flemish websites. On this website you can advertise in 3 languages: Dutch, French and English and introduce your listing in your mothertongue. They do the translations in the 2 other languages for you. Brandnew site but very promising! See http://www.frankrijkvakantieverhuur.be/index.php?option_language=english or http://www.rentaholidayhouseinfrance.com

[Jo Taylor]

[quote user="Russethouse"]And lots of Dutch people speak English (thank goodness !)[/quote]

...but they're very tall, so watch those low beams!

[JJ]

I have just looked at the website supplied as a link by Sunflower, I thought I would see how many properties were on the site in my area, so I searched on Poitou Charentes, 2 beds, pool, and guess what, only one property came up on their database, so I would not hold your breath for lots of bookings from Dutch people if they have such a small database.

The idea is good with the 3 languages, but there are loads of sites out there all after gite owners money.

[Ian]

JJ seems right - the site has poor traffic rates with Google PR and Alexa.  If they offer a free ad' for 12 months try them out while they build their site.  There are dozens of low-traffic but free-to-advertise-on sites out there.

IMHO the best bet is to build your own site using a decent website building package (not a freebie off a magazine/download) that gets its own quality traffic from the search engines.  Get pages translated if you like - pay for it.

Then search on Google using the type of words your customers might use e.g. "Gite in the Charente" or "Old Town Nice apartment" etc and see which sites come up (usually the biggies and quality "home-mades") - while you build your own decent site advertise on on the biggie- you'll need to pay - they have a business to run too.

Then if you have time on your hands put free ads all over the place on the "new" sites that offer free membership for the first 6/12 months.

[Ritchie Cunningham]

Hi,

The succesful gite owners on the whole seem to be aiming at niche markets.

The days have long gone where you can let a gite that has old sofas ,old mattresses etc.

A good website is essential and a competent team of people working at letting your gite.

We went with xxxxxxxxx.com and were fully booked by December last year for this summer.I don't know who most people use but it does seem a bit of a lottery

We also chose the classic car enthusiasts as our market for next year and are nearly booked up for next year simply by contacting Dutch,German and Belgium classic car owners clubs

It is difficult now cheap flights make other destinations as appealling as France and the growing number of Gites makes it extremely competitive.

People also expect nice things around them and if you don't plough back some of your profits into updating your gite then you will not get the personal recommendations that are so important. Look for some good kit for the garden or just keep an eye out for quality stuff at nice shops. If you have a rusty barbecue for guests to use they will not feel valued etc.

best

Ritchie Cunningham

Post edited by the moderators. Please do not advertise your products or services on the message boards. Any advertising without permission will be removed.

[Ron Avery]

Apart from being an obvious advert, I thought the points raised on the removed post were very valid.  Can't it be reinstated with the links removed?

[Clair]

[quote user="Ron Avery"]Apart from being an obvious advert, I thought the points raised on the removed post were very valid.  Can't it be reinstated with the links removed?[/quote]

Done.

[Ginger]

Am I just being blonde here?  Sunflower suggested a gite website and the link is still there, Ritchie Cunningham suggested one and it's taken off.  What's the difference?

[puppycloud]

Well don't have a Gite, we av ole int road and pice of tarpollin.  We got neigh on eighteen hundred guests, mostly frompt Yorkshire ant dales.  By ech though our guests are right appy. 

[danabu]

Well, we're looking for cottage acommodation for 6 nights from Friday 18th July, so if you have a 2 - 3 bedroom place with a pool in the Centre / Loire / Limousin / Charente areas, ideally 2 - 3 hours drive north of Limoges, we'd be interested in hearing from you (by private message) with your best price