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A premium for just one gite?


Gail Smith
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We have a beautiful 2 bedroomed gite which sleeps 5 and a cot.  We have a lovely pool and advertise ourselves as a smallholding and so we appeal to people with children or those who are interested in our lifestyle and self sufficiency.  We are not expensive for what we offer and are usually booked for 12-14 weeks per annum which suits us as we work our smallholding and are busy people.  I also work as an acupuncturist and there are only so many hours in a day.

We have another house located in our property and we have been thinking about making it into another gite as obviously there would be an increase in income for us and therefore contributing to our old age and also adding value to our property.

Many of the people who book with us ask the question 'Is it the only gite on your property?' and therefore book because it is.

I am thinking that should we increase our prices as they are seeking a sole gite with pool?  Obviously we are losing money by not having the second gite done and if we did I am sure we could get both booked for the main 6-8 weeks in the summer.  Then again having the potential of having double the visitors and double the kids and washing and ironing etc.

Has anyone got any experience of this scenario and how did your bookings fare after you went to 2 gites with shared pool?

 

Gail

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"Many of the people who book with us ask the question 'Is it the only gite on your property?' and therefore book because it is."

Hi Gail,

I am surprised that this question would be asked often by prospective holidaymakers.

Maybe it is to establish if they have "exclusive" use of the pool during their stay . I will be watching with interest to see what others think of your thoughts of adding another gite.

Kind regards,

Leo.

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Hi Gail

We have a very similar situation to you. Our first year we had one gite with exclusive use of the pool (we are also a smallholding - don't they just love the pig?), and we were fully booked. Year two we had two gites sharing the pool and we were fully booked. Next year we will have three gites sharing the pool and bookings are looking good so far. I think you might appeal to a different type of client with only one gite and sole use of the pool, but there are plenty of clients who like to be sociable, have some friends around for their kids etc. In year one we did have some couples with no children, whereas this year they were all families. Families are our target market so we were quite happy with this. I think you will find that the income from two gites is more than you could expect for a single gite with exclusive use of the pool.

Angie

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I agree with Angie. If you are aiming your marketing at families then there are at least as many who would see having other children around an advantage as there are those who prefer to be on their own. Providing the pool is a decent size and you are there to look after it and tidy up after your guests then it should work well for you having a second gite of at least two bedrooms.

The only problem would be if you aren't on site to look after the pool yourself. With a shared pool you can't expect the guests to take on the responsibility of putting the cover on and tidying up after each other.

If you are offering quality accommodation, a heated pool and are situated in a popular tourist area then don't be frightened of charging higher prices if you are aiming at the UK market. Take a look at the Cheznous website and have a look at what  is being charged for similar  gites in your area.

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Thanks for your replies there is plenty to think about.  We wouldnt be changing anything until 2008 anyway as the bookings for 2007 are for the single gite. 

We already advertise with Chez Nous although we have been 70% booked for 2007 since July this year!

One thing that occurred to us today was that if we put our income up too much then we will move from the tax regime we are in into a higher bracket which is not good and has to be taken into consideration.  We already pay cotisations through my registration with URSSAF for my acupuncture.

We live on site so sorting the pool etc is not a problem.

Thanks again

Gail

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I might be wrong but you would have to be earning a huge amount more to go onto the higher tax regime, I can't believe the income from another gite could be that much more!

We have 2 gites and find no problem with the bookings over the summer months, especially aiming for the family market the kids occupy eachother. If the kids are happy the parents are happy. I am interested in how you are getting next years bookings already. I've shied away from Chez nous as being too big and too expensive. We tried their internet site the first year and had no enquiries - even with Le review mag. We are getting repeat bookings and promises of repeat bookings but they don't seem to come in until after xmas. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

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We got 10 weeks booked for 2007 because people tried to book for the summer of 2006 in February and we were already booked.  We got nearly all our bookings for 2006 between 26th december and 1st Jan 2006 from the Chez Nous brochure. 

One family who had enquired for 2006 and were unlucky then booked 4 weeks in 2007.  We then contacted the people who had enquired and been unlucky in 2006 and told them that we were already getting bookings for 2007 and if they were interested they could book then by paying a small deposit to hold it and the balance on a full deposit in August 2006. (This was so that we could save a bit on advertising).  They then paid the full amount as usual.

We got 2 more bookings for 2007 in the past month from Chez Nous web site.  We also have a good web site of our own and get some enquiries and bookings from that.  People find us through google although we dont pay to be up high in the ratings.  I think they find us through our attachment to Chez Nous.

One family who found us through google last year and put us in their 'favourites' so that they could book for this year.  They were too late when they looked at our booking calendar.  They then tried to book the school hols next year and were unsuccessful so they booked 2 weeks in May school hols.  Great for us!

We already have provisional bookings for 2008 from people who stayed this year and enjoyed themselves and want to come back.  If people say they are interested in returning we advise them to book using a very small deposit so that they wont be disappointed.  They have to pay the full deposit a bit earlier than normal but they are usually happy with that.

We use Ebay a lot as well and usually have ads running on there for the spare weeks and out of season offers.  We now have a shop on there.  We do get the odd booking through it and it more than pays for itself.

Gail

 

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I think you have definately answered your own question about having a second gite! You are obviously doing something right to be so well booked. Where are you located? Do you 'sell' the acupuncture as part of or additional to the package you offer.

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It would seem as though bookings for 2007 are coming in particularly

early. I've got some ideas as to why this should be, but this is

neither the time nor the place...

We've got three properties: one on its own and two on a different site

altogether that share facilities. We do occasionally get people saying

that they prefer the privicy of being next door only to us, but others

who really value having another family on site. We only take bookings

from groups with small children and this certainly helps: everyone can

book safe in the knowledge that they aren't going to have all-adult

parties next door drinking themselves blind and making noise until 5am.

Our neighbours like this too.

I don't think that, provided you keep the quality up, having a second property is going to queer your pitch.

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[quote user="Jon D"]It would seem as though bookings for 2007 are coming in particularly early. I've got some ideas as to why this should be, but this is neither the time nor the place...

[/quote]

When and where then Jon?  I'm interested, as although we do B&B and a huge amount of our business is booked within 2 weeks of arrival date, we also get a lot of summer holiday bookings when people want one or two nights either end of their gite holiday.  These ususuall come in January/February.  Should I be expecting them earlier this year?  Interested to know why you think 2007 bookings are coming in so early.  Personally I think it often seems to go that a bad year is followed by a particularly good one, and from what I've heard on this site and from gite owners I know of locally, 2006 was a bad year, with a lot of people getting virtually nothing outside of the main summer holiday 6 week period.

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I have changed the web address on my profile so that you can see our web site.  We have another site which is linked to the frenchfarmgites one and we use that to keep things really up to date, more on the smallholding side of things.

I dont actually make a big thing of the acupuncture/healing etc for our guests.  There is a leaflet in the gite all about it and guests are more than welcome for a treatment.

We have been successful and we dont want to be choc a bloc all year round.  As I said we have an ever expanding smallholding to run, goats to milk, cheese to make, etc, etc.  We quite enjoy the peace and quiet when the guests are gone and it's just me and him.......lol

What I have thought about since posting on here and reading your comments is that we might just create the second gite over the next year or so and if we dont rent it out it will have added value to our property and it is there for our families if they wanted to visit in the school holidays.

It seems to me the thing that most people worry about is exclusive use of the pool which they dont have here because we use it too.

Gail

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[quote user="St Amour"]

[quote user="Jon D"]It would seem as though bookings for 2007 are coming in particularly early. I've got some ideas as to why this should be, but this is neither the time nor the place...

[/quote]

When and where then Jon?  I'm interested, as although we do B&B and a huge amount of our business is booked within 2 weeks of arrival date, we also get a lot of summer holiday bookings when people want one or two nights either end of their gite holiday.  These ususuall come in January/February.  Should I be expecting them earlier this year?  Interested to know why you think 2007 bookings are coming in so early.  Personally I think it often seems to go that a bad year is followed by a particularly good one, and from what I've heard on this site and from gite owners I know of locally, 2006 was a bad year, with a lot of people getting virtually nothing outside of the main summer holiday 6 week period.

[/quote]

Sorry, I'm not Jon, but I'd confirm what he is saying on the bookings. It depends where you are, what you offer etc. - 2006 bookings are still going strong for me personally and it has been the best year ever, we've got 34 weeks booked for 2007 across the 3 gites (a lot not in peak strangely enough!) so for me it looks like 2007 will be pretty good too.....as has been said before, some people prefer shared facilities, mainly to keep the children amused. It is compromise a lot of the time - a lot of our guests would rather share a property with a heated pool, for example, than have a property to themselves without a pool.

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Have had a sneaky look - it seems lovely, what struck me most, however, was the price. Are you average for the area? It's just that around us, in Charente-Maritime,  I would expect August prices to be nearer the £800 a week mark woth a shared pool. Even at that level, all the ones I am aware of were full during the peak times this year.

 

Pouyade

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