Gite owners

[Teamedup]

Do any of you do speciality things, rather than just letting out your places. With all this talk of the market being flooded in some places I was just wondering.

I have noticed in Holland that there are some very specialist gite looking places advertised and from what dutch friends tell us, they do rather well. Although I can think of many other things that could be offered too......... organised rambling, cycling tours etc.

[Deby]

Yes, we do.

Wine-tasting, cookery courses, painting courses and corporate getaways.  Got to diversify nowadays.
Deby

[zeb]

Yes, know of a couple in Provence who are running their gites as "pink palaces" aimed specifically at the gay market and are fully booked all year round!

Also a friend of ours nearby is aiming her large gite at groups such as motorcyclists, artists, ramblers etc. She also organises painting/alternative therapy/girly weeks etc which are very popular and runs a vegetarian B&B. Luckily she has journalist friends in high places so marketing has been excellent and easy!!

Personally, apart from an awful holiday in a bathroomless gite in the Auverne (early 90s Brit owned) we have only ever stayed in gdef 3 epie gites (we want the whole French experience).

regards......helen

[Val_2]

I saw some publicity this year for a british couple down south offering holidays walking out each day with their Llamas. Yes, I think if people start offering different types of holiday or accomadation they may make a better go it than just a plain rental with nothing going for it, after all, people are getting very picky having to pay huge ferry fares to get here and then find low standard rentals which do a lot of damage to the industry.

[Washy]

As a newcomer to letting gites I was very interested by this thread.  As we are in the Haute Corbieres I will be aiming to rent our gite to walkers, birdwatchers and artists.  I also thought I could use the walls as a gallery with my watercolours of the local area for sale.  I had not thought of offering painting courses, as that would be too much like my previous life!  But I am working on arranging a day's walking with my llamas carrying the art equipment for clients.  I think this kind of diversification in areas where there is so much competition for bookings is almost essential.

[Gail Smith]

We offer guided walks and we have thought about getting some donkeys for ourselves and maybe offering the novelty of walking with them. 

Those of you who offer specialised holidays, do you advertise in specific places or is it just a part of your normal advertising?  We enquired about advertising in a specialist mountain biking magasine as we live right on a chemin vert which give access to literally hundreds of miles of fully signed off road mountain biking county, but the cost was extortionate and as we couldnt guarantee any income from it we just couldnt justify the expense.

Advertising is a mine field and we have spent a lot of money and have only 3 weeks booked this year, we have barely covered our costs.

Gail Smith

[letrangere]

Those of you who offer specialised holidays, do you advertise in specific places or is it just a part of your normal advertising?

There are a couple of B&Bs/small country hotels in France and more in Italy that advertise all the time in the Royal Academy of Arts magazine (e mail for those who're interested:  [email protected]).  I've often wondered what sort of response they get as the mag only comes out quarterly and I'd suspect it isn't cheap to advertise in.  M

[Paolo]

If I wanted to market a speciality holiday I would use a Google pay-per-click campaign. This allows you to target the searches that your potential clientele will type into Google. For example if you offer painting courses you could specify that you want your ad shown for searches like 'painting holidays in brittany', 'france art courses', 'limousin painting holiday', etc.

A small percentage of people will see your ad (the boxes on the right on the results page), and an even smaller percentage will click on it, but they will be predisposed to enquire into what you offer.

This is the page on Google that tells you all about how to use their Adwords pay-per-click programme:

https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/Login?sourceid=AWO&subid=UK-ET-ADS&hl=en_GB

Paolo

[les Favets]

We offer  , not so much : A FISHING HOLIDAY but rather A HOLIDAY WHERE YOU CAN FISH IN OUR 7 HECTARE LAKE inclusive in the price of a gite.  Normally a dedicated fisherman would wish to perhaps fish at night and they also like to live it rough.  We do not permit this facility so therefor list our holiday accommodation as Holiday with fishing.  This also encourages the lady of the household to come along with hubby. We have carp, breme, pike, and several other species and wow you should see the birds attracted to our lake.

Regards Les Favets

www.ruralfranceholidays.com

[Washy]

As an extra service I plan to offer the following large equipment to guests.  I have binoculars, scopes and telescopes, people may not have thought of birdwatching until they arrive in such an excellent area. For the artist I could offer easels, palattes, seats, water bottles, rucksacks etc.  All things which would be too heavy for people to bring in their meagre Ryan Air baggage allowance. 

I also love enlightening children, I have fishing nets, magnifying glasses, jam jars on strings, wild life books, footballs and beach games, colouring books and children's books all of which I plan to make available.  I may be over the top with all this but I want people to be happy and get the most out of the area and their holiday.

[Chauffour]

we just added a woodburning pizza oven, imported from Italy, and it seems very popular, up to now every client group has joined our Pizza Club...

..last night we had as a special guest the chef Valentina Harris, and she loved it!

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Hi,

We had heard of saturation gites etc so went down the route of specialist flyfishing holidays but with flexibility, thereby not excluding any non anglers. We aim to please fly anglers, house hunters and of course holiday makers who do not wish to fish at all. We have our own website.www.flyfishinginfrance.com. This is an invaluable and cost effective way of advertising as we have complete control over content etc. Being a qualified, registered and insured fly fishing instructor does help to promote our business. If you have skills or abilities that you can offer as well as accommodation I feel that this can only enhance your plans. Many people these days seem to be looking for some type of activity holiday.

Bonne chance,

 

Tony and Sue

[george bradbury]

As new owners in France,our property for rent consists of a 2 double bedroom house with fully equipped kitchen,lounge,clean beds and bedding,shower toilet,wash basin,access to large garden at the rear.We are located in the village of Peyrat le Chateau,with all amenities, a 2 minute walk from a lake for fishing. A 5 minute drive away is the Lac de Vassiviere,with beaches,fishing,walks water sports,boat trips on the lake and restaurants.So there is something for all to do.