zeb Posted November 10, 2004 Share Posted November 10, 2004 Have asked Dutch friend what travel sites her family uses for booking holidays in France (gites), she came up with this one and will post me later with more.www.bonjour.nl They also use www.gites-de-france.comMay help someone..............helen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deby Posted November 10, 2004 Share Posted November 10, 2004 HIWhilst researching Gites de France, we personally found their Terms and Conditions too restrictive. I know that their aim is to try to maintain and manage standards, but if we went with them we found that we would lose our autonomy and our own bookings would conflict with ones which came through them.Their rules were to say the least inflexible, insisting on such things that were interdit e.g. iron bed frames etc. When asked why this was the response was because that is the rule!GDF may work for some but certainly not for us. A pity really. Deby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miki Posted November 10, 2004 Share Posted November 10, 2004 Hi Deby,As you perhaps know ? we are with G de Fr and I was wondering which part of their T&C you found were too restrictive? I am also not sure what you mean by "we would lose our autonomy" We stay in full control of everything really, including prices of course. So how would their bookings, pretty rare in our case, as 99.5% percent of all G de Fr clients book direct with us ,affect your own bookings ?I don't know about the "metal bedsteads" and wonder if that is a regional rule, of which there are many and there seems to be plenty of confusion caused because of it !!As you say, it is a pity, as we, as well as many others, do find that G de Fr (being the largest of its kind in Europe) extremely beneficial to our annual income. I am interested and it is in no way a defence of G de Fr, I am just really interested why it wouldn't work for you and your lovely place.Hope you had a good season anyway without them !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deby Posted November 10, 2004 Share Posted November 10, 2004 Hi Miki,Thanks for your comments. We have found in Charente-Maritime that GDF are very restrictive and if we wanted to run a campaign or manipulate our prices we would be conflicting with GDF. Have you found this an area of conflict?Going through their rules and regs we would have to change all our beds and they were not cheap! I am keen to hear of your experiences though as I would like to get into bed with them so to speak, but when I have ploughed through their stuff it looks very restrictive or are we being overly-cautious?Our first year was successful considering we only arrived in March, however next year is looking good but am not one to count my chickens and we still need those weeks which are out of season.Deby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miki Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 Duchess,I have looked at your excellent site and can see that you may have a problem with G de Fr with your pricing policy. All rooms must have the daily rate including breakfast at the entrance (not always adhered to I notice) prominently just inside the door and also behind the door of each bedroom.With your discount policy at certain times of the year that might prove difficult I guess. Is that part of the conflict you envisaged ? We have friends who have a similar set up, not with G de Fr though but, if they are doing special weeks or are half full already with special offer weeks, they simply say they are full. We tend to be "fullish" for most of May, June, Sept and October and no space at all during July & August all this with just B&B and no offers, I realise now that we were very lucky to have found a place so well placed but your place is so nice, it could be up the Massif Central and still have a good occupancy rate with the right publicising, by the Guru of course!The bed rule seems bloody stupid to me, surely it is the mattress that counts ?Let me know which parts you find restricting and I will see how it is with the "official ladies" around here (French arm of the Blackpool landlady's army) who are G de Fr inspectors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave&Olive Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 DUTCH TRANSVESTITES last bottle of french wine for a week !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patmobile Posted November 14, 2004 Share Posted November 14, 2004 [quote]DUTCH TRANSVESTITES last bottle of french wine for a week !!![/quote]Me too, I'm afraid - I only looked in out of fascinated curiosity!However, as it happens I know more about gites than I do about dutch blokes in womens' clothes. GdF have the metal bedstead rule in our area too so it is probably applied everywhere. The rule book is pretty long and needs a lot of perusal and careful study long before you even consider your amenagement. For instance, I had to extend a bedroom by overhanging 2 ft into the adjoining barn space to make sure it exceeded the minimum floor space for a double room (under sloping roofs only the part with 2m headroom counts).I tried to get on one of the Dutch websites for French holiday cottages but their rules required a Dutch speaking owner or member of staff! Surely everyone knows every Dutch person speaks English and no-one else anywhere in the world speaks Dutch? (apologies to any Afrikaaners)Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave&Olive Posted November 14, 2004 Share Posted November 14, 2004 [quote]Me too, I'm afraid - I only looked in out of fascinated curiosity!However, as it happens I know more about gites than I do about dutch blokes in womens' clothes. GdF have the metal bedstead rule in o...[/quote]thank just thought it was me just took the half finnished bottle back out of the fridge.......dry for 2 days........phew.ta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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