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Some of you may be using booking.com, I am and it is an excellent way to get reservations. It has consistently given us the most amount of reservations for the past three years. Anyway to what I wanted to post about. Those that are will have received an email from them by now about the changes they will be rolling out which will be completed by 1st July (2015). If you didn't understand them you can look at http://news.booking.com/en-us/ which is the English language version.

Some of you may remember last year that the French hoteliers were getting a bit wound up about Booking in that they technically forced them to advertise at a lower rate than anywhere else and the 'huge' commision rate they charge claiming it unfair. It would seem hoteliers in a few other EU countries thought the same and the EU was approached. It would seem that the EU agreed and has brought in changes that means you can give any rate you like which is what the email from Booking is all about.

We have always charged the same rate regardless of what website we advertise on and we have never had a complaint from Booking so it seems they don't actually check that the price you display with them is the cheapest or if they do it is the hotels they check and not little B&B's like us. Likewise when I consider how much I used to pay to be on premium websites and in books that I have cancelled over a year ago now the money I have saved means even with the 'high' commision rate of Booking it ends up not so bad over the year as the savings offset the commission's quite a bit and I still get the reservations.

The one thing I do wonder about is how over the coming 18 months or so the hoteliers in France will react towards CdH's. Before Booking they were putting pressure on the French government to clamp down on us claiming we had an unfair advantage due to lack of regulation and that we could offer higher quality accommodation at a lower price (because we don't have all the regulations and running costs). This they said was taking their clients and claimed many indipendant hotels would have to close. I always thought looking at our local hotels that they should be inspired to raise their standards rather than penalise CdH's and therefore be able to compete better with us. Some of them, judging by the photos of their rooms have not been decorated since the 1930's art deco period and they all seem to be painted green.

So I think interesting times are ahead and am wondering how the French hoteliers will react having 'won' their case with the EU.

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We have used Booking form the other end, the punters end, and been very pleased with them. We finish up paying the same as if we have gone directly to the place we want to stay and when we left the apartment place in the Loire last Friday we paid on leaving, nowt up front. The same when we go to Malta next month.

As a quick aside. We stayed in an apartment place called Domitys in Amboise and I would recommend them to anyone. The apartment was really spacious and comfortable and just a 10 min walk into the town for restaurants and shops. We had a lovely view, from our 4th floor balcony, across to the château. When we go back up there again we would be totally happy to stay there again.  It is also an old folks retirement home [blink] but none the worse for that either..

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Well from a users point you might find prices in hotels rising on Booking once they have been 'released' from offering the compulsory lowest price on the Internet so grab a bargain while you can or alternativly reserve in a B&B which offers much better value.

The thing is what the punters don't know is every website like Booking, Laterooms, Agoda etc all tell the hotel that they must give them a special, cheaper than anyone elses, rate which means if you follow to the the final conclusion they would be paying people to go and stay. [:-))]

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I recently booked a hotel in Arras. Looked on its website, and also looked on Booking.com as my experience has often been of getting a much cheaper deal through them. However, the hotel's website assured me it would always be cheaper to book through it, and indeed this proved to be so - by 1 euro per night.

Actually when I got to the hotel and read the notice on the back of my door, it seemed that my room should have been 145 euros a night, and I was paying 91 euros a night via the hotel's own website, so I was a happy bunny...

Mind you, breakfast cost 16 euros...

Angela
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I have found booking.com very useful for when I don't speak the language ...but it is always useful to check the hotel website as well, sometimes they offer better deals ...

Q - it is interesting to get the other side's point of view - swings and roundabouts as you say.

I find the reviews very useful on booking.com, also the location maps (though they can be pretty wrong at times), and where I have a loyalty card I go direct, but of all the hotel web sites booking.com is definitely my favourite ...

Been unable to sign on since I transferred to a new computer recently, and lost all my sign-ons, so hope this now works.  If text is large, it's because I'm still sorting out all the new settings!

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[quote user="Chancer"]How much do they siphon off?[/quote]

When we jointed at the beginning it was 13% but I believe it is higher now. You can up the percentage to get your listing to the top of the searches for your area but you need to pay 25% or possibly even more. Fortunately there are only three of us here so you always come on the first page.

What you have to conceder is that you can pay £400 to £600 per year to some of the top sites with no guarantee of getting a booking. If your on say three sites at lets say at an average of £500 each that £1,500 a year and then you hope (and pray) you will get reservations. Working on a commission rate means the company, in this case Booking, is work for you because the more bookings you get the more money they get. The ones that we used to pay to be on took your money and didn’t do anything. We also advertise on other sites that do not charge a lot of money, under 100 Euros for the year (manly non English sites), but the problem is if you, as a client, you do a search on just about anywhere in the world Booking.com will always be at the top of the first page.

 

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"but the problem is if you, as a client, you do a search on just about

anywhere in the world Booking.com will always be at the top of the first

page."

Very true! Also tripadvisor, but which I find less useful for booking accommodation.

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If your with Booking or Laterooms you can reserve via Tripadvisor.

PS. We have won the certificate of Excellence for four years on the trot now with Tripadvisor but if you know how to get them it's not that difficult. You just have to get one 5* review within a five day period at a certain time of the year and you come out top in your area. To be frank it is a bit of a fiddle.

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I tried to get on Tripadvisor and got an automated reply saying I didnt meet their criteria but they would welcome me via their sister company that charges a fee, cynical, - moi! [:@]

A Customer also tried to list me and got a similar response, I think they want you to pay to join the club now which makes it all the less independant in my eyes.

If anyone has recently listed or knows how to overcome the chantage then please let me know.

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As a mere punter I tend to use Trivago to compare the various booking sites.

It seems to me that Booking.com usually has the best deals, or at least as good as all the others

So, I assume Trivago takes a fee from Booking.com etc so margins for the hotel must be cut to the bone?

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I agree that booking.com is good for our advertising too.  They offer a good friendly and knowledgable service and their extranet is well designed.

We get lots of reservations via them and lots too (especially the French) that find us there but choose to book direct; some of our French clients being socialists have a grudge about a big company taking from the poor and keeping for themselves.  In contrary, we get lots of brits/US that trawl our website and then book via booking.com because it is in their nature to(a little bit less thought for the individual): Generalising a bit...

My one qualm is that their is a higher percentage of miserable clients that we get from them.  I attribute this to the fact that they dont do the reseach, just click a button to book and then turn up a bit bewildered.  Our direct clients have done the reseach, know what to expect and generally turn up more that happy.

I would reccommend that accommodations that use booking.com make as much contact with the client as possible... so break the ice before they arrive.

You can get onto tripadvisor by using the site hotelettings.  You adverise there and it will but added automatically to tripadvisor.  It costs 3% commission.  So, free if you dont get bookings.

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[quote user="osie"]
My one qualm is that their is a higher percentage of miserable clients that we get from them.  I attribute this to the fact that they dont do the reseach, just click a button to book and then turn up a bit bewildered.  Our direct clients have done the reseach, know what to expect and generally turn up more that happy.
[/quote]

We have had this a few times. They simply don't read the details and even when they make the booking it says "Do you want to continue with your reservation at this Bed and Breakfast" they still turn up expecting a hotel. The last couple of times I see the look on their faces and suggest they cancel their reservation at no charge and go down to the nearest town where there are several hotels and stay there. The problem is of course the price which when you add in the breakfast at 12 Euros each makes the hotel far more expensive than us. It is like they simply choose the lowest possible price and never look at the description. The thing is if they stay, which happened the first time, you get a terrible review (I think we got something like a 4) which is not fair because it was not our fault.

The absolute worse one was a couple who booked, from their mobile phone whilst on the road, and turned up with two babies and a dog. We do not accept children under 14 years (we don't have the facilities) and we don't take dogs (yes I know not accepting dogs is illegal in France which is why we charge 60 Euros per night per dog [;-)] ). I phoned up Booking and they agreed that we should not accept the reservation, didn't charge us and found them somewhere else for the night.

Have to agree that the hotel customer service side is excellent, much better than anything in France. You really feel they are working for you even if you’re a small four roomed B&B. Customer Service is open 24/7 as well because they work over multiple time zones. Quite professional I have always thought.

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We have used booking for about 18 months and in spite of the 15% sting we are happy with them. They have been very supportive with any problems. We only have a few rooms so have the opportunity to email all the bookers with itineries and confirmation. As a result we don't seem to have had any disappointed customers.
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I must get my fnger out of my backside and get on some of these sites, they seem to be working for the rest of you, thanks Osie for the Tripadvisor tip.

Do any of these sites allow you to have a French language page? Or are there any French language sites favoured by the French?

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Great, now this one is pushing it [:)] Can I write the listing for both the French and English sites and have the auto-translate for the others?

Its really heratening to hear that there is someone at the end of the phone, nearly every on line business these days goes to great lengths do discourage all contact by any means, EDF, parcel2go, TV licensing and many others spring to mind.

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As Q pointed out, their customer service is excellent. Whenever we phone them they happily talk to me in English and to my wife in French (No hint of North Africa or Asia in their accents!). But then they are not a french company they are dutch. Your listing in whatever language is translated by a team of linguists and takes a few days to appear. Have a look at a listing and then select another language you know. If you go with them they will make a RDV with you to talk through your listing and train you in managing the online bookings. Costs nothing until they take their 15% from your bank account once a month!
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They are actually owned by Priceline who also own a couple of other 'known' brands such as Agoda etc. They are American but Booking is operated from Holland because their biggest business is inside the EU and for an Amrican company it is tax avoidance. Bit like Amazon and the rest.
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I am not so sure you can put yourself on TripAdvisor, I always thought it had to be a guest. For English language you need to be created on the .com and .co.uk sites and for French on the .fr site. Tripadvisor then puts all the comments in one list but sorts them in the order aligned to the site your looking at. If you go on the French site you will get French reviews first and on the UK and .co cites English first. We also come up in the .es (Spain) site but the description is in English but it shows the Spanish reviews first. You get to add text (and photos) yourself as the owner/manager but you can only do that once a year.

You really need to create a website for yourself as well because some advertising websites will 'steal' text and photo's from other sites just to fill their website and will contain a link to your website. This helps them rank better.

Booking will generate multi language pages based on you giving them just a single language page of text. So you can write it in English and they will do the rest for you.

One thing you need to be aware of. With the likes of Booking you are graded on Hotel Staff, Service/Facilities, Cleanliness of room, Comfort, Location and Value for Money. So you can have your overall score reduced because of personal dislikes of an individual. For instance some may think you should have a TV in your room but with a CdH that is not a requirment (neither is tea and coffee). Some people may like a hard bed and others a soft bed and the one in the room is the opposite of what they like. For some you might get a low score for the Location because the nearest bar is more than 100m away.

Both Booking and TripAdvisor allow 'management' to respond (in the case of Booking if they give you a score but write no text you can’t respond). Neither will delete a review however unfair you may think it is (unless they make very personal remarks and/or use bad language). One example was a really terrible guest we had said you had to drive 60km to find a restaurant yet there are 17 within 5km. I got the Office of Tourism to contact TripAdvisor saying the comment was untrue and it maligned the area but they refused to change or delete the review. You can't please everyone and sometimes you get blamed, incorrectly, for something that is beyond your control.

 

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Last night was a pivotal moment for me, I am empty at the moment after close to 6 months of long term lets on both the finished apartments, I went into town and found it heaving with Australians for Anzac day, those I spoke to told me everywhere (except me that is[:(]) was booked solid and the closest they could find was 30kms away, a badroom in a château at 50% more than a hotel and three times what I charge, the office de tourisme had told them there were no vacancies in the area which confirmed what I have long suspected, a certain person there is not my greatest fan, they take my tax de sejour money but dont refer customers and deliberately print erroneus phone numbers for my listing in their tourist directory.

The key thing was all the tourists I spoke to said they found their accommodation through Booking.com or AirBnB.

Searching on booking.com I found a virtually identical establishment to mine, a non smoking apparthôtel some 15km away, they started in business the same time as me last year and they have had loads of guests given the reviews, I'm sure they have had more guests than have left reviews but just taking the review numbers multiplied by their room rate they have done better than me in the last year even though I will have had more nights with the long term clients and hence paying more taxe de séjour to the ruggers at the office de tourisme who to rub salt into a wound are giving out a list to workers seeking accomodation (my preferred market) that does not include my establishment but lots of private individuals who arent registered with the Mairie and dont pay taxe de sejour [:'(]

Anyway I have bitten the bullet and registered with bookings.com and it was very easy, well thought out, I especially liked that they hade a category for Apparthôtels.

kong wrote:   If you go with them they will make a RDV with you to talk through your listing and train you in managing the online bookings

I assume that you mean a telephone RDV?

A question, is there a mechanism where you can cancel a booking? I can envisage 2 scenarios, both where people book one or two nights (the average stay here) well in advance, in the meantime there could be a worker wanting to rent the apartment for 6 months overlapping the 2 night booking or I may find that have to return to the UK at the time to resolve a problem with my rental property there.

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They will come and visit. They have loads of regional offices in France, mine is at Montpelier.

Afraid you can't have it both ways, you either stick with taking 6 month lets if you can as small apartments or go down the proper hotel route. You will not be able to cancel the two night stay to give preference to a 6 month stay.All this will be explained to you when they come to visit although tyically they will send you some paperwork by email first. Basically if you cancel then you need to find the same quality accomodation, pay any costs and you will still be charged commision.

Should I assume you come under 'résidence de tourisme' and if so are you aware of all the regulations re aparthotels? I suspect you are but just checking.

If you use the Email button rather than the PM button I can send you a copy of the contract you will be signing.

 

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Just read through the PDF of their terms and conditions and have gone all goggle eyed!

Yes I can see thet they or the client can cancel but not I as the hebergeur even Under force majeure, so someone who ignores the no smoking rule can burn down my property or at least render an apartment uninhabitable but I cannot cancel the next booking and will have to pay to have the guests put up elsewhere and for a taxi to take them there? [:(]

I'l just have to find someone to take care of things in my absence, a tall order when after 10 years I have still to meet one person that I could trust to do anything other than exploit and abuse a friendship.

What about if you arent able to take credit cards, I see they talk about a managed payment scheme, do they offer that, how much more commission do they take from that if they do and finally when they take their 15% commission will there be TVA on that? - It looked like they would.

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