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We decided back in Dec not to renew our adverts with Visit France as they were no longer producing enough enquiries to warrant their annual fee and hardly ever seemed to appear on the 1st page of google any more.   They have just sent me an e-mail to say I have recieved an enquiry which I have to log on to read.   Of course I can no longer log on.  A ploy to get me to pay them to renew my advert no doubt.  Having looked at their site our B&B advert is still being shown but they have of course removed any reference to our own website but added a phone number which is not ours, but direct to Visit France.  I have of course told them to take us off their site immediately.  Not good if potential guests see us, enquire and hear nothing back.  Surely if you decide not to renew your advert you should be removed immediately and this is totally underhand.  Seems it is just a way of keeping more properties on their possibly failing rental website business.  Wonder how many more properties on their site no longer are actually paying to be on there.
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[quote user="Felix"]We decided back in Dec not to renew our adverts with Visit France as they were no longer producing enough enquiries to warrant their annual fee and hardly ever seemed to appear on the 1st page of google any more.   They have just sent me an e-mail to say I have recieved an enquiry which I have to log on to read.   Of course I can no longer log on.  A ploy to get me to pay them to renew my advert no doubt.  Having looked at their site our B&B advert is still being shown but they have of course removed any reference to our own website but added a phone number which is not ours, but direct to Visit France.  I have of course told them to take us off their site immediately.  Not good if potential guests see us, enquire and hear nothing back.  Surely if you decide not to renew your advert you should be removed immediately and this is totally underhand.  Seems it is just a way of keeping more properties on their possibly failing rental website business.  Wonder how many more properties on their site no longer are actually paying to be on there.[/quote]

It is a ploy to get you to renew. There is another we used one year that sends us false booking enquires even after two years and if you try to read them you are actually taken to a 'Welcome Back' page that wants you to cough up. Some of course do then discover that there was either no actual enquiry or there was but it was a fake and you get an email back to say they had booked with somebody else. Yes I did get caught out, just the once and never again.

To be honest if somebody really likes your place they will then search for it and make a reservation via an alternative route. These old style websites are finding life very difficult these days because owners have realised that even though they might not like paying commission that using commission based websites at least means you only have to pay if somebody actually stays rather than paying a lot of money up front and getting little or no reservations in return.

I was such a person who didn't like commission websites but I have been forced to admit by their performance that they defiantly come up with the reservations and this year would have been very hard without them. Another thing I like is the diversity of the guests they bring you. I have my first ever Japanese guests at the moment, two couples and very nice they are to. I have had guests from countries I never thought possible in the past but these commission websites go to a lot of trouble to translate stuff and to have a presence all over the world which in turn gives you an exposure way beyond your possible dreams. I find it very exciting, it’s like going on a world tour without leaving your own home and offers a golden opportunity to learn about cultures from distant shores. So I am now a convert to commission based websites.

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Hopefully Visit France will now remove us from their site as not good if people think we are not responding (but like you I somehow doubt if there even is a genuine enquiry).  We too have had similar experiences with another website.  You seem to be a convert to the likes of Booking.com although I am still to be convinced.  What happens if a potential guest cancels?  I read a forum (from the other side of the coin) where a guest who used booking.com was saying how good it was because he cancelled at the last min because the restaurant down the road from his chosen hotel was not open and that was the main reason for him staying there so he cancelled at the last min with no cancellation fee.  Very worrying!!  Also we do like having personal contact with guests who are booking (after all they are staying in our home) which presumably you do not get with these companies??  We have guests from all over the world via our own website which is always on 1st page of google.  These new sites are not going to go away so I fear we will have to join them eventually as everything changes and in the end you have to try other ways of marketing.  This year is proving how tight things really are out there.  Several gites we "property manage" have had empty weeks in July and the owners have had to put special offers on to try and fill them.  In our 11 years of running our maintenance business we have never seen so many properties with empty weeks in July - also quite a few cancellations which of course could be due to many reasons.  Going to be interesting in the future how we have to adapt our marketing.  Every year you have to keep on top of it and work out who is working for you and who is not.  Just never liked paying a company commission when we have in the past produced our own bookings .... but times are no doubt changing and no doubt we will have to change with it and, like you, become a convert. 
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[quote user="Felix"]What happens if a potential guest cancels?  I read a forum (from the other side of the coin) where a guest who used booking.com was saying how good it was because he cancelled at the last min because the restaurant down the road from his chosen hotel was not open and that was the main reason for him staying there so he cancelled at the last min with no cancellation fee.  Very worrying!! [/quote]

We had the same problem to start with and I got very annoyed. I spoke to booking.com who suggested we asked for the first nights stay (and meals if ordered) as a deposit. We don't have a credit card machine else they send you the card details so you can charge against the card. In our case we only have PayPal but we clearly state payment must be within 48 hours. If we have a problem then we contact booking.com who chase the guest for the money. See it works both ways. If the guests don't turn up you mark it as a 'no show', booking.com check with the guest and you don't get charged the commission and they don't get to make money. So it is in their interest to work with you, I have found the hotelier care service very good so far. Have to say they are by far the most prolific site for getting bookings and we are now taking booking for October and November which are filling up quite nicely.

I have sent you a PM with some figures. 

 

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Thank you for all the info and figures, very impressive.  We also do not have credit card facilities and use Paypal which works well for deposits.  We did wonder how the deposit payment worked. We still feel perhaps it is not for us as we only have the 2 rooms and it is not our main source of income (although of course we obviously like to see the rooms busy), but we can see it works wells for larger establishments that rely on max capacity to earn their living.  Going back to the problem with that certain website, having checked we found that out of 7 adverts on their site for our area, 5 had VF phone number on them and only 2 had the owners phone number showing.  So if like us those 7 find out and remove their adverts then they only have 2 B&B's for our area.  Not at all a good way of running a business and our advertising money will be going elsewhere. 

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If you have only a couple of rooms you should be OK. I just did a report on nationality from Jan 2010 to Jan 2014 and by far our biggest nationality is the French which is more than double the number of Brits, Belgium came third with around half the number of the Brits so those three are the biggest source of income. If I run the same report for just this year then the number of Brits has dropped to around 25% of the French who are still the strongest group (Belgians again come in third but almost equal the Brits). I mention this because you need also to aim your advertising at groups by country and we do advertise Internationally. One group I don't spend much money on is Americans because quite frankly with the Dollar crashing against the Euro not so many come and those that do come are rich and go for high end accommodation (we have only two American couples this year). Of course it does vary according to area and some areas attract particular nationalities more than others. All in all you really need to know how guests find you and from what publicity so you can cancel the ones that are no good and costing you money. You also need to know what nationalities so you can aim your primary advertising at them but don't forget to still have some inexpensive advertising in other countries because different countries become popular over time and you don't want to miss out if trends change. Most importantly is your advertising budget, set it and don't deviate on the cost. We allocate 10% of our income to advertising and are quick to 'pull the plug' on those that don't give results.

Good luck.

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[quote user="water rat"]We have followed your lead, Quillan and have signed up with Booking.com. Very happy with how it's going so far! Thanks![/quote]

The only thing I would say is we still are registered with Laterooms and the first year they were really good (just like booking.com) then they dwindled quite a bit but at the time they came top in any search. Booking.com is now top and there is another called Agoda that is on the up so you need to watch the market as it does change. Unfortunatly Agoda work on a voucher system, the guest pays them and gets a voucher to hand to you on arrival. You then enter the voucher in to their system and they transfer the money, minus their 15%, to your bank account. I'm not too happy with them having that sort of access but I shall be watching them to see how they perform. They are now starting to come up on sites like TripAdvisor etc as well as Booking.com and Laterooms. Moral is you need to be on top of advertising and make it work for you. If you don't things can go very wrong. A CDH is for sale near us, got it wrong and has only three reservations for the next few months. I am absolutly amazed but there you go.

Something else you might be interested in is www.beds24.com They have a system that updates website calenders like booking.com, Laterooms etc all in one go and you can put their calender on your website. Costs around 10 Euros per month and saves the grief of having to update all these websites plus the problem of double booking rooms by accident. Been with them a year now and I can recommend them. Their support is good as well.

Other than that glad booking.com are working well for you.

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the booking.com contract it says that you can't sell your rooms through them at a higher price offered elswhere but that does not mean you can't offer them at the same price. The price you sell your rooms at is determined by the hotel and can be changed anytime and very simply, it takes about two minutes. Most channel management software will easily control your prices across all the websites like booking.com, expedia etc, etc. You will also find that the software medium to big hotels use also have channel management built into them so you can change the prices on every website at the press of a button.

At the end of the day nobody forces hotels to sell their rooms through these sites and if they don't like the terms and conditions then don't use them. I think if the big chains told these sites they were pulling their advertising they may find they can negotiate better deals. These websites rely on hotels to make money, booking.com has over 5,500 reps working for them world wide according to their corporate website so they need the money.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Following Quillan's good words about Booking.com we've decided to join the club and are now in our second week of being 'live' and I have to say that I'm impressed with their organisation and the bookings we're getting.

I feel we need some channel management though as even though it's relatively quiet now, keeping up with bookings diaries is enough to make you tear your hair out. We've got a 'Freetobook' widget on our website and their system's easy to use. I'm looking at Quillans beds24 suggestion, and making I'm being thick, but the set up is defeating me at the moment, so I'll take a break and attack it again tomorrow. I like the fact that you can make the booking widget and form in French too, and with Freetobook, it only seems to run in English. The jury's therefore on who's system I use to manage our diary and Booking.com's.

Jan

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[quote user="Lachouette"]Following Quillan's good words about Booking.com we've decided to join the club and are now in our second week of being 'live' and I have to say that I'm impressed with their organisation and the bookings we're getting.

I feel we need some channel management though as even though it's relatively quiet now, keeping up with bookings diaries is enough to make you tear your hair out. We've got a 'Freetobook' widget on our website and their system's easy to use. I'm looking at Quillans beds24 suggestion, and making I'm being thick, but the set up is defeating me at the moment, so I'll take a break and attack it again tomorrow. I like the fact that you can make the booking widget and form in French too, and with Freetobook, it only seems to run in English. The jury's therefore on who's system I use to manage our diary and Booking.com's.

Jan
[/quote]

As you add languages so the number of diffrent language email responses increases i.e. we have English, French and Spanish so we have three lots to fill in.

Use their forum for questions, I would like to help but we are still full for the next three weeks so I don't have the time. If you still have problems then drop me a PM and I will give you the email address of the guy who can help you at beds24.

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  • 2 weeks later...
We've just had our first no-show through booking.com. I've already let them know and they've taken off the commision, but does anyone know if they actually chase the miscreants for the money? It's most galling as we've had the trail biking world championships here and could have filled the room easily.
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[quote user="water rat"]We've just had our first no-show through booking.com. I've already let them know and they've taken off the commision, but does anyone know if they actually chase the miscreants for the money? [/quote]

We had our first too at the end of August, and although they've removed the commission, I spoke to them and they say they can do nothing about it as we don't accept credit cards. I've sent the miscreant (who really messed us around) a PayPal request for money but my chances of receiving it are, I think, on a negative scale! I'm resigned to putting it down to experience and maybe trying to get a PayPal deposit for people like her, who booked at the very last minute.

Jan

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If you accept credit cards you can charge the card other than that I don’t think you stand a chance. At present we charge the first nights accommodation plus meal if ordered in advance. We ask for either a French cheque or payment via PayPal. When they have not paid I send a reminder and CC customer service at booking.com. Don't know if it is the fact I CC booking.com and/or they also contact the guest but that seems to make them pay.

I am currently investigating "PayPal Here" which is a card terminal and costs £99. It connect via your Android or Apple phone via an App and Bluetooth. At home no problem you can use the WiFi connection and the commission rate is around 3% (2.75% for Chip and Pin, 3.2% for 'Customer not present'). If it is possible to have and use this in France Then you can ask booking.com to forward the credit card details and charge them (I seem to remember there is a box to tick somewhere on their website).

What I like is the customer service side for hotels with booking.com. They seem pretty much on the ball and very helpful. I think this is because if they can't get you the guest they don't get paid and they seem to want to get hold of every bit of commission they can so by being proactive on the hoteliers behalf is very much in their interest.

Have to say it has been one of our best seasons for a long, long, time and looking at where we get bookings from it is primarily down to booking.com. At present they seem to be dominating the market, they come up first in just about every search when looking for accommodation.

 

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I thought that would be the case. We also request first night cost as a deposit ( standard with GdF ) but will always be a problem with late bookers .

Can you believe it, that Booking re-let our no-show room so we would only loose one night, and b=+ger me if that wasn't a no-show as well!

I suppose this will happen with more demand ,and we are very happy with Booking.........seem to be getting some weirdos tho' !

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There is no excuse for guests not paying the first night through PayPal. On our standard confirmation letter we say that if you are arrivng within seven days of making the reservation then you can only use PayPal (they must pay within 24 hours of recieving the email). If you have a problem getting the money just email booking.com with the subject line of "Please cancel reservation number 12345678" but include all your emails to and from the guest. They really don't like loosing their commision and usually get them to pay within a couple of  hours or they cancel the reservation if they can't get hold of the guest. Remember, booking.com are working for you, let them do the work for you, it's what you are paying them for.
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We are not with booking.com but we always take 1 night deposit via Paypal (guests pay the small charge).  We normally tell them they have 48 hours to pay the deposit and if a last min booking 24 hours (or immediate if very short notice).  If they do not pay us within these times we send them an e-mail saying that as no deposit has been made we cannot confirm the booking and the room has gone back on as available to other enquiries.  Often this works and after some excuse as to why they had not paid, up it pops.  If not then they were just wasting your time.  We have found in general the French do not like paying deposits and as soon as you reply and mention Paypal that is the last you will hear (obviously have exceptions as if they really want to come they will pay straight away).  French often prefer to go down the old route of sending a cheque, bless!  Still they usually turn out to be the best behaved guests.  So no deposit and they do not come is our motto. We also state on our website that if they reduce the number of nights booked after arrival they are to pay for the nights originally booked as I fell once for the trick of booking 2 nights last min over the phone, then as they walked in the gate they announced they were only going to stay 1 night (we do not take 1 nighters) and of course I could have filled that room after accepting their booking. Luckily so far we have never had a "no show" but no doubt there will always be a first. 
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So, I presume it is possible to pay into a paypal account without an account. If that is the case ,then that seems the best method for us.

We have been with GdF for 7 years and their methods of payment are archaic, but then , the french do like their contracts in triplicate.GdF will have to change their ways if they are going to stay in business. Nowadays a click is enough to secure a room, not many want to wait to receive a contract via the post then send off a cheque with the yellow copy. I asked our GdF rep if there was any chance of at least getting an online contract to fill in, but he said there were no plans,quelle surprise!
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Yes it is. I don't know if you can do that with a normal account as we have a business account and have done so for many years. Basically we have a hidden webpage on our website that we give a link to in our deposit request email. They can change the language enter the amount we are asking for then proceed either with or without an account.

I have been having a bit of a battle finding out about PayPal Here which would be very interesting for the B&B trade. If you use the following link you can read a little about it.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/home

Basically they charge 2.7% for using a card with Chip and Pin or swipe and 3.4% for a card of a different currency to the account you’re using, in my case my account is in Euros so anything other than Euros will be charged at the higher rate. Also and of even greater interest is you can use the app to do a "card not present". This would mean if you have the card information from booking.com you can charge the card.

Now the bad bit, first launched in the US then Australia, Germany and now the UK. There is no immediate intention to launch in France and trying to get a date is neigh on impossible. Bit of a shame really because it would be really interesting and with such low charge rates makes it extremely competitive with the banks many of whom in France charge a fortune for the service as a standard charge, you need a TVA number and the transaction charge is very high. So we will have to wait and see but you can bet the French banks are trying to block PayPal from using this in France as it could potentially cost them a fortune in fess.

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