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Summer season 2008 - anecdotes anyone...?


Wendy
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So another busy summer season is drawing to a close - anyone got any stories to tell...?

I'll start the ball rolling then. We had a family - Mum, Nan and two boys in their late teens. Mum and Nan had one room, the 'boys' had another. Mum and Nan's room was a joy to service - the boys...? [+o(]

Think 'over an inch of water all over the bathroom floor each day running out through the carpet and into the bedroom'. Think 'floor towel never used' - left hanging dry as a bone each day on the towel rack. Think 'note left for boys on third day to use floor towel and close bathroom door when showering due to carpet damage' - think 'note completely ignored'.

Think 'boy's underpants left under pillow each day'...[8-)]

Very nice family mind you - but those boys...[:-))]

 

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After 5 years running a B&B & gites your story is the norm I think - I now know what to expect when we take a long B&B booking from families with teens & plan accordingly...IKEA bedding & ALDI towels, remove rugs & breakables etc to minimise damage.......provide lots of games & suggestions for rainy day activities.... This year has been no exception but we have loved having all our families to stay - OK the rooms are untidy & take a while to clean, but they have all been extremely polite & friendly & must have had a great time as they have all booked to return next year.......its when you get the sullen 'Kevin' type that I get fed up.......or when they get really bored & start 'playing' with things......fortunately that sort of family rarely returns as their 'I'm bored' attitude makes the holiday difficult for Mum & Dad as well.  I have found that the more 'notes' you leave then the worse they can get - just grit your teeth & get through their stay - they are probably worse at home - at least you don't have to look after them all the time....remember Mum & Dad probably need the holiday more than the kids - you want them to go away relaxed & de-stressed, not worried  about upsetting their host.....& planning their next stay - hopefully without the teens.......

 

This has been our busiest summer season yet in the B&B & apart from a few permanently miserable/contrary types (who I find will never enjoy anything I suggest)we have had a great season - OK we are now completely exhausted, but after making the decision to no longer accept one-nighters we have managed to fill the place for 3 months with longer term bookings - which is great, a lot less cleaning & washing, but busier & longer breakfasts.  Only another 10 days & we can relax a little again before starting on the 'off season' projects - at least then we get a lie-in...& a break from 'doing breakfast'  If only the weather would pick up a little we could sit in the sun & read like our guests have done all summer.......

Have a great relaxing winter everyone...

 

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Nearly over Jura, we are still going full tilt till November.

I don't know about writing about clients as some actually visit this forum (we have had a few ourselves this year) but reading about your competitors and other B&B's in your region on Tripadvisor is always a good laugh and full of ideas on how to make your B&B better.

Anyway, when we get to the end of the year there are loads of things to do like painting the outside of the house, tatty looking establishments always seem to put people off and then decorating the rooms in the main house for next year.

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Well for us the season is short; you would think someone turned the lights out on August 31st. However we still have a few more bookings this month and next.

Our Guests this year have been a dream, mainly french and first class, they have been the best we have had in the last five years? One french family even took the hover and hovered the room before leaving and cleaned the bathroom. Its been hard work but its been a real pleasure dealing with all our guests .

 

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Alan we actually saw a big downturn in British guests this year and a huge rise in guests from Scandinavia - loads of Danes and Norwegians. I can understand to a degree why the Brits haven't travelled so much this year but was wondering about why the Scandinavians are out in force...
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My husband (running a B&B on the UK on his own) said some Polish people knocked on the door and asked for our family suite for 3 nights.  So 4 adults crammed into it because they were on a low budget.  The Full English Breakfast wasn't that successful - they left the fried eggs, the only ate the inside of the sausages (i.e. leaving the skin) etc.

My hubby then realised that they were Greek (they spoke no English) and so I suggested getting in yoghurts and honey for them, which he duly did.  Not a success either.

They booked out yesterday, when someone came to collect.  They were so impressed with how my husband had tried to help them that they gave him a bottle of Cava.  It turned out that they were Spanish...

 

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A couple of people mentioned nationalities and up or down turns in bookings. As some will know I keep statistics for my B&B which go back 7 years. Obviously I am not going to say how many guests we have had but I can tell you the following based on 2007 and 2008.

In general bookings were down about 13% between the this year and last, that aside I have to say last year was the best ever by far of all the years we have been in business, if it were not for last year then this would have been the best.

So who has not come nationality wise this year, well it breaks down as follows.:

33% less Americans, 85% less Australian's, 22% less Belgians, 15% less British and 12.5% less Spanish.

Fortunately the French stayed at home (i.e. France for their holidays) this year and we saw a 75% increase in French guests.

As to a percentage breakdown of guests 47.85% were British, 24.36% French, 6.96% American, 6.09% Belgian and 2.61% Dutch (we don't normally have any Dutch). All the rest were from Australia, Czech Republic, Italian, Japanese, New Zealand, South African, Spanish and Swiss in equal amounts.

We had a meeting with Petit Flute recently about highlighting our region more. We currently have about a quarter of a page but next year we hope to have four or more pages. Afterwards we were talking about 'trends' and when asked what I thought I gave a guestimate of about 16% downturn (so it was not as bad as I thought then). We were told that this was very good as other regions in France have seen, apparently, around 20 to 25% drop in bookings. Where the lady from Petit Flute got her information from I don't know so I can't validate it. What I can say is that there has been some form of downturn this year.

My figures are based on confirmed, deposit paid reservations till the end of October when we close. We may of course in the mean time get more reservations although I am not holding my breath.

With the current problems with banks both in the US and the UK resulting in not too kind exchange rates and people worried about money I personally think next year may not be very good if you rely on people from outside Euroland. People will either go on 'all inclusive' package holidays or stay in their own country. Apparently the the English Tourist Office said that this year has been a bumper year in the UK due to people not traveling abroad for their holidays (BBC Morning News 16/9/08).

Finally where did the business come from, well not from UK websites for sure although French Connections was the best of the UK ones (makes a change, its usually Visit France) the bulk of the business came from French websites and our own (and yes we monitor how people find us) which gave us the bulk of the UK guests.

So build a good website for English speaking guests and start advertising on French websites if you don't already.

Disclaimer - Apart from advertising on French Connections and Visit France I have no other dealings with them.

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Quillan, all your stats make interesting reading as we hopefully be starting the renovations of a house into a CDH in the new year. I was wondering what your thoughts of peoples attitudes to package holidays will be with the demise of companies such as XL as well as the credit crunch and not forgetting how bad the weather has been in the UK for the last 2 summers? Do you have any info on what standards people expect and if there has been more of a downturn in lower graded accomodation or if its accross the board?
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[quote user="Miss Babs"]Quillan, all your stats make interesting reading as we hopefully be starting the renovations of a house into a CDH in the new year. I was wondering what your thoughts of peoples attitudes to package holidays will be with the demise of companies such as XL as well as the credit crunch and not forgetting how bad the weather has been in the UK for the last 2 summers? Do you have any info on what standards people expect and if there has been more of a downturn in lower graded accomodation or if its accross the board?[/quote]

At the moment there are too many balls up in the air to make a real guess.

XL was a rather small company compared to many others, people will book with companies like Thomas Cook, First Choice etc who have the stability. If you think about your own holidays the accommodation is, when you tot it all up when you get back home, not the biggest expense. Going 'all inclusive' means that after you have paid for the holiday there really is no need to take any spending money.

High end people with little or no debt will always come to France for a holiday but then they are the sort that stay in expensive hotels, you know the Chateaux at 300 Euros a night. CDH typically serves the middle income bracket who are the ones who get hurt with exchange rates, inflation back home etc. So I don't think they are going to come in so many numbers next year. Certainly the bottom end of the market may suffer more as the people who use this type of accommodation do so because they are on a fixed budget probably because they are either on a low income or have a high expenditure rate (loans etc). These are the ones who will probably holiday in the UK.

As for the last couple of years weather I can only say is it ain't been much better in France either. We have had rain again this year in August, thats two years on the trot and virtually unheard of. I have seen smoke coming from chimneys because its been so cold at night that people have lit their fires, love the smell of wood fires. The Pyrenees already has snow, not much but it is snow, another rare event in late August, early September. Bad weather is not exclusive to the UK I am afraid. If you look back through this forum people have complained a lot about the weather in France this year particularly in central and norther France.

The golden rule of opening a CDH is never borrow money in any form, mortgage, bank loan etc and it should be your second income. I would suggest that for the couple of years you will need an income that will allow you to just about survive if you live frugally and that your CDH income will then pay for the nice things in life like meals out, holidays and save a few bob for a rainy day.

Mind you it has to be said that every year in this section people say things don't appear to be that good but they seem to turn out OK by the time we reach the end of the year. As I have said before when this comes up it aint over till the fat lady sings and you do your accounts at the end of the year, its a fickle and unpredictable business. For me we are nearing the end so I can make a fairly accurate statement about this years season compaired to our last.

Hopefully I will be totally wrong, next year it will be 1.50 Euros to the pound, interest rates will be 2%, sunshine from May to October and guests ten deep at the gate all wanting rooms for 7 nights or more.

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"Hopefully I will be totally wrong, next year it will be 1.50 Euros to the pound, interest rates will be 2%, sunshine from May to October and guests ten deep at the gate all wanting rooms for 7 nights or more."

I like the idea of that! but I won't be using it for budgetting!!

We have had a house in France in the Gers so are familiar with the weather, we want to be nearer the coast and a big city with better weather than Lancashire but we don't expect year round sunshine ( I lived in Florida for 6 months and hated not having seasons) We toyed with the idea of Mallorca but decided that although it has better weather you have to be a multi millionaire to achieve the standard of accomodation that we want and would be totally in the hands of cheap airlines ,as the ferry is really expensive, to get our customers there. We have a business in the UK which will fund the renovations, mortgage etc and plan to keep that going for 3 yearsish , to give us a safety net really and chance to establish the CDH get in the guide books and such and then move fulltime when we sell our business, nows not the best time to get a good price for our UK business and it is key to have a debt free life in France. Having had the stress and worry of building a UK business we don't want that level of financial stress again, it also runs 364 days a year from 6am to 8pm so although I know running a CDH isn't a walk in the park it won't be quite so full on as our current business. Its quite a long term plan but hopefully a sensible one as much as we would like to up sticks tommorrow and move[:D]

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