Market research on behalf of my French teacher...

[Catalpa]

This is a touristy part of Normandy and my French teacher has come up

with the idea that during July / August she could offer accompanied / translated visits to

various museums and local enterprises to British visitors. If she goes

ahead she'll leave leaflets with the local tourist offices etc but

would also like to partner with local B&B / gite owners to have a

link to her website (when she's got one) so that people can book with

her in advance - as well as leaving leaflets at the B&Bs / CdHs.

In

principle it seems like a good idea because there are are a lot of potential "visits" but, of course, they are conducted in French and if someone doesn't

speak any French then the visits of of limited interest.

However... and this is the market research bit. Could she have your feedback as follows:

Assuming

that she has a professional website, leaflets, etc, would you be

prepared to have a link to translation services on your website and have her leaflets set out for your guests? (This

is not a request for you to do so, just a question to see what gite / B&B / CdH owners think about it).

What

do you think guests would pay for an afternoon at a local museum (say)

with a b-lingual French person. She's thinking in terms of 40€ for an

afternoon (4 hours) for up to 4 people.

Any thoughts you have about this would be useful to her so thanks in advance. [:)]

[Alan]

Ok i know we are not in the same region. But we have had a problems where guests have come and do not speak french and do find its a pain going round a chateaux etc and not understanding anything about their visit. In some cases we have found that they do not bother to go in the end as they feel it is a waste of money. One poor family went into a local maze only to find that the clues where all in french and they needed to solve them to key in the numbers to get through the locked gates and ended up going round with a french family to get out.

Having said all that a local French teacher did do as your teacher wishes to do and asked me to put her details in our chambre d hote but the feed back from the guests was that the cost was too expensive, she was also chargeing 40 euros for the afternoon and last summer none of our non french speaking guests took her up on her offer

[Just Katie]

Is the 40 euro per person or per party of 4?  If it is per party, I would certainly consider it.  She could do different types of trips.    Eg a foodie trip to the market where you could learn about local specialities and of course get to taste all the free samples, then rounded off with a typical norman lunch (optional)

[Catalpa]

40€ for 4 people for a 4 hour afternoon... or if it's a family of 2 adults and 3 kids in their own car that's fine too but I think the 4 people was because that's how many she can carry comfortably in her car should her clients prefer to be driven.

I do think there's potential for some summer business for her - and she had thought of foodie trips to the markets, Katie, because she does French cookery lessons too so she is knowledgeable about food. However, I also think - as did Alan (sort of) - that people are often a bit tight with their money and wouldn't necessarily see spending money to get more out of a visit to a museum (say) as money they'd want to afford. Perhaps she'd be better at targetting hotels... it's just that the CdH / gite accommodation is usually better quality than the hotels around here. [;-)]

I'm surprised there haven't been more opinions offered on this - here or in the Gites forum - because it isn't as if members are usually backwards in offering opinions on CF. [:P]

[Alan]

I like the idea of food trips maybe incorporated with a cookery class. I think people would view that differently as you are recieving something in exchange. If you see what i mean.( maybe a meal or tasting at the end of it)

Our guests all seem to think that the places of interest should have information in English or German etc and i dont think they liked the idea of having a stranger going along with them. The person in our area did not take them she only met them for the visit