Good News - Forced Registration

[Quillan]

Got a letter today from the Office de Tourisme Intercommunal.

As part of the national effort to give some form of assurance to people booking Gites and B&B's we have been requested to get a rating from either Gite de France or Clévacances. They will do this for a one of price of €45 and your grading will last for 5 years, you will also get a nice certificate to hang on your wall and a copy to send to your local prefecture. By the end of next year, or so the lady in our local tourist office told us, you won't be able to advertise anywhere in France unless you have been graded.

Well we will wait and see on this but in our area we have been sent the forms and told we must comply else we can't be in the local tourist office book or put our cards and stuff in the tourist office. Guess it's GDF for me as the other lot seem to be more Gite orientated.

In a way I actually welcome this. I have heard my guests complain about some pretty rough sounding places that they have stayed in whilst touring France.

I am told, but it's only hear say, that the prefecture will forward it's copies to the Chambre of Commerce to ensure we are all correctly registered. Should there be any 'cowboys' out there (highly unlikely I would say) this will sort them out!

[Guest CFrost]

Hi, pardon my ignorance (it doesn't take much these days :confusedbut does the forced registration include gites and if so, where would one get the forms if you have a new gite due to open later this year or would the forms be sent automatically?? Is there a website that has further info etc?? many thanks in advance 

kimberley

[mascamps.com]

Much as I applaud the move to a more legit and registered landscape over here, I suspect that they'll find that just listing GdF and CleV as the only acceptable places to list is contrary to european law; I'm sure that they'd be required to accept quality marks from non-French places like the AA and whatnot.

On a different note, is there a list of "quality grading" places anywhere?

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

Jetlag - Your local tourist office will point you in the right direction.

mascamps - So when did the French listen to EU law? On a more serious note I know that GDF have taken another (not mentioned) company to court and won.

The AA book is in fact GDF.

[mascamps.com]

True enough re their observance of EU law.

I have the "small" problem that neither GdF nor CleV will accept me as a consequence of their restrictive definitions and I'm sure that I'm not the only one in the same boat. For instance, what will happen to the "chambres d'hotes" that you see for sale now and again with 20+ rooms which both organisations will turn down flat?

I'd forgotten about the AA deferring to GdF. There are other quality grading places though which aren't French and aren't in the GdF/CleV group. It also struck me that they'd fall foul of EU competition law (which, I think, would be more strictly enforced) as they would seem to be creating a cartel by naming two organisations like that.

I was going to say that the CdCs and GdF/CleV inspectors will be very busy this year but there are a number of our local places that don't bother advertising to the French market at all so the initiative might just pass them by. I'm one of relatively few non-French owners locally who don't turn their back on the French market but if neither GdF/CleV will accept me and thereby I'm turned away from the tourist office, that'll be pretty me pretty much forced out of the French market too.

 

Arnold

 

[Bobc]

 "Got a letter today from the Office de Tourisme Intercommunal.

As part of the national effort to give some form of assurance to people booking Gites and B&B's we have been requested to get a rating from either Gite de France or Clévacances. They will do this for a one of price of €45 and your grading will last for 5 years, you will also get a nice certificate to hang on your wall and a copy to send to your local prefecture. By the end of next year, or so the lady in our local tourist office told us, you won't be able to advertise anywhere in France unless you have been graded.

Well we will wait and see on this but in our area we have been sent the forms and told we must comply else we can't be in the local tourist office book or put our cards and stuff in the tourist office. Guess it's GDF for me as the other lot seem to be more Gite orientated."

This must be fairly regional.

We have some modest bed & breakfast accommodation and having read your posting we enquired at the local Mairie. They had never heard of this ruling. The only requirement here for advertising in the local tourist office is that they will come and do an inspection of the property. Because we are odd in that we have a fully fitted kitchen in our b&b and we do not provide the breakfast, then we have to be classed as a gite!

In any event, both Gite de France and Clévacances are commercial operations, and our lady at the Mairie suggested that should we receive any similar requests then we should take them in for verification.

Regards,

Bob Clarke
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/grindoux

 

[mascamps.com]

Re the inspection business.... We've been here for ages and were sort-of expecting that "someone" would have came and inspected us by now but nobody has (we are listed with the local tourist office). Have they some kind of cycle for these things? Like every 2/3 years or something?

 

Arnold

 

[BJSLIV]

This link

http://www.tourisme-aveyron.com/fr/pro/meuble.pdf

Is quite interesting, being a pack produced for the Aveyron region giving the local rules of the game. They may vary from region to region, but there you don't have to register, but if you want promotion from the local tourist offices you register with GdF, Clea, or The Prefecture.

It also gives some useful stats about occupation levels, a possible business plan, and furnishing requirements. Don't forget the pressure cooker!

 

[Owens88]

Its good to have standards, and there is a lot of cr*p out there to be cleaned up.

FWIW I think our local tourist office runs a list (pay for entry) which differentiates between clevancaces and not.    GDF doesn't get a mention.

 

We were going to apply for clevacances but we miss a category because we din't have air conditioning. I know that is merely the difference betweeen one 200 euros wall mounted jobby, and not. But there we are for now.

 

Hoever the registration requirement is a good point to raise and for this forum to monitor.

 

John

[Quillan]

As is typical in France I fear that this may take some time to filter down through the departments to local level, remember the CDS fiasco and that was very important. I too spoke to my mayor, we are a sub marie of Quillan, and he knew nothing about it and has asked me to take the letter for him to see. The letter was distributed via the marie in Quillan.

I'm not so sure about restrictive practices. Although I never ran a B&B in the UK so I don't know for sure but was it not (only) the Tourist Board that officially graded B&B's there. As to GDF, I seem to remember a few years back in a post that somebody (it might have been Miki) said that GDF were run (or part run) by the French government.

I think the plus for GDF and Clévacance is that when they come round to see you they will take the oppertunity to try and get you to be a full member, more income for them, I bet they will love this. I wonder with al the extra people joining they will drop their prices?

As for a B&B with 10 rooms, well I don't think that it's classed as a B&b in France, more of a small hotel but I might be wrong. If it is then I can see why either organization would not register it. I am open to correction on this.

[mascamps.com]

As far as I know, GdF are indeed run by an arm of the government (they were originally set up to help rural communities get a bit more income); CleV are also run by an arm of the government but at the regional level which I suppose is why they aren't quite so consistent in coverage.

I know what you're saying about the 10 room B&B being more a hotel category than a B&B one. However, GdF do allow up to 6 B&B rooms plus 5 gites which seems pretty much the same as 11 rooms to me. Certainly the place down the road from us that is that scale is much more a holiday resort than any of the hotels locally.

Aside from that, there are quite a number very large "B&Bs" (I've seen up to 30 rooms for sale) which I've seen sold as a B&B. You can even register that kind of size as a B&B. The 5/6 room limit is a GdF imposed limit (matched by CleV). So, you can have something that is registered as a B&B (and listed as such with the local tourist offce) but which neither GdF nor CleV will consider.

To date, so far as I can tell, there are a very small number of such places that are english-owned but that number would appear to be increasing as those that I've run across have all been bought quite recently. Perhaps, the leading edge of the post-gite generation?

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

The only thing I can think is thats it's a play on words. If you run a Chambre d'hote and register with the Chambers of Commerce you can only have a maximum of 6 rooms, perhaps they use the GTF rules.

The idea of B&B is recent in France, by that I mean that the price quoted includes breakfast which I guess is technically B&B. Small hotels I thought came under Logis de France. So if a hotel says the price includes breakfast I suppose they could call themselves a B&B. I don't think a hotel can, if it's got over 6 rooms, call it's self a Chamres d'hote which is often called, by the Brits, a B&B, if you see what I mean.

I think the bit about having 6 rooms plus some gites would be acceptable by GDF.

Wheres Miki, he is involved quite a bit in GDF and he would know the answer.

At the end of the day if it's GDF or Clévacance that the deparment of tourism want to use I guess thats up to them, who are we to argue, you either join or get left out. As I have already said I think it's a good idea to regulate us.

[mascamps.com]

It's even more complicated than that. I have seen a few hotels locally that have less than 6 rooms so they could, in principle, be listed in GdF. The basic difference is that CdH are supposed to be your home with a couple of rooms that you use to take in guests, but then the smaller hotels are generally also the home of their owner so it's not so cut and dried.

Logis de France is vaguely the hotel version of GdF. I've looked into listing with them (and I think that some larger B&Bs could do it too) but I don't think it's really that economic as they appear to just promote themselves in France and I've found that, in general, French specific promotion outfits are generally more expensive than their international counterparts (Chez Nous being the notable exception).

We could, in theory, reconfigure ourselves slightly to come in at 6 rooms plus 2 gites (OK in GdF as their limit locally is 6 B&B rooms plus 5 gites: a very, very big complex!) and indeed we were originally intending to do that. However, we have, so far, have had little success in renting out the gite so adding another doesn't presently seem like a good move. In practice, we haven't so far ran with more than the 6 rooms occupied so possibly could have registered with GdF by just closing a couple of rooms and adding the extra gite later. However, those 30 room "chambres d'hotes" presumably would be so far beyond 6 that it wouldn't be possible to do that.

 

Arnold

[mascamps.com]

Forgot to say... I think (not sure) that the CdC registration is separate from the definition of a CdH as per GdF/CleV ie it is possible to register as a Chambres d'hotes with the CdC people even though you have more than 6 rooms. From memory, the business registration doesn't ask how many rooms your place has and I wouldn't really expect it to as it's quite general.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

I am not sure if this will answer all the Q's.

You have to remember that chambre d'hôtes were formed by the government (and in turn it was called Gîtes de France) for those poor agri and farmers who with their children moving out of the industry and rooms and outbuildings being lain empty, they were offered grants if required, (which in those days it mostly was) to be able to let out rooms or Gîtes and the income came with a lot of allowances.

So with the Hotel business in mind and them still being a strong voice, there had to be restrictions. It was decided that 6 rooms would be the maximum but if you want to keep tightly within the B&B framework, I would suggest 5 to be the max size. For tourism (both French and foreigners), G de Fr were quick to realise that the farmers, agri etc could exploit the severe lack of independent accommodation and thus help the Government to help the farmers etc by letting them keep the large amount of money to be made. This also helped the Govt from paying out quite so high a subsidy to some of them.

So as you can see, G de Fr are not in it for the larger type commerce, it goes against the principle and hotels or most places in towns, especially the larger towns, will not qualify. As Chris says, it is their club and whether you want to join under their rules is one's choice.

Chris, I have never heard that G de Fr will come out to grade, this has to be regional, as we have heard nothing, well not so far anyway. Take this chance to impress with your French and JOIN up, then watch all your hard work and efforts pay off.

[Mpprh]

[quote]Got a letter today from the Office de Tourisme Intercommunal. As part of the national effort to give some form of assurance to people booking Gites and B&B's we have been requested to get a ratin...[/quote]

Hi

this has been the norm here for at least 3 years.

Peter

[Miki]

[quote]Hithis has been the norm here for at least 3 years.Peter[/quote]

When you say norm Peter, do you mean that they have to get a rating to be included in the maison de Tourisme etc and actually be affiliated in one of the organisations, as I have always known it or do they just have to be graded by one of them without being a member, which I have never heard of before ?

I am interested in this, as I can't see how G de Fr can offer a grade such as 3 epis and then the person not be included in the guide book etc. I also cannot see that one would be allowed to say La Belle Maison 3 Epis Gîtes de France but not actually be a paying member ? Or will it be a local grading system carried out by G de Fr or whoever and a different form of grading given ?

With  G de Fr, there is continual feedback and should a client have a complaint, it will go the regional office or HQ, with this grading system, who gets the complaints ?

I have a meeting to go to in March I shall have to ask what it is all about but again, it could be a localised decision and no one will have a clue about it anyway !

[mascamps.com]

I'd have some issues too if you had to fork out for the inspection but couldn't use the stars/epis afterwards.

Even aside from the business of the maximum room numbers (this is regional: it's either 5, 5+1 disabled or 6 depending on where you are), I am quite sure that there are a fair number of places that wouldn't be acceptable to GdF. For instance, from my reading of their literature 18 months or so ago, the things which would rule me out are 1) number of rooms 2) offering an a la carte menu 3) not offering exclusively regional dishes 4) guests not dining with the family. Going from experience of B&Bs elsewhere I would have thought that, leaving the number of rooms aside, some or all of the other conditions would apply to a considerable number of "english" B&Bs here, and that's before you even count the business of needing to speak French (a reasonable requirement but, let's face it, not everyone does).

I think that you could end up with quite a number of places which, whilst otherwise clearly of a 2, 3 or perhaps 4 epi standard, just weren't acceptable because of one of the GdF rules. That's one reason why I'd not be keen on an imposed "be in GdF or else" approach.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

 I'd have some issues too if you had to fork out for the inspection but couldn't use the stars/epis afterwards.

Exactly, now put the shoe on the other foot so to speak, how would you feel as a member that some one else can receive a G de Fr epis rating but not have to be a member ?

..... there are a fair number of places that wouldn't be acceptable to GdF. For instance, from my reading of their literature 18 months or so ago, the things which would rule me out are

1) number of rooms Well to be fair that is the norm all over France, chambre d'hôtes is 6 (5) rooms or less only

2)offering an a la carte menu  Simply because that would put you in competition with local restaurants and that wouldn't be fair to the resto trade and against the principal of g de fr and why it was formed.

3) not offering exclusively regional dishes Take that with a pinch of salt, you can offer the main course, starter, dessert or even the local cheese as exclusive !!

4) guests not dining with the family. You would not be truly expected to do that at every meal, we rarely do these days and our guests are often morew happy to speak amongst themselves, we are there and on call but no one can expect you to eat with guests on every occasion, even though they rather stupidly put it in their guide books !

I think that you could end up with quite a number of places which, whilst otherwise clearly of a 2, 3 or perhaps 4 epi standard, just weren't acceptable because of one of the GdF rules. That's one reason why I'd not be keen on an imposed "be in GdF or else" approach.

Arnold, the only rule most would be worried about is number of rooms, the others you mention concern table d'hôtes and many don't do evening meals. You could apply to Logis de France or the French hotel board or whatever it might be called for classification, many folks especially like the Logis places in France

Joining G de Fr is simplicity itself, you just have to grit your teeth, smile when you know they are being a little OTT (in your opinion) do as they say, it might cost you but if you are in the right area and I have said this a thousand times, no other advertising for B&B comes anywhere close to the returns of G de Fr. When we are full and we offer French guests another place, on many occasions, they have asked whether or not the other B&B is with G de Fr.

I do not pay a high annual sum to get a poor return, it is as simple as that. Anyone that aims at the foreign market, especially the British market and doesn't spend a lot more on gaining French clients is barking mad ! Sorry Arnold but you and I have had plenty of pm's and you know my theory on who and where to advertise.

 

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Miki,just an observation(posting in peace "zuma"on the headphone)we have have a gite d F not more than 100m away from us,two rooms the owners had the old house fully converted at the begining of last year and then must of applied for Gite d F because  there was a plaque on the wall the following march(the gite was occupied for less than 6 weeks last year!!)the thought of the owners sharing a meal with the renters makes me smile,the owners parents own the only resturant in the village which is open 12 weeks a year.

[mascamps.com]

There are certainly lots of issues on both sides. I don't think either side would be overlly happy to effectively have 50€ membership and 500€ membership for the same category of property. OK, the 500€ gets you in the GdF book, but the 50€ would get you listings that otherwise aren't available.

As I say, we could, in principle, move to a 6 B&B room, 2 gite configuration for our place without a lot of difficulty ie the number of rooms that we presently have isn't an insurmountable obstacle. I want to get this year behind us before we make our mind up re moving to that (we've not ruled it out but are presently leaning towards the hotel listing).

I know where they're coming from re the a la carte. However, our personal viewpoint is that we'd never book into a place that basically said "that's the three courses tonight, take it or leave it". OK, there's the restaurant option, but we'd rather be the restaurant option ourselves.

Regional dishes sounds simple as you put it. As it happens, we're in the process of putting together our summer menu and that will include proper regional dishes. Last year we just got too high a proportion of non-French to go too far down the regional cooking route.

Due to the layout of our building, dining with the guests isn't really a viable option. However, you have put my mind more at rest re that.

The reservation I have about Logis is that they appear very poor at marketing their properties. We have one in the next village and, frankly, it's rubbish under virtually every heading you care to name from management to restaurant as far as we can see (ironically, we effectively get a lot of people passed on from them!). That's sort-of put us off Logis a bit too.

I was intending to go to one of the GdF seminars last year but didn't manage it. I'll drop them a line again and see what their timetable is.

Couple more GdF type questions: I gather that lunch is a no-no with them. What about if we want to run tours and host the odd seminar?

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

Miki,just an observation(posting in peace "zuma"on the headphone)we have have a gite d F not more than 100m away from us,two rooms the owners had the old house fully converted at the begining of last year and then must of applied for Gite d F because  there was a plaque on the wall the following march(the gite was occupied for less than 6 weeks last year!!)the thought of the owners sharing a meal with the renters makes me smile,the owners parents own the only resturant in the village which is open 12 weeks a year.I,m here in france

Firstly, a Gîte in the old sense meant simply, a lodging place but in the sense of how most people think of it now, it is a cottage and chambre d'hôtes is B&B. With a gîte there is no catering done for guests, with a ch d'hôte you cannot either but you have to be a table d'hôte to serve meals.

The reason perhaps she had a fairly low uptake was that she had no track record, she hadn't been given a decent grading, the season down south was not as great as before, she didn't advertise elsewhere to top it up, lots of reasons, maybe the area, maybe the pictures, there are a hundred things that can put people off booking, inc price of course but somewhere, and I don't know the circumsatnces or the region very well, will be the answer to their low letting.

 

 

[Miki]

 There are certainly lots of issues on both sides. I don't think either side would be overlly happy to effectively have 50€ membership and 500€ membership for the same category of property. OK, the 500€ gets you in the GdF book, but the 50€ would get you listings that otherwise aren't available.

As I say, we could, in principle, move to a 6 B&B room, 2 gite configuration for our place without a lot of difficulty ie the number of rooms that we presently have isn't an insurmountable obstacle. I want to get this year behind us before we make our mind up re moving to that (we've not ruled it out but are presently leaning towards the hotel listing).

I know where they're coming from re the a la carte. However, our personal viewpoint is that we'd never book into a place that basically said "that's the three courses tonight, take it or leave it". OK, there's the restaurant option, but we'd rather be the restaurant option ourselves.

That's fair enough, si with that thinking Arnold, you will npot be able to join G de Fr but I can tell you that we pick up hundreds of guest because we do table d'hôtes and the French know exactly what that means as far the evening meal is concerned. If they want choice they will go to a hotel or Auberge etc and that's fair enough.

The reservation I have about Logis is that they appear very poor at marketing their properties. We have one in the next village and, frankly, it's rubbish under virtually every heading you care to name from management to restaurant as far as we can see (ironically, we effectively get a lot of people passed on from them!). That's sort-of put us off Logis a bit too.

I can't comment on that as I have no knowledge of Logis apart from staying at a couple and we pretty happy with the rooms and food.

Couple more GdF type questions: I gather that lunch is a no-no with them. What about if we want to run tours and host the odd seminar?

No lunch is once again, seen as the hotel domain and anyway, do you want a life !!

We know of a couple who do seminaars but I must ask them if it allowed. I haven't read anywhere it is not but my gut feeling is that it would mean closing to others for that period. Tours I have not thought about but I cannot see anything wrong with that but of course none of the activities must be to the detriment of the other guests, of course not all will be G de Fr guests, so sometimes it pays to remember who may have come through them as complaints are becoming the norm in France and none so much as the new breed of G de Fr clients !

 

 

[mascamps.com]

True enough re the French attitude to evening meals. However, last year for various reasons we ended up with having a very high proportion of non-French staying and I think that they would be less keen on having a completely fixed menu. This being our first proper year of operations, we may have a completely different proportion which in turn might well change our mind on this aspect.

We've stayed in our share of Logis over the years too and were quite happy with them. I'm sure that the vast majority match expectations as per the assigned rating, the one next to us doesn't. One example to illustrate how bad he is: although he accepts reservations for Sundays, he isn't actually open on Sundays which is very, very bad for any guests.

I know what you mean re lunch. Our thinking is that we would perhaps do it out of season as it looks potentially very profitable due to our situation. To do that plus an evening meal sounds like a bit much to us too.

We're definitely keen on running the seminars/tours. Hopefully, we will be running our first French language course at the end of next month. We've two lecture rooms allocated for it so it shouldn't interfere with anyone else (it's a daytime thing anyway when most people staying are out).

 

 

Arnold

 

 

 

[Quillan]

Well the plot thickens a bit. My neighbour knows the only person in our area who is a member of GDF and lives 2km down the road. I went down to ask them if they have had the same letter and they had. They then phoned up the tourist office who told them that they too will have to be inspected even though they are already members of GDF. This will be a star rating not eppis (or whatever) in line with the star rating internationally recognised as a rating of quality (makes me laugh, been to a greek 5 star hotel it's more like 2 star). The only reason the tourist offic is using GDF and Clévacance is because they are more experienced than the tourist office at inspecting plus they are to be impartial.

I think GDF (and Clévacance) jumped at the chance because it's more business for them in as much as "while I am here have you considered joining GDF/Clévacance etc". I must admit that if I were a paid up member of GDF then I would be rather p1ssed off if I thought people were getting a eppis rating for 45€ and I paid over 300€ for mine.

Miki - I shall be going the whole hog (with GDF), it would be silly not to.