Lay My Hat

Woman leaves shirt in cottage. It takes longer than expected to sort it out as the cleaner keeps forgetting to pass it onto me. In the end I get this message from the guest! Ben. Another week and still nothing has arrived in the post. I realise I was forgetful but the acknowledgment that my item has...

I see this is quite an old thread but this year June is really dead for me (gite in mountains of the Auvergne). And I don't understand why. Now too late to hope for more than the odd weekend

I recently started a holiday lettings agency based in Devon called http://www.westcountrylets.co.uk . For various reasons I am now looking for a business partner. It could well suit someone looking for a business opportunity who is perhaps already involved in letting a holiday property or properties...

I just discovered this morning that when holiday-rentals switched to homeaway a while back all my French descriptions were deleted. This is pretty annoying given that the house I let in France is in the Auvergne and 90 percent of my clients are French. I only realised when some French people asked i...

Wow - Much quicker than expected !!! HL etc. take full control and start at 3% but gradually increase to 15% Sykes and Wyndham Group etc come under greater pressure to compete and reduce their commissions to 15% :shock: Personally I doubt it. The inspiration behind HL's new model is Airbnb not Syke...

kendalcottages wrote:Oh, and we (just four of us) were there for a week!

I can imagine paying that for really top-notch ski or beach but Dartmoor!

<r>Apparently the owner is a travel writer (hence all the press in the glossies) but £1400 still an impressive weekly rate for a 2 bed cottage even if it is 'practically perfect in every way' Actually a bit overdone for my taste.<br/> <br/> <URL url="http://www.moorlandviewcottage.co.uk/">http://www...

Booking.com has a big share of the hotel booking market now but increasingly you can book apartments through them too. In fact the last 2 times I've been skiing we've booked apartments through them (in places where there was very little available on the homeaway sites). Airbnb is already a major pla...

I think people with great cottages in great locations sensibly priced are fully booked for the summer holidays and got most of their bookings before the last quarter of terrible wet weather. But the more marginal stuff is struggling. For example there's a holiday cottage complex near me - nice cotta...

I think one problem is that big groups almost never book last minute. 3 or 4 families will plan a long way ahead, same story with family reunions etc. I think it's worth considering running the property as Chambre D'Hotes for some of the weeks that aren't booked if that's feasible. Or if that's not ...

...in a brilliant location I think flexibility is the answer. Down in Devon, people are just about managing to stick to Sat-Sat during the school holidays but outside of that it's a different story. There's a cottage complex near me that has rigid Fri-Mon, Mon-Fri slots outside the school holidays. ...

after scanning through this thread. That if you are cash-strapped & need to make a go of this you should move into the house (for now) and let the chateau to large groups. As someone said there is plenty of demand from the French for places to accommodate large groups. And in the weeks when you ...

Clearly most of the people on this site do their own thing. And I'd be the first to agree that if you have the (considerable) time to devote to it you can achieve great occupancy rates. I spoke to a a prospective client a week or so ago who still wasn't booked for June half term week (2-9th June) wh...

I'm seriously starting to think the writing's on the wall for 7 night Sat-Sat bookings even in peak times, mainly because I'm getting so many requests for 3, 4, 5 & 6 night bookings. For the London flat I let I've always had a completely flexible policy and have had only about a dozen empty nigh...