Bookings in the winter?

[A-two]

I would recommend a winter wonderland page on your site.

Well, I took your advice, copied your page title, (thank you for that), took a whole bunch of new photos (the weather is gorgeous right now), dug up a couple of snow pics from last year, wrote masses of new copy, and have expanded my website by almost double or more. It now includes several new sections, mostly to encourage off-season and winter bookings - there's new sections on "Specials", "Fall & Winter", rough sketches of "Floor Plans" (to be improved when more time available), as well a "Help/ FAQ" section specifically aimed at helping the non-US/international folks work out how to actually get here. Phew!!!

Hopefully, no unresolving photos or broken links, or too many typos, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Be brutal! (And don't foget to refresh if you've been there before, as your cache will give you the old version.)

The motivation to get this into presentable form came from a failed showing of the house to an oil tycoon today. We thought we had a whole month over Christmas and New Year in the bag. He loved it, but when it came to price, he wanted to pay less than it would cost us to run, and this from a man who turned up in a cashmere sweater and brand new BMW, took a phone call mid-viewing from the "oil business in Texas", then took great pleasure, whilst walking our beach, in recounting the story of when he flew his wife's favorite musician in from Cayman Islands by private jet for her 50th birthday party.

Even so, I quoted him our normal, bottom line off-season weekly price and offered 4 weeks for the price of 3 as a sweetener, but it turned out he was expecting almost a " free trial" and if he liked it, he would keep it on indefinitely, of course implying he would pay the higher rates later. In other words, offering nothing but smooth talk, pennies on the dollar and carrots, and assuming we are DESPERATE to cover expenses, despite a relaxed and laid back attitude by us. He was actually quite shocked when I told him it would cost us $1,000 just to let him in the door for a month in heating, lighting, refuse disposal, linens and cleaning, on top of what it would cost us to leave it empty.

Now, when he calls back (probably to tell me he found some other poor sucker to fall for his game instead), I will take great pleasure in politely telling him that I'm so relieved he's fixed up elsewhere because our house is no longer available, this being the very positive result of our new marketing initiative! Well, in my dreams anyway......

All the best,
Joanna

www.propertyangels.com

[PeeJay]

Dont have to worry about winter bookings. 12 month season on the island of eternal Spring

This is the beach in November



Problems are getting in to do annual decorations and maintenance. Early December just before xmas new year is fav.

Pete

[paolo]

Joanna,

Well done, your site has lots of good info on it now.

I like the floorplans idea, that should really be a standard feature for the benefit of renters - photos don't always give a good idea of the layout of a house. The fact that you show the plans is a trust-earner.

The winter page is a good start. My comment - more photos! More snow under blue skies, and also fall colours.

Your 'international' page is very useful, and as simple as it is, it is a good differentiator. Those that are thinking of coming from outside the States will appreciate that you are thinking of them. Most sites in the States tend to talk only to their major market, which is domestic, but here you are saying - we get people from abroad, they like coming here, you might like it too!

FAQ page - another great idea. Although I would have each question on a separate line, and all the answers running one after the other underneath. This is to encourage people to carry on reading beyond the specific question they clicked on. The more they read about you, and are exposed to a (hopefully) warm, sympathetic voice, the harder they will find it to say no (that's the theory anyway!) As it is now, they have to click back to the questions to read another answer - people like to click as little as possible.

There was one photo that didn't appear. On the 'Second floor master' page, the right hand picture doesn’t come up because the link to it is pointing at your desktop.

And I saw an 'adundant' under the harvest picture.

Your oil tycoon reminds me of a cleaner I once met whose husband was apparently 'in the oil business in Texas'. To prove it she kept getting phone calls on her non-ringing mobile and having conversations like "You want me to buy an Audi TT Convertible? That's not going to be any good for towing the speedboat is it?" Maybe it was her husband who dropped in on you....

[A-two]

[quote="paolo"]Joanna,

The winter page is a good start. My comment - more photos! More snow under blue skies, and also fall colours. [...]

FAQ page - another great idea. Although I would have each question on a separate line, and all the answers running one after the other underneath. [...]

There was one photo that didn't appear. On the 'Second floor master' page, the right hand picture doesn’t come up because the link to it is pointing at your desktop. And I saw an 'adundant' under the harvest picture [....]

Hi Paolo,
I really appreciate your time in giving me this feedback, thank you, it's invaluable, because as you know, I can't see locally if a photo is reading off the desktop or the server unless I check the code (or buy a second PC) and as a newbie to Dreamweaver, editing code is not a trivial task for me. I redid the missing photo (second floor master) which should be there now, listed the FAQ line by line and fixed the adundant/ abundant. Thanks for those suggestions.

I take the point about listing FAQ all on one (very long) page, but one thing I don't like about websites is all the vertical scrolling and I prefer to make each page fit screen size, with no scrolling involved, just clicking to the next thing - but I appreciate that I may need to rethink all of that since I have now broken my own rule anyway.

More photos of winter is a problem until winter arrives!!!!! But I'll see what I can do with what I have. It's good that you set the bar higher than I have done for myself and I'm working hard to rise to the challenge, both on and offline, with a new brochure in the pipeline as well.

Thank you for being so kind to me, the site is great.

All the best,
Joanna
www.propertyangels.com

[DivineMrsM]

Our property has 7 bedrooms sleeping 14+ (sofa beds, cots etc) and a pool. We decided to offer a per person per week rate outside of the school holidays. It's been really successful for us and has enabled us to let weeks that otherwise we may not fill.

We charge £150 per person per week with a minimum weekly charge of £500. We don't charge for infants in cots. This way we managed to fill an empty week with just a family of four in June. They had a great time at a great price and we had some money coming in which was better than none! We do all the cleaning and maintenance ourselves so there's no staffing outlay to cover. We also allow midweek to midweek bookings in the lower season if they're available.

We still have to work on the winter lets, but then, who doesn't?

[DivineMrsM]

Your oil tycoon reminds me of a cleaner I once met whose husband was apparently 'in the oil business in Texas'. To prove it she kept getting phone calls on her non-ringing mobile and having conversations like "You want me to buy an Audi TT Convertible? That's not going to be any good for towing the speedboat is it?" Maybe it was her husband who dropped in on you....

That's very funny!