Hello,
we have been looking for a property now for quite some time. After our search in Provence, we finally understood that the prices really are too high for us. We spent a good 3 weeks there in the summer, and now we are looking towards another place in France where it seems to be possible to get more house for the money.
However the amount of B&B's and gites are also way higher here so here is two things I do wonder about...
1. What would be the best to run, B&B or gite. We do like to think ahead about our need of privacy, so the give seems to be more appealing to us..
2. My husband is a chef so we were hoping that he would be able to use his skills and build up a place where good food also were appreciated. However in a gite they have their own kitchen. Does anyone have any experiences with how much the people renting a gite uses the opportunity to eat meals prepared from the owners?
Elisa
B&B or Gite?
Do you need to approach your project from the point of view of earning capacity? How much do you need to earn and which option (b&b / chambres d'hôte or gîte) is likely to give you what you need? Researching potential competitor sites in your chosen area should give you a guide.
B&bs are likely to be much harder work than a gîte renting because typically with a gîte you have weekly changeovers when you might be flat out with cleaning for (say) 6 hours one day a week but then, apart from laundry and ironing, you're comparatively free. (Cue: hollow laughs from the rental property owners
)
With a cd'h, you may be doing room changeovers every couple of days or even daily. So with a two room gîte property, you're washing and ironing two sets of bedding once a week. In a two bed cd'h, you could be washing and ironing 8 sets of bedding per week. There's also more effort with cd'h bookings - more of them - daily cleaning, breakfasts, etc.
Yes with cd'h you can do table d'hôte but once you've added in shopping time, food prep, eating with the guests, washing up, etc, your resulting hourly rate is likely to be pretty low especially if you're only catering for 2 or even 4 guests per night.
The thing with an area with lots of holiday properties (of whatever sort) they're there because there's a reason for tourists to visit. You might find an area that has few gîtes or cd'hs... but the reason for that may be that nobody holidays in that area. You want an area where the marketing has already been done for you - making a little known area attractive to your potential clientele is hard work.
There are people on here with experience of cooking for gîte guests - hopefully they'll have seen this post and PMed you direct with experiences and advice.
Hope those few thoughts help.
B&bs are likely to be much harder work than a gîte renting because typically with a gîte you have weekly changeovers when you might be flat out with cleaning for (say) 6 hours one day a week but then, apart from laundry and ironing, you're comparatively free. (Cue: hollow laughs from the rental property owners
)With a cd'h, you may be doing room changeovers every couple of days or even daily. So with a two room gîte property, you're washing and ironing two sets of bedding once a week. In a two bed cd'h, you could be washing and ironing 8 sets of bedding per week. There's also more effort with cd'h bookings - more of them - daily cleaning, breakfasts, etc.
Yes with cd'h you can do table d'hôte but once you've added in shopping time, food prep, eating with the guests, washing up, etc, your resulting hourly rate is likely to be pretty low especially if you're only catering for 2 or even 4 guests per night.
The thing with an area with lots of holiday properties (of whatever sort) they're there because there's a reason for tourists to visit. You might find an area that has few gîtes or cd'hs... but the reason for that may be that nobody holidays in that area. You want an area where the marketing has already been done for you - making a little known area attractive to your potential clientele is hard work.
There are people on here with experience of cooking for gîte guests - hopefully they'll have seen this post and PMed you direct with experiences and advice.
Hope those few thoughts help.
I do agree with Normandie, B&Bs are tough work for little reward. Holiday rentals are much easier and would give you time to develop other threads, for instance . . .
how about a gite with the option of meals cooked by your OH? If it takes off, you could offer a similar service to other gite owners in the locality - they get a cut (or a few more Euros on their pricing) and everyone benefits. Before you know where you are, you'll be at the centre of a local hub!
I would have loved to have had this option in the past.
Mols
how about a gite with the option of meals cooked by your OH? If it takes off, you could offer a similar service to other gite owners in the locality - they get a cut (or a few more Euros on their pricing) and everyone benefits. Before you know where you are, you'll be at the centre of a local hub!
I would have loved to have had this option in the past.
Mols
Jumping is just dressage with speed-bumps.
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barbersdrove
- Posts: 985
- Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:48 pm
- Location: crowland south lincolnshire
My daughter once stayed at a campsite where the owners cooked the evening meal and bought it to your tent on a tray kept warm with those little candle things. They thought it was brilliant and the best feature of the holiday. You just left the tray outside your tent when finished.
A cream cake a day keeps the wrinkles at bay:)
I have 5 gites and offer meals on a delivery basis to the gites.
Although still early days (last year was the first full year of really selling this service) it was something that was well received.
The most popular, by far, was a simple meal on arrival. Two courses : Lasagne, creamy curry, etc.
The other meals were three courses and I found that they were really popular with families with pre-school aged children (those that wanted to go out to a restaurant, but couldn't face going with children!)
In the school holidays the demand dwindled to almost nothing and then took off again for the end of season. I suspect this was to do with the age of children.
I hope this helps.
Although still early days (last year was the first full year of really selling this service) it was something that was well received.
The most popular, by far, was a simple meal on arrival. Two courses : Lasagne, creamy curry, etc.
The other meals were three courses and I found that they were really popular with families with pre-school aged children (those that wanted to go out to a restaurant, but couldn't face going with children!)
In the school holidays the demand dwindled to almost nothing and then took off again for the end of season. I suspect this was to do with the age of children.
I hope this helps.
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French Cricket
- Posts: 3058
- Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:47 pm
- Location: French Pyrénées
- Contact:
Almost all our guests eat with us at least once - last year only one set didn't - and many of them more often.
We don't actually follow the normal dividing line of gite OR cdh - our boundaries are deliberately blurred, which is what we like, although we're registered as a cdh because everybody gets breakfast.
Strictly, if you're providing meals for gite guests to eat in their own accommodation - whether they're your guests or those of another nearby gite - you're outside the realm of table d'hôte, which requires food to be served at the hosts' own table. That means that you get into the realms of having to have a commercial kitchen, be inspected etc etc and you'll be regarded in the same way as a restaurant or food processing business. You'll be subject to HACCP and have to keep full records.
The only legal and above board way to circumvent that is the table d'hôtes model. That means that you serve one single menu, no choices, at a fixed price, at your own table, with everybody eating together (separate tables not permitted). The law doesn't actually stipulate that you have to eat with your guests, although almost everybody does (we do) and certainly your French guests would expect you to. The reason this is the only way of providing food to guests without jumping through all the normal 'restaurant-y' hoops is that the restaurant and hotel trade have put pressure on the government for years as they see it as a threat to their business.
You'll need a licence to serve wine, and you'll need to attend a licensing course in order to get one (cost around 800€, although there's some talk that a shorter and cheaper course is going to be introduced for cdh's). At the moment there's no requirement for a food hygiene certificate and no regular environmental health type inspection, although you may be controlled at any time.
As Normandie said, tdh isn't a moneyspinner; far from it. Even taking into account only the cost of ingredients, we find that with two guests we break even (because two paying dinner guests equals four diners); with four guests there's a small surplus. If we costed out our time as well - we make everything here from scratch - we'd always make a loss. We do it because we enjoy it, and because we enjoy the social aspect of being able to sit down with our guests and get to know them. We now offer dinner only 3 times a week, quite simply because there's no way we can cope with eating at that level more frequently than that!
We don't actually follow the normal dividing line of gite OR cdh - our boundaries are deliberately blurred, which is what we like, although we're registered as a cdh because everybody gets breakfast.
Strictly, if you're providing meals for gite guests to eat in their own accommodation - whether they're your guests or those of another nearby gite - you're outside the realm of table d'hôte, which requires food to be served at the hosts' own table. That means that you get into the realms of having to have a commercial kitchen, be inspected etc etc and you'll be regarded in the same way as a restaurant or food processing business. You'll be subject to HACCP and have to keep full records.
The only legal and above board way to circumvent that is the table d'hôtes model. That means that you serve one single menu, no choices, at a fixed price, at your own table, with everybody eating together (separate tables not permitted). The law doesn't actually stipulate that you have to eat with your guests, although almost everybody does (we do) and certainly your French guests would expect you to. The reason this is the only way of providing food to guests without jumping through all the normal 'restaurant-y' hoops is that the restaurant and hotel trade have put pressure on the government for years as they see it as a threat to their business.
You'll need a licence to serve wine, and you'll need to attend a licensing course in order to get one (cost around 800€, although there's some talk that a shorter and cheaper course is going to be introduced for cdh's). At the moment there's no requirement for a food hygiene certificate and no regular environmental health type inspection, although you may be controlled at any time.
As Normandie said, tdh isn't a moneyspinner; far from it. Even taking into account only the cost of ingredients, we find that with two guests we break even (because two paying dinner guests equals four diners); with four guests there's a small surplus. If we costed out our time as well - we make everything here from scratch - we'd always make a loss. We do it because we enjoy it, and because we enjoy the social aspect of being able to sit down with our guests and get to know them. We now offer dinner only 3 times a week, quite simply because there's no way we can cope with eating at that level more frequently than that!
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Guest
B&B or gite...
Thank you so much for great input!! I see these as a great advice to take into consideration. We have to know more about rules and licenses regarding what you can call a gite, and how to be able to serve possibly others also in your gite.
We are driving to France in the end of March and do hope we can finally get more concret regarding properties.
One thing however, is that I got the confirmation I thought when it comes to B&B's and the amount of work that comes along with it.
Again, thank you all so much!!
We are driving to France in the end of March and do hope we can finally get more concret regarding properties.
One thing however, is that I got the confirmation I thought when it comes to B&B's and the amount of work that comes along with it.
Again, thank you all so much!!