Hi rammy. I would never turn a booking down purely on the basis of them all being the same sex. I've had quite a few bookings of all men or all women. As you say, my judgement would be on the tone of the enquiry, disclosed intentions etc, etc. I recently had an enquiry from an all women group. They disclosed that they were in fact, all married, but they mentioned that they wanted some time away from family and were planning a bit of a get together party. So, I declined the booking. On the other hand, I recently had a booking for a group of men who disclosed at the enquiry stage that they were all walking together. That was all that mattered to me. P.S. When shall I book you in for?rammy100 wrote: I'm generally up-front about my situation as I'd prefer to stay with people who are comfortable with a single-sex group of males - straight or gay - otherwise it's just difficult for everyone concerned.
Student let - woud you accept?
To be clear Bunny I wasn't suggesting for a second that your approach was anything other than perfect....I was just adding my two-penneth and I think/hope you realise that.Bunny wrote:Hi rammy. I would never turn a booking down purely on the basis of them all being the same sex. I've had quite a few bookings of all men or all women. As you say, my judgement would be on the tone of the enquiry, disclosed intentions etc, etc. I recently had an enquiry from an all women group. They disclosed that they were in fact, all married, but they mentioned that they wanted some time away from family and were planning a bit of a get together party. So, I declined the booking. On the other hand, I recently had a booking for a group of men who disclosed at the enquiry stage that they were all walking together. That was all that mattered to me. P.S. When shall I book you in for?rammy100 wrote: I'm generally up-front about my situation as I'd prefer to stay with people who are comfortable with a single-sex group of males - straight or gay - otherwise it's just difficult for everyone concerned.
Now, let me check my diary although I'm not exactly sure where you are!
Here we go again........
Yes, of course.rammy100 wrote:[....I was just adding my two-penneth and I think/hope you realise that.
OD ref. 8139657rammy100 wrote:Now, let me check my diary although I'm not exactly sure where you are!
Getting back to the original dilemma, I'm not actually sure if the enquirer is an all female or mixed group. It was the word 'student' that made me think National Lampoons Animal House. I also thought I had brought my daughter up to be clean and tidy but when I visited her all female student flat I was truly shocked at the way they seem to live. Even, her bedroom, I couldn't believe could belong to a daughter of mine!
This raises some interesting questions - perhaps the first of which is how many constitutes a "group"? The point I highlighted was that it is lawful to discriminate against same sex groups, it is unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age. To discriminate against same sex groups it has to be applied across the board, so no all male and no all female groups of any age. It would not be lawful to decline a group of ten 18 year old males, whilst accepting a group of ten middle aged ladies who happen to like to take a walking holiday together.
The not completely unrealistic concern that a group of all young males (or females, or a mix) might be irresponsible piss heads is not grounds to refuse them - its discrimination based on age.
That's the reality - based on the fact that there is no statistical evidence to suggest that such an age group are more likely to cause disruption and damage than any other group. (The reason there's no statistical evidence is that it's never been researched; the bleedin' obvious doesn't count.)
Everybody in this business must by now be aware of that - the reasons you can lawfully cite for refusing a booking are few, so back to the original point - you can't refuse a booking from a group because they're all students; like it or not, you can refuse all single sex group bookings without falling foul of the Equality Act.
Edinbugh's disquiet raises the "interesting" - as in ill thought out - side effect that this also makes it legitimate to (unknowingly) discriminate against a group of same sex couples. It's a matter of convenience that makes it acceptable (?) to discriminate against same sex groups to guard against stag or hen parties; it's a blunt instrument that neatly avoids the true problem and, as Edinburgh points out, creates a very different one.
We've just had a gay couple on their second visit, we've had a number of others. We've had a gay couple tell us in advance and ask if that was okay (in spite of any legalities), which gave us pause for thought in realising that they felt they should ask or presumably risk being made to feel unwelcome (they've been twice now as well), we've had gay couples where they ask for a double bed on the booking form, end of, no problem; we've had gay couples who have chosen to maintain a pretence that they're straight. I suspect there's another generation to go before general tolerance becomes widespread indifferent acceptance, but our industry is right at the pointy end of helping that to happen.
If anything from my previous post needed clarification, or raised questions that needed clearing up, I hope that does it. The Equality Act is what it is, and it's far from perfect; we're stuck with it. Human attitudes are changing, but it doesn't happen overnight.
It doesn't seem that long ago that we were discussing the case of the couple who ran a B&B and turned away a pre-booked gay couple because of their own religious convictions. Wrong business, perhaps?
The not completely unrealistic concern that a group of all young males (or females, or a mix) might be irresponsible piss heads is not grounds to refuse them - its discrimination based on age.
That's the reality - based on the fact that there is no statistical evidence to suggest that such an age group are more likely to cause disruption and damage than any other group. (The reason there's no statistical evidence is that it's never been researched; the bleedin' obvious doesn't count.)
Everybody in this business must by now be aware of that - the reasons you can lawfully cite for refusing a booking are few, so back to the original point - you can't refuse a booking from a group because they're all students; like it or not, you can refuse all single sex group bookings without falling foul of the Equality Act.
Edinbugh's disquiet raises the "interesting" - as in ill thought out - side effect that this also makes it legitimate to (unknowingly) discriminate against a group of same sex couples. It's a matter of convenience that makes it acceptable (?) to discriminate against same sex groups to guard against stag or hen parties; it's a blunt instrument that neatly avoids the true problem and, as Edinburgh points out, creates a very different one.
We've just had a gay couple on their second visit, we've had a number of others. We've had a gay couple tell us in advance and ask if that was okay (in spite of any legalities), which gave us pause for thought in realising that they felt they should ask or presumably risk being made to feel unwelcome (they've been twice now as well), we've had gay couples where they ask for a double bed on the booking form, end of, no problem; we've had gay couples who have chosen to maintain a pretence that they're straight. I suspect there's another generation to go before general tolerance becomes widespread indifferent acceptance, but our industry is right at the pointy end of helping that to happen.
If anything from my previous post needed clarification, or raised questions that needed clearing up, I hope that does it. The Equality Act is what it is, and it's far from perfect; we're stuck with it. Human attitudes are changing, but it doesn't happen overnight.
It doesn't seem that long ago that we were discussing the case of the couple who ran a B&B and turned away a pre-booked gay couple because of their own religious convictions. Wrong business, perhaps?
On Friday they wanted to go ahead with the booking but asked if one of the single beds could be moved to another bedroom. No, not possible. They also asked for clarification that they would get their deposit back if there were no damages. So, I replied that the deposit was held against damages, being left clean and tidy, keys returned and no additional guests. I politely asked her to read the T&Cs carefully and pointed out that we do not allow parties. I also requested that no other students were invited back the property in the evenings.
Guess what? No further contact.
Guess what? No further contact.
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AngloDutch
- Posts: 727
- Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:25 pm
- Location: Netherlands
In 11 years we've only refused a group of 10 kids and that was because there was no one among them who was over the age of 21 (the oldest was 18 and the youngest was 15). They were mixed male and female, so not a single sex group. It was a last minute cheap low season weekend and it would have cost them about €50 each to stay for two nights, so we had a very bad feeling about it. We emailed them and gave them the address of another accommodation in the village which has stone floors and is a pretty basic 2* accommodation which is very used to taking groups of school kids. We told them that it would be more suitable for them in case they were looking to have a party or two!
We also had a group of 10 university students (all girls) turn up via an agency but we never have any details of the group members' sex, age or anything like that. We just receive the number of adults, children and babies and that they're bringing a pet or two with them (which have included a number of cats, rabbits, fish, guinea pigs, as well as dogs). The students didn't cause any trouble at all. I suppose problems with rowdy groups depends often on where the property is located. Although there is a bar in our village it's not a resort and there's no nightlife here.
If we could dissuade any particular groups from coming it would be groups of severely mentally handicapped adults with just 1-2 mentors who are in capable of coping with up to 8 patients at a time. We received one of these bookings a few years ago. The government here cut the subsidies that they used to pay out for weekends away for the mentally handicapped, so the organizers would trawl cheaper priced holiday rentals instead of the more expensive larger accommodations which were used to receiving such groups. They would book with agencies under one of the mentor's names and the owners would not know until they arrived that they were severely mentally handicapped.
After one such group caused a huge amount of damage with fixtures ripped from walls (including super-glued signs!), food, drink and excrement absolutely everywhere (on chairs, cushions, sofas, carpets, beds, walls) and causing quite a bit of commotion in the neighbourhood (for example, chasing horses around the paddock, standing in the middle of the main road whilst writing down car number plates and pushing their faces against the windows of our dining room whilst our 5 year old daughter was trying to eat dinner), we were at the point of calling it a day and really thought about closing down.
How we ever managed to get the farmhouse back to how it was before the next group arrived I don't know. I remember using a steam cleaner, wet vacuum cleaner and washing constantly on 90'C for several days. The organizers lost their €200 security deposit and we told them that we just weren't a suitable match for them and that they would have to look elsewhere in future.
We have had several groups of autistic children stay since then via a different organization. They also booked first via an agency and then several times directly. They were no trouble and although the house needed a good clean afterwards, we've seen worse from the average dual family groups with up to seven little kids running rampant. I suppose it depends a lot on how many mentors there are as well and whether they do their job properly (when I grabbed the guy writing down the number plates from his vantage point in front of an oncoming bus, both of the mentors were sitting on a bench in the garden sharing a cigarette, totally oblivious as to what was going on!)
We also had a group of 10 university students (all girls) turn up via an agency but we never have any details of the group members' sex, age or anything like that. We just receive the number of adults, children and babies and that they're bringing a pet or two with them (which have included a number of cats, rabbits, fish, guinea pigs, as well as dogs). The students didn't cause any trouble at all. I suppose problems with rowdy groups depends often on where the property is located. Although there is a bar in our village it's not a resort and there's no nightlife here.
If we could dissuade any particular groups from coming it would be groups of severely mentally handicapped adults with just 1-2 mentors who are in capable of coping with up to 8 patients at a time. We received one of these bookings a few years ago. The government here cut the subsidies that they used to pay out for weekends away for the mentally handicapped, so the organizers would trawl cheaper priced holiday rentals instead of the more expensive larger accommodations which were used to receiving such groups. They would book with agencies under one of the mentor's names and the owners would not know until they arrived that they were severely mentally handicapped.
After one such group caused a huge amount of damage with fixtures ripped from walls (including super-glued signs!), food, drink and excrement absolutely everywhere (on chairs, cushions, sofas, carpets, beds, walls) and causing quite a bit of commotion in the neighbourhood (for example, chasing horses around the paddock, standing in the middle of the main road whilst writing down car number plates and pushing their faces against the windows of our dining room whilst our 5 year old daughter was trying to eat dinner), we were at the point of calling it a day and really thought about closing down.
How we ever managed to get the farmhouse back to how it was before the next group arrived I don't know. I remember using a steam cleaner, wet vacuum cleaner and washing constantly on 90'C for several days. The organizers lost their €200 security deposit and we told them that we just weren't a suitable match for them and that they would have to look elsewhere in future.
We have had several groups of autistic children stay since then via a different organization. They also booked first via an agency and then several times directly. They were no trouble and although the house needed a good clean afterwards, we've seen worse from the average dual family groups with up to seven little kids running rampant. I suppose it depends a lot on how many mentors there are as well and whether they do their job properly (when I grabbed the guy writing down the number plates from his vantage point in front of an oncoming bus, both of the mentors were sitting on a bench in the garden sharing a cigarette, totally oblivious as to what was going on!)