HR French site

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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enid
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HR French site

Post by enid »

Despite the concerns about the ownership of HR I was impressed enough by the site and by the feedback from forum members to sign up - have had a booking for two weeks next August so that makes it worth while already. I also paid the £15 to have my advert translated for the French site - I still don't have my site in French and as the HR advert was quite comprehensive I thought I could use the French text as a basis for my own site. It's up and running and the French advert looks good - haven't yet asked my French friends opinion.

Has anyone else signed up for the French site?
Paul Carmel
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Post by Paul Carmel »

We have but I did not realise it had gone live :oops:
Cheers
PC
alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

A long time ago we had French visitors. They were so amazingly fussy - they complained to US about the French air force flying on Bastille Day, about the cicadas (and they were genuinly French cicadas), about the lack of a smart straw basket for the market - that I figure I might not be the ideal host for them. So no, I haven't used h-r's French site!
(I'd be interested to hear how Susan gets on with her guests - any cultural differences? )
Best,
Alexia.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

I signed up a friend who's best market would be the French, and the translation reads like it has been done by a French person. I think it was free - it will be useful for his own site, as you say.
Paolo
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enid
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Post by enid »

We had three French families this year - they were delightful and they all left the gite spotless! We have a lot of French contact here and are happy to enlarge our number of French clients.

PaoloI paid £15 for the translation.
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

I've been thinking about doing it -- that translation fee seems very reasonable to me.

But then, I'm worried that my French isn't good enough for the communication that happens afterward! Plus, every inquiry from a French person that I've ever received was for a weekend, and they wanted absurdly low rates.
Brooke
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

I'm sure I have said it before but I am saying it again.

I really can not differentiate between visitors based on their nationalities, occupations, ages or indeed orientations, whatever that might mean.

Of course, some visitors make silly comments but silly comments are so easily dealt with. Trivialise the trivial things and they become trivial in everyone's mine.

Alan
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

I had a booking via Homelidays (my place is on there in several languages), from a French man who although initially a little abrupt, turned out to be very charming, and gladly paid the peak rate price, even sending me a UK cheque (he works for a UK based company) by return of post.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Let's have a race - who can get the first enquiry from the French version of holiday-rentals.
Paolo
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Clexane
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Post by Clexane »

Some of the best guests this year have been French. Our experience has been that they seem to know how things work and rarely challenged the prices. Also by far they understood what it means to do a final clean.

While it is always difficult to generalise the guests that make us most nervous to date are from the UK. They seem to leave the place in a bigger mess and don't seem to treat it as carefully. Our one US guest last year left the place like they where not ever there.

I do agree that if you cant dpeak French then taking French bookings will be a challenge.

As for the race for the French site booking - not fair - our site wont go live for four to five weeks. HR are backlogged with the translations. :(
So you wanted a holiday home in france ...

www.villaemmanuelle.com
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

I signed up and put on my adfor the HR French site, but for some reason it isn't showing - I was lazy and just copied and pasted from the French version I did on my website. It will be interesting to see how it works, but I'm not going to pay for it - I get plenty of French bookings from Abritel and a couple of other cheaper sites, pour-les-vacances and guide-vacances.
I like the French - they are always pleasantly surprised by the level of comfort compared to some French owned gites which can be a bit basic. As Clexane said, they are always clean and I have even had groups of young people who leave the place spotless. I never get any bookings from them in the summer as my prices are too high, but in the winter they provide an extra bit of income, even if they only stay for a long week-end, which suits me (electricity on the tempo rate is cheaper at w/e and they bring their own bed linen or pay rental for it for lets under 4 nights.). We are fully booked for the October half term week with Brits, then the weekend from Saturday 29th to the Tuesday (Toussaint) with French people, so its a good supplementary market for me in the winter!
DivineMrsM
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Post by DivineMrsM »

Interesting discussion. We had our first ever French guests this year. Loads and loads of them in one party (we sleep 14 adults in theory but I think there were about 25 altogether including kids!). They left the house completely immaculate.

We don't ask people to clean as such at the end of their stay, but we like them to leave the house in a reasonable state.

The previous week, we had just two couples and two babies and the house took ages to clean. Then again, they wrote an absolutely rave review and sent it to babygoes2.com so we can't really complain!
Lynne
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Clair
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HR French site

Post by Clair »

paolo wrote:I signed up a friend who's best market would be the French, and the translation reads like it has been done by a French person. I think it was free - it will be useful for his own site, as you say.
I signed up as soon as I got the offer and provided my own translation (what's the point of getting someone else when I can do it myself?!? ) in order to get a free extra month on my English advert...
On preview, everything looked fine, the ad was accepted, the free extra month added... Then they went live and to my utter horror, I realised they had overwritten my own French text with a ghastly google-like literal translation of my English ad!
I fired off an angry email and got an almost immediate apology (taking the w-e into consideration!).
It appears my English ad had been used when they were trialing several translation firms... Somehow, the bad translation was used on the live site instead of my own.
All is back to normal now, English and French ads both live and fine.

On the subject of nationalities, demands and cleaning, for me the best so far have been Spanish families (I could have eaten off the floor!), French and Belgians joint seconds... Brits last (alas)...
I have found the majority of Brit children to be very unruly, very noisy and their parents seemingly overwhelmed, whereas Spanish and French families have been perfect neighbours in comparison...

Clair
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John Borg
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Post by John Borg »

I had the "french translation" done by someone for holiday-rentals at a cost of 15 pounds sterling, which is reasonable I suppose. As for the french version itself, I'm not one to make judgement because I don't understand much French. My property is still on the waiting list for the French version, which means there was a good response from the advitisers, otherwise why would it take them so long?
I have till now relied on Abritel for my French clients, though hopefully H-R will improve bookings from France. Time will tell.
Malta – always in the sunshine!
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

I got my first enquiry through from the French HR site this week. No booking (it was for the weekend after the UK Whitsun holiday), but at least it's an enquiry. One more than I have had from the original HR site in the last month!
Has anyone had a booking from the French HR yet?
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