Lay My Hat

Is it that people have been believing the UK press and think that Portugal has closed down or are there just fewer bookings this year? Normally we are scratching for 'last minute' properties for late bookers but this year we have gaps during August in quite a few. Interested to hear the experience of others

Definitely a change in booking patterns with more people booking later, but I have not found any material drop in total bookings.

Having said that, even though we have some availability in Sept/Oct, its been nearly two weeks since I had an enquiry

I feel that is had been a bit harder to fill up, but not much. Had to give a last minute discount early July, and I have a stubborn week late Aug/early Sep.

We are happy with our decision to increase our French exposure.

In July+Aug our nationalities are

DE: 4
UK: 3 (2 are repeats, and one of them 6 weeks!)
FR: 2
BE: 1
PT: 1

PPS wrote:Is it that people have been believing the UK press and think that Portugal has closed down or are there just fewer bookings this year? Normally we are scratching for 'last minute' properties for late bookers but this year we have gaps during August in quite a few. Interested to hear the experience of others

We have had less bookings this year. None for May , only one for Oct usually full. However we were there ourselves for part of Oct so maybe could have let those weeks. But we could have let August 6 times over !

We were only slightly down on bookings for 2011 but I think 2012 is going to be hard. We have not had as many enquiries and bookings come in January and February for this year. Also people seem to want mid week changeovers rather than Saturday or 10 days rather than 14

Marg wrote:We were only slightly down on bookings for 2011 but I think 2012 is going to be hard. We have not had as many enquiries and bookings come in January and February for this year. Also people seem to want mid week changeovers rather than Saturday or 10 days rather than 14

Yes I would agree. Lots of enquiries but not booking. Quite a few wanting 4 days or 10 days. Problem is with our costs we can't compete. We are licensed & obliged to do a clean & laundry change after 7 days so 10 days cost the same as for 2 weeks. And all this in the year FHL rules change.

Please could you expand on FHL rules change?

Tom Hart wrote:Please could you expand on FHL rules change?

Please clarify these comments on the HMRc site but this is how I understand the changes.
From 2012 -13 tax year occupancy needs to be 105 days rather than 70 days ( some leeway for at least the 1st year).
I allways claim capital allowances (Annual investment allowance). If not under FHL rules then no capital allowances or so I beleive.