I'm just coming to the end of my first year of holiday letting and have until now made my usual changeover day a Saturday. I've received more weekend enqiries and bookings than I'd expected, so am now wanting to change changeover day to a Friday. I hadn't thought through the fact that a single weekend booking (fri-mon) encroaches on 2 weeks if the changover is on a Saturday. Mostly I guess because weekends weren't part of my plan. Now I see that they are very useful - particularly outside school holidays.
Overall, what do people find to be the pros and cons to Friday vs Saturday changeovers? Do punters generally prefer one over the other?
Friday or Saturday changeover day
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Gettingthere
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Newtoit, I've been pondering this too, although it's too late for me to implement it for this year because I'm almost full for the summer. I'd like to change to a Friday to also free up some of my weekends which is the only days I can do things with OH, but I'm home alone on Fridays. My worry is that most people book their time off work for full weeks and possibly wouldn't want to or wouldn't be able to take off a Friday which would mean using up 6 days of their holiday entitlement. I guess the only way you will know is to try it and see what impact it has on bookings. But I'd be interested too to hear if anyone has made the switch and noticed any changes for better or worse.
We have recently sold one of our apartments and substituted it with a larger townhouse.
For the Apartment (sleeps 4):-
Summer school holidays only - Saturday to Saturday, minimum stay 7-nights.
Easter & half-terms - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 4-nights.
All other times - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 3-nights.
This apartment is now established after 6-seasons with many repeat guests and over 50% of bookings via our own website. Outside of the summer holidays our shortbreak can be seen to be patterning towards Fri-Mon 3-nights & Mon-Fri 4-nights. Probably over 50% formulate to this pattern the rest are all random 3, 4,5 & 6-night variations. We have had in the last 2-seasons 88% occupancy due to this flexibility.
For the new Townhouse (sleeps 6):-
Summer school holidays only - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 7-nights.
All other times - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 4-nights.
This is brand new house and will only be available from April, so to gain maximum revenue I have decided to be very flexible with arrival days, but to prevent too many short breaks of 3-nights and the hard work involved in changeovers I have set the minimum to 4-nights. We have just started advertising without any pictures and have 7 summer bookings already, 3 Saturday, 2 Monday & 1 Sunday. This has led to the odd day between bookings but I am happy with that. Next year I might just open up all the year to flexible chageover and see what happens.
For the Apartment (sleeps 4):-
Summer school holidays only - Saturday to Saturday, minimum stay 7-nights.
Easter & half-terms - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 4-nights.
All other times - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 3-nights.
This apartment is now established after 6-seasons with many repeat guests and over 50% of bookings via our own website. Outside of the summer holidays our shortbreak can be seen to be patterning towards Fri-Mon 3-nights & Mon-Fri 4-nights. Probably over 50% formulate to this pattern the rest are all random 3, 4,5 & 6-night variations. We have had in the last 2-seasons 88% occupancy due to this flexibility.
For the new Townhouse (sleeps 6):-
Summer school holidays only - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 7-nights.
All other times - Flexible changeover, minimum stay 4-nights.
This is brand new house and will only be available from April, so to gain maximum revenue I have decided to be very flexible with arrival days, but to prevent too many short breaks of 3-nights and the hard work involved in changeovers I have set the minimum to 4-nights. We have just started advertising without any pictures and have 7 summer bookings already, 3 Saturday, 2 Monday & 1 Sunday. This has led to the odd day between bookings but I am happy with that. Next year I might just open up all the year to flexible chageover and see what happens.
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"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
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Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
We have always had just a Saturday changeover, only offering week long bookings. This is mainly due to the fact that I also work full time so Saturday is the only day I am able to do changeovers!
We do get people asking for shorter stays and weekends and where possible we will accomodate (out of season), especially if their chosen stay falls within a Saturday - Saturday period.
With this set up we have had occupancy rates of 84% for 2014 and 78% for 2013, so it seems to work for us.
We do get people asking for shorter stays and weekends and where possible we will accomodate (out of season), especially if their chosen stay falls within a Saturday - Saturday period.
With this set up we have had occupancy rates of 84% for 2014 and 78% for 2013, so it seems to work for us.
For 2 years initially I offered Fri & Mon changeovers. I then changed in April 2013 to completely flexible changeovers.
I think this works better - I have a cleaner who will clean any day. As I charge more for shorter breaks these are more profitable for me than week long stays.
I have far more bookings since adopting flexible changeovers but this is primarlly because I have worked hard at advertising independently.
A couple of cottages nearby have Fri as a changeover day - I have been told by one set of guests that they want to avoid Fri because of the volume of traffic.
I think this works better - I have a cleaner who will clean any day. As I charge more for shorter breaks these are more profitable for me than week long stays.
I have far more bookings since adopting flexible changeovers but this is primarlly because I have worked hard at advertising independently.
A couple of cottages nearby have Fri as a changeover day - I have been told by one set of guests that they want to avoid Fri because of the volume of traffic.
I assume this high occupancy rate is because you don't open all year round and they don't include the times when you are closed?Grimmy wrote:
With this set up we have had occupancy rates of 84% for 2014 and 78% for 2013, so it seems to work for us.
Friday changeover works better for weekend bookings which you need if you are open all year round as few want to book a whole week in winter. And your cleaner (and/or you) can have the weekend off
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marsh frog
- Posts: 324
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- Location: England
When we were starting out the cleaners we were using could only offer a Friday clean as they were already full on Saturdays. We were disappointed initially and hoped to change to Saturdays asap,but now we are very glad its Friday.
It has not affected our week long bookings at all in the peak weeks and even off peak we easily fill the weekends as well as having lots of Mon-Fri short breaks. So personally, we prefer it and wouldnt want to transfer to a Saturday changeover now as weekend breaks are very popular in our area [within 2 hours of London].
If weekend breaks are not practical,of course that's a different matter.
It has not affected our week long bookings at all in the peak weeks and even off peak we easily fill the weekends as well as having lots of Mon-Fri short breaks. So personally, we prefer it and wouldnt want to transfer to a Saturday changeover now as weekend breaks are very popular in our area [within 2 hours of London].
If weekend breaks are not practical,of course that's a different matter.
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I have kept my changeover option very flexible and this hasn't really worked against me so far. In fact if I've had any non-standard gaps left people have been keen to fill them even if they end up with a nine night stay or something. I have a family in the summer who have decided to book a coastal property for a few nights as they couldn't get the finca for the entire duration of their trip. I think keeping it open helps because people will be tied to a certain calendar by work commitments or having to fit in with colleagues' pre-existing bookings, plus there are big variations in flight times and prices. Looking at June, July and August I have one 'blank' day in June and one in July but none in August. My property managers will be quite glad of the two clear days so that they can really give the place a thorough going over!
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barbersdrove
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We used to be flexible but when I had ill health we had to find a way of managing it that was less work. We moved to Friday or Monday chageovers and it's worked well. We have lost some bookings but not many and we have still let them to others for the same period.
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newtimber, you are correct I only look at occupancy during our open season (we are closed from after October half term until mid March), so I guess it does skew our figures somewhat when compared to others.newtimber wrote:I assume this high occupancy rate is because you don't open all year round and they don't include the times when you are closed? offGrimmy wrote:
With this set up we have had occupancy rates of 84% for 2014 and 78% for 2013, so it seems to work for us.
Hi!
We have 7 cottages on the same site and when we started we had all on a Sat changeover.
We struggled getting everything done and now have 3 on a Friday changeover and 4 on a Saturday changeover. In addition we only take 2 week bookings in Jumy & August and stagger them so we usually only have two /max 3 houses to clean on the one day. We have never had any resistance to a Fri booking and actually find a lot of people prefer it.
This year we are adding another property
La Tour de Genèbre
at a separate address and have decided to let Sunday to Sunday to avoid upsetting the Fri/Sat system. I was really wary, thinking we may well have problems but we now only have one Summer week left and have 3 off season weeks already let. No resistance at all to the Sunday.
Elena
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We have 7 cottages on the same site and when we started we had all on a Sat changeover.
We struggled getting everything done and now have 3 on a Friday changeover and 4 on a Saturday changeover. In addition we only take 2 week bookings in Jumy & August and stagger them so we usually only have two /max 3 houses to clean on the one day. We have never had any resistance to a Fri booking and actually find a lot of people prefer it.
This year we are adding another property
La Tour de Genèbre
at a separate address and have decided to let Sunday to Sunday to avoid upsetting the Fri/Sat system. I was really wary, thinking we may well have problems but we now only have one Summer week left and have 3 off season weeks already let. No resistance at all to the Sunday.
Elena
Dordogne holiday cottages
Tales from our Dordogne gites
keep in touch with Les Crouquets on Facebook
follow us on pinterest
NEW!! Dordogne Holiday Villa with private pool
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Gettingthere
- Posts: 236
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- Location: Devon
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A few thoughts on the benefits of Friday changeovers as far as we're concerned, but obviously not all benefits apply to all owners:
It facilitates weekend and short breaks at any time of year. Our target guest market wants this
Guests can choose to arrive Friday as late as they want.
If guests prefer to arrive Saturday they can arrive as early as they want.
Guests can go to the local Saturday Farmers' Market the day after they arrive (substitute other local attraction!)
We have three properties on site and it's not possible to service them all in one day to an acceptable standard, so we can't do Saturday changeover on all of them anyway! We only do Friday/Monday in two of them.
In summary - a Friday/Monday changeover will gain you some guests, lose you others, may be better for your business, may not. However, perhaps the main advantage is the ability to offer short breaks and be flexible; if you stick to full weeks it's a different answer. Or to put it another way, it depends..........
It facilitates weekend and short breaks at any time of year. Our target guest market wants this
Guests can choose to arrive Friday as late as they want.
If guests prefer to arrive Saturday they can arrive as early as they want.
Guests can go to the local Saturday Farmers' Market the day after they arrive (substitute other local attraction!)
We have three properties on site and it's not possible to service them all in one day to an acceptable standard, so we can't do Saturday changeover on all of them anyway! We only do Friday/Monday in two of them.
In summary - a Friday/Monday changeover will gain you some guests, lose you others, may be better for your business, may not. However, perhaps the main advantage is the ability to offer short breaks and be flexible; if you stick to full weeks it's a different answer. Or to put it another way, it depends..........
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SandyBeaches
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- Joined: Tue May 01, 2012 8:35 am
- Location: Norfolk Coast
We chose to offer a Friday changeover right from the start for two main reasons. One (which is the main and selfish reason) is that I can be there as my 'job' on a Friday for the changeovers and if anything needs fixing/repairing/sorting I can do it, leaving Saturdays free for weekends with my hubby. The second reason was so that we could offer weekends without it encroaching on the full weeks. Because we have a bigger cottage it gets a lot of weekend bookings out of season.
Fridays work well for us but we do get some enquiries who want Saturdays. I don't think our business has suffered or been disadvantaged at all by offering Friday changeovers.
Traffic heading to Norfolk is also a nightmare on a Friday in summer season but it doesn't seem to have put people off.
Fridays work well for us but we do get some enquiries who want Saturdays. I don't think our business has suffered or been disadvantaged at all by offering Friday changeovers.
Traffic heading to Norfolk is also a nightmare on a Friday in summer season but it doesn't seem to have put people off.