Bunny wrote: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 do Fridays but most people can get here after work and asl long as they are here by 9-10pm it's not a problem for us. We do a lot of weekends.
We have always focused on Fridays & Mondays because we use the cottages ourselves for visiting family over a weekend and a Saturday changeover would mean we would only get 1 night ourselves which wouldn't be long enough.
In Chester this has worked well and meant we can use a commercial cleaning company who only work on weekdays and have several staff so we can offer changeovers on any weekday. The result is that people often fill in the odd gaps left by other bookings all year round. I think this may be a particular feature of city locations.
The other cottage is in Devon and gets less short breaks and low season bookings. We still stick to Fridays for the same reasons but out of season often take a Saturday changeover because there probably won't be others dovetailing around it. The cleaners still go in on weekdays and the low season guests get a 'bonus' of being able to arrive early or leave late on the Saturdays if they want to.
Personally, as a guest I like a Friday changeover. In Devon the traffic is just as bad on 'changeover day' Saturday as it is on a Friday evening. It also means that we get a proper Saturday night out on the first weekend instead of being too worn out from the journey to really enjoy it. If we arrive on Saturday it seems like our first proper night out is Sunday when lots of restaurants, etc are closed (at least in the UK).
Jo
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
Doh, sods law, I've just had an enquiry for a Fri-Fri in June but I can't do it because I'm booked Sat-Sat the week beforehand. Hoping they are flexible....
After all the replies, I'm seriously considering going over to Fridays next year.
