Lay My Hat

B & B at £230/night in an organic tent
with 'Responsible' Travel.

Journo on a freebie:
http://tinyurl.com/k2qsr

Eco blurb:
http://tinyurl.com/foloj

Return transfers to the camp from Geneva airport are organised by public transport - 'My dear, it was such fun, in our dear little pod, and the people you meet on the train, well....'

I'm sorry, but I'm too cynical to take this stuff seriously, and if anyone really believes this guff then good luck to them. The only excuse for ruining a virgin mountain with these things is that the tents are edible when they start to run low on supplies and they can eat their own words.

In addition, to get to these contraptions I'll guarantee they've got those vile snowcats* which mess up the peace of the mountains through the winter. Environmentally sensitive. Pah.

Goat
(*mind you, I would kill to have a go on one)

Um I sort of agree about the tent thing...but hey it's only money and if you've got it why not spend it!

But this: http://www.responsibletravel.com/Accomm ... 900121.htm (sorry don't know how to make it work as a link)
is I think a lovely place and it's not expensive and I just don't know how it would look on a site full of villas........

Mountain Goat wrote: Journo on a freebie:
http://tinyurl.com/k2qsr

The journo winds up by saying 'it's podacious!'

Cringe. Audacious, more like.

I agree, Garlic, that the Dordogne property, lovely as it is, would not sit well alongside the standard self-catering villas etc; it's special, which is why a separate category within one of the high street listing sites might be worth these guys' consideration. Maybe it should be put to a few of them...

I still don't agree that it needs a specialist listing site or a separate category any more than ours. We're not pushing the eco aspect as much as the Dordogne, but it's definitely a key factor. We regularly host people who work in areas of conservation, a marine biologist and someone from The Nature Conservancy to name two recent bookings, who found us through one of the regular listing sites just like everyone else. And we're 46% occupancy this year with another 6 weeks to go before we get a break. I don't want it to sit well with standard self catering villas, I want it to stand out and it does.

Hola.

Thank you all for your comments.

Yes my Spanish goat is cute, he is open to offers from pretty females around Europe.

my site gets a lot of traffic from slow trav where I have a listing but that is because I am an active member of the forum. i think that if i just set my listing and left it alone it would generate nothing in the way of enquiries. As it is I have had visits from America this year through them. I am also getting emails from English people who are members of this site. i think that it can only get better with the press coverage it has been getting lately. We also offered ourselves as a prize in their aniversary competition and the winners are arriving 1st October for a 7 night stay with us.

I have a listing on holidaylettings.co.uk and if the stats are to be believed it gets hit on average 6 times a day every day for the last year. Not one enquiry which i find a little odd. When the year was up they gave me a free 3 months extension so that they could prove that all was ok. I dont know if there are rules but I would have thought out of 2000+ people visiting the listing then at least one would have sent me an email for more information?

My site stands out from the rest on holiday lettings but when people visit the listing they dont click through to my website or make an enquiry. I believe this is because the people are looking for something in particular and my place doesn't fall into their specifications.

Maybe "eco friendly"type was the wrong way to explain what we do here in Grazalema but I guess most of you have seen our site by now and see what we do and what we offer.

We don't fit into the standard forms that listing sites supply so it seems to me that something needs to be adjusted within the listing sites.

Worldsurface I have decided are not reliable due to their lack of email etiquette.

the other site with the "eco" rules have a huge dialogue of what is correct or not and their rules for listing is very in depth. They do however have listings from people who have obviously bent the rules and made it up as they went along so we don't want to be a part of that either.

There is only one alternative left. DIY. I am going to build a listing site devoted me and put me on it....Good idea?

Thank you all

Clive

natural wrote:Yes my Spanish goat is cute, he is open to offers from pretty females around Europe. Clive

My bag is packed!

Natural, is 'the other site' ResponsibleTravel?

DIY was another option I was going to suggest - but scary! You need a lot of money to market it.

natural wrote:We don't fit into the standard forms that listing sites supply

Clive,
I suggest the VR listing sites aren't working for you because you are not offering a self contained unit or self catering accommodation at all, rather you're running an Inn with educational tours. As such, I sense that you're advertising in completely the wrong place altogether.

When it comes to selling the whole holiday experience, you might have more success if you made your tours and food optional extras rather than inclusive. Folks may feel they are not going to get full value for money if they chose to do their own thing having already paid for all meals.

With respect, guests need to feel they can get away from you, so it's too much to make all meals and all tours inclusive for all 7 days (did I read that right?). Perhaps you could include a meal on arrival and two half day tours or one full day, then make everything else fee based at modest rates to encourage further participation, but not make it obligatory if after the fist day, they are not comfortable with you or visa versa.

I think that would be far more appealing, but your biggest problem by far is that the guest accommodation is not self contained. That's fine if you're an Inn or a B&B, but I have never heard of a vacation rental home that comes with the owners still in situ, preparing all meals and sharing living room facailities. In my world that's called an Inn or B&B and it's not uncommon to find them around here offering a very similar set up and they are extremely popular.

So unless you plan to extend your house or convert one of the upstairs bedrooms into an area where guests can cook a meal, eat it and relax without you, then it doesn't matter what you call yourself, anyone looking for your kind of set up is not going to look on holiday-lettings.co.uk, so I would say that and all the rest of them are a complete waste of money for you.

Clive,

Lovely though it may be, eco-friendly though you may be, in my view your place will inevitably stand out from the “pack� on any normal listing site, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

The normal holiday maker, a family of four for instance, will say “there is no privacy, no personal space�; “there are no amenities on site or in the vicinity�; “the price brings tears to your eyes�; “there’s nothing for the kids, not even a pool�, etc., etc.

I agree with Joanna, I too sense that you're advertising in completely the wrong place altogether.

Don’t get me wrong, I do applaud what you are doing and I wish you every success. There has to be a market for you but you’re simply not offering what the normal holiday maker is looking for.

Alan

Hola.

Thank you all for your comments. very interesting indeed.

I just would like to say that the kind of people who would be unhappy because “there is no privacy, no personal space�; “there are no amenities on site or in the vicinity�; “the price brings tears to your eyes�; “there’s nothing for the kids, not even a pool�, etc., etc. Are exactly the kind of people that we are not looking for as customers. (not sure about the price comment. are you saying its expensive or cheap?)

Also In perfect places we are listed under a b and b heading so it seems to make sense that other listing companies add this in to their set up.

Most of our advertising (when we do it which is not often) is in small local regional papers in the UK. This has generated a good amount of custom with excellent happy customers who have not complained or "tried to get away from us". Some have returned a second time and we do get told that our set up is a welcome change from the normal empty house they have rented for a week or so.

Recently I have been looking for relevent listing sites to put ourselves into hence the posting questions here. Not because we are desperate for customers it is more that we are looking for a diverse set of customers from all over the world and the internet is the best way to do that.

It really looks like there is a niche gap for a listing site specialising in this kind of thing. I know of 300 or so small setups very similar to mine just here in Spain. Who knows I might give it a go.

Take care all. Hasta pronto

Clive

Clive,

Please don’t think I was being in any way critical of you, I wasn’t.

In saying “the price brings tears to your eyes� I was trying to anticipate the reaction of an average holidaymaker. Whether in reality your prices are high or low I really wouldn’t know.

Alan

The comment that 'the price brings tears to your eyes', reminded me of someone who phoned last year and said,

"Sorry I will have to get myself up off the floor" when enquiring about the cost of a 2 week stay in peak weeks

I said "youd better stay down there as there is a 60 euro cleaning fee on top of that"
[thinking she was being sarcastic[she met the master!]so there was no contest]
and was moaning about the cost.

As it turns out she couldnt believe how cheap it was as most of the quotes had been a lot higher!!!

She put her money where her mouth was, a booked both houses[theyre next to each other & can sleep 8 each] for her & her friends
[they were going to share one], as she thought they were so reasonable.
The had 3 in one & 4 in the other. & had a great time!

So you never can tell!

nice story Ros!

Tis true as well

When have I ever doubted you? Don't answer that, or this topic will go haywire!

OK