Lay My Hat

The Dutch site, natuurhuisje.nl has been mentioned before in a couple of threads about best sites for trying to bring in Dutch and Belgian guests.

This morning decided to take the plunge as we are located between several national parks here (one of them just a 10-minute walk away).
At the beginning of the description you could select the location as being 'in a small village' which we are, so thought that as long as you are very near to forests, rivers, national parks, etc. with very good possibilities for hiking, biking, horse riding, bird-watching etc. then our property would be suitable for their site.

I was just about finished with building the listing when we received an email from Natuurhuisje to say that they had checked the location of our holiday home and decided it was not suitable for their site.

When I called them to tell them that we are located next to a meadow with grazing horses and a bicycle path running alongside the farmhouse, they said that there must be no other houses or buildings near the property, otherwise it would be rejected by them.

So, if you have been considering this site (several LMHers seem to get bookings through them from the NL and Belgium), check with their support first or wait for them to authorize your property for inclusion before beginning to set up your listing. They seem to 'Googlestreet' all properties and are very strict and particular with their selection process. There must be no other houses, shops or offices (even of the low-rise, 19th-century variety which we have in the centre of our village) anywhere nearby.

Now, back to find a site to help fill some of the availability we have left this summer because of the HA fiasco...

Sorry to hear that AngloDutch. It's probably me that mentioned it in the first place as we get a high percentage of our bookings via them. We inherited the listing rather than setting it up from scratch so I wasn't aware of this criteria Although we are detached, we do have neighbours either side (albeit a few hundred metres away).

Hope you manage to find a successful alternative.

annedab wrote:Sorry to hear that AngloDutch. It's probably me that mentioned it in the first place as we get a high percentage of our bookings via them. We inherited the listing rather than setting it up from scratch so I wasn't aware of this criteria Although we are detached, we do have neighbours either side (albeit a few hundred metres away).

Hope you manage to find a successful alternative.

Thanks, Anne, I did have a look at the kind of properties they have. Some are cabins among the trees but there are several other farmhouses like ours in our province. I did mention to them that it would be probably better to put these requirements clearly on the owner sign up info page.
A shame really, as this site works on commission. We don't really want to sign up to a whole new bunch of sites working on subscription, as we have no idea of course if they will produce any results for us.

Has anyone had luck attracting the Dutch through other websites? I wonder if the canny Calvinists that go for country retreats are always the type that part with their cash easily?

seaturtle wrote:Has anyone had luck attracting the Dutch through other websites? I wonder if the canny Calvinists that go for country retreats are always the type that part with their cash easily?

seaturtle, no one site really brings in the majority of Dutch guests for us. They are spread out across all the sites we advertise on. Several years ago, our Dutch guests would mainly stick to agencies as they offered them more financial security. Now they are coming through to us via all the major sites - HA, ABB, TA, etc..

Thanks Anglo Dutch - being great linguists I suppose that they search in English. Of course. Thanks!