Introduce myself

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
rosario
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:19 am
Location: Costa de la Luz

Introduce myself

Post by rosario »

Hello everybody,

Just wanted to introduce myself.
I found you on the internet some months ago, and as I have a property on the Costa de la Luz -Islantilla- for rent, I enjoy reading all of you. It is true that I miss important parts of your conversations ( I am from Seville, living in Huelva since 1994) but anyway I like reading in English.
We bought the property in 2000, but have only been in the "international market" since the spring of 2005.
We have tried ownersdirect and spain-holiday, but I don´t know why spain-holiday is being less and less effective, and ownersdirect seems to go higher in enquiries and bookings.
Now the question is, I am thinking in going with another listing site between: H-R (I think it is too expensive), Costa-Luz-Holiday, holiday-lettings, or holiday lets. Has anyone with a property in Costa dela Luz some piece of advise for me? Thank you.
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Big Sis..
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Location: Torrevieja and Norfolk
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Welcome Rosario, :D

Weve had a couple of other new recruits that have places in Costa-del-la-Luz recently

Linda 147 & Partridge, Im sure they will be interested to chat with you about Websites etc. :wink:

Im sure you will be able to help each other which is what this forum is all about. :lol:
marrum31
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: Manche, France

Post by marrum31 »

Hello Rosario!
I am new too and i think its just typical that i have found this site just when i wont be needing it for a while... I wish i had found it 6 years ago. It would have made my life a lot easier.

I found a site like this then and signed up straight away but afterwards i found out if was only for people with houses in the States. The site manager was very nice tho
Becky
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Partridge
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Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:31 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz
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Post by Partridge »

Hello Rosario and Marrum

Yes, as Ros said we have a place on Canela, been advertising since end of 04.

I can only offer limited advice as I wouldn't say we're very succesful at the moment.

That said, I had 16 enquiries of which only 2 resulted in bookings for the first year (total boookings 7 weeks). 2nd year I have only had 6 enquiries and one 5 day booking with them, so will be dropping them unless they want to give me a decent discount. I beleive the lesser enquiries have been because I already had 4 out of the 6 weeks summer hols booked by September last year, so as they show an availability calander, there would not be so many enquiries.

I have also been with Costa de la luz holidays for about 15 months. Maybe 10 or so enquiries, with 3 confirmed bookings but I did get lots of last minute enquiries from them for the end of August, not so with HR even though I had availability.

I think I will definitely give Owners direct a shot this year.
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
Nightowl
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Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2005 4:14 am
Location: Cadiz, Spain & London
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Post by Nightowl »

HI All

I am in the Chiclana end of Costa Luz. I get the impression that the Canela side of things is yet to take off - still relatively new but I have seen a fair bit on TV about the Canela and Ayamonte end of the Luz during the past year on 'A place in the sun' type programmes so this year you may be a bit busier, who knows.

I think the Chiclana side is more visited at the moment and I have had pretty good bookings this year - about 20 weeks or so. These have mainly been from Holiday-rentals, but also some from Costa-Luz-holidays and also Homelidays. These are the 3 that I'm sticking with this year I think....

Like others here, I also put my house on any free offers that I can get... there's often enquiries and last year I even got a booking from a freebie.

I got a lot of enquiries during July for August (which was filled in about February) so a lot of people do still leave it quite late, quite a few of these were spanish enquiries from Homelidays.
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
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Partridge
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Post by Partridge »

Hi Knightowl

20 weeks is good. Hope you don't mind my being nosey but looking at your prices would I be right in saying that that's what it takes to get the shoulder season bookings ie quite alot lower ?
I have tried this myself but not with any success as yet.

Canela will have building work going on for some considerable time yet and I can honestly say I don't know what it will be like in 10 years time. We are very lucky in that none of the building works affects us where we are and won't in the future, from a noise point of view that is. We do love the flexibility of going into Portugal, only problem there is the only Portuguese word I know is 'obrigado', mind you, they all speak pretty good English anyway that side. 8)
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
marrum31
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: Manche, France

Post by marrum31 »

with what nationalities is that area popular with? I know where we had our house (costa dorada) it has always been popular with the french, andorans and germans. When we first bought the average for brits as about 5%.

Over the last years it has become more popular with the british holiday makers and british buyers so much so that last year even the menus started having an English page! lol

If you tend to get a lot of german tourists try advertising on the german sites. I know a friend of mine advertised only on german sites and was always booked. Most of the time you dont have to write the ad in german but sometimes u can have problems with replying to enquiries if u dont speak the language and they dont know a lot of english. The same goes with the french sites.

Being a dutch speaker myself i also tried a few free dutch sites but they mostly prefer apartments or campings so that can be a bit of a dud if u have to pay a lot of money.

Give intraspain a whirl, i think the cost was €25 for the year. but i left them because they didnt have anything in our area.

good luck with everything
Becky
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Partridge
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Post by Partridge »

Hi Marrum

Where we are it is very popular with English/Dutch/Spanish/Portuguese. I am taking that from the languages I heard during our many hotel stays before completion / buyers nationalities (although beach buyers are predominantly Spanish and golf buyers predominantly British) / and listening to the golfers who pass by our balcony.

I will probably get slated now but in all honesty I am not sure about renting to the Spanish (profuse apologies to the Spanish contributers) because I have heard through so many sources that they are very keen on filling properties up with as many people as possible, I have seen it myself also. We do have a management co but what with that and the language barrier I am not sure it would not cause me too many sleepless nights.

Dutch would be a good idea though as my experience of the Dutch is that they are very clean/tidy/good English spoken etc.

Once again apologies in advance if anyone feels I have spoken out of turn.
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
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linda147
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Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:03 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz, Spain
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Post by linda147 »

Hi All
Our property is in Vejer de la Frontera which is the Cadiz side of the Costa de la Luz. We have only had the property since May so it is early days on the best rental sites for the area. We have had quite a lot of enquiries from the Costa de la Luz holiday website but no bookings - mainly because we used the property ourselves for 5 weeks over the summer holidays and are also out at half term so had lots of enquiries for weeks we couldn't offer. We are finding that it is mainly Brits and Germans in this area - anyone know a good german site to advertise on that translates? I do speak German but am not up to translating my ad!
I made a posting on the bookings thread under "when do people usually book" because we have had no enquiries for next year yet - even though our availability calendar is empty!
We are new to all this so have started advertising on several websites to see which brings the best returns. As yet we have had no enquiries from a couple of free sites we are on but you never know!
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roxytoo
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Location: Spain Costa Blanca

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Post by roxytoo »

I have also found spain-holiday not so effective as beofre, having said that I did get a booking for a 8 week let so it has paid for itself but that is all and wonder if I should renew?
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AndyLucia
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Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:37 pm
Location: Isla Canela, Huelva
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Post by AndyLucia »

Partridge,

We do get some spanish bookings, and don't have any real issues with them. However, they are definitely in the minority, as the Spanish seem to be looking for different sorts of properties in comparison to the rest of our customers (mainly UK, Scandinavia, Germany and France); for example, a UK customer always seems to want a pool, even when the property is 6 metres from the beach, whereas the spaniards we book could care less about the pool!
AndyLucia
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!!
Nightowl
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Post by Nightowl »

I get quite few spanish enquiries, mainly from Homelidays but often find that although the property sleeps a max of 8 - ideally 6, the number of people in their party is 10 or more! So, to date, I have only actually let to a couple of spanish bookings, which went fine.

but you are right, the spanish don't seem to be that bothered about pools etc, they seem to prefer the beach. We have a communal pool and although in the summer there are plenty of families in residence, mainly spanish, the pools never have more than about 10 people in them.

I have some friends who come from Gib and are mainly spanish and they occasionally use our house for the weekend - I don't mind so much if there are more than 8 if it's people I know - and they seem to not mind sleeping on floors or on the patio or whatever if it means fitting everyone in.
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
marrum31
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: Manche, France

Post by marrum31 »

Partridge wrote: Dutch would be a good idea though as my experience of the Dutch is that they are very clean/tidy/good English spoken etc.
Yes the Dutch are very clean and leave the house in great condition but... lol

the haggling the price down can get a little annoying (i had one lady who tried to get 3 weeks in aug. for less than the price of 2 one year and the same lady enquired again 2 years later and swore blind that i had doubled my rates in the mean time! lol). Even Dutch friends complained about the cheap rate i gave them so after the first 2 years i got my nasty head on and refused any discounts in high season.

I have had no problem with the Spanish I have had at the house but they mostly prefer appartments or houses without pool as was said early and them they do tend to fill to the rafters.

Like i said earlier a lot of the german sites do the free translations and if you can speak it a little there shouldnt be a problem
Becky
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Big Sis..
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Is there any sites to advertise which appeal to the Irish Market :?:

we have had a lot of Irish bookings in the past and wondered if there was another site I could use :D
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AndyLucia
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Post by AndyLucia »

Ros wrote:Is there any sites to advertise which appeal to the Irish Market :?:

we have had a lot of Irish bookings in the past and wondered if there was another site I could use :D
We get a fair number of Irish bookings from good ol' Holiday Rentals.
AndyLucia
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!!
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