The 2 Weekers

[mon269]

Sometimes our gites accomodate more people than the stated maximum which involves us in extra work

Unfortunatelly we can’t do that, our house is registered with the tourism body and has a maximum capacity. The insurance would not cover anything beyond that either and the extra cash we could get for extra occupancy could end up being very expensive.

We don’t change our prices based on occupancy. We believe that if 2 people want to book a 6 people house they are paying for the extra space. I would not expect to pay less if I was the customer.

[ginelli]

Hi everyone! Sorry for having disappeared for so long. My season has started as a tour guide and I'm racing around Europe like a headless chicken again.

To finish this thread, let me tell you what happened with these 2 weekers.

The guy i offered the free boat trip for two weeks but could no longer get the dates he wanted got back to me and booked for another period. So I was right, I suppose....

Except that since this last thread I've had quite a few 2 week bookings where I offered no discount and no free boat trip. The guests enquired, I replied, they got back to me and booked.

So what have I learned? Well, I have to hold my hands up and agree that a lot of enquiries don't infer a discount when they mention "price". If a guest is looking for a discount they will probably spell it out clearly. I'm also starting to agree with comments made on this thread that these discount asking guests might end up being a pain up the bottom. Stick to your procedures and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.

I should add though that I think the notion of a "free" boat trip is one exploring. I'm thinking of doing something with this next season; perhaps by raising the rental fee and offering it as part of an early bird scheme or for a 2 week booking or longer. I think things like this might give enquiries that little extra push to book.

Thanks again to everyone on this thread for their ideas.