Back to articles index page | Print this article

Letting Gites Successfully

Moggies and mutts and other tid-bits.

The introduction of passports for pets has seen a significant increase in people travelling to France with their pets. Inoculated and micro-chipped, these pets have, for the first time be able to enjoy the wide-open spaces of the French countryside. Dogs have a tendency to roam or run off, but this does not appear to be deterring these pet lovers. No doubt, some owners will end up losing their animals and have to return home in the knowledge that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England. For many middle-aged couples, whose children have grown up and left home, their pets are now the centre of their lives. The long awaited change in the law has opened up new horizons for them and they appear intent on coming to France. As always, the problem they are faced with is finding suitable available accommodation that will accept animals. If you are a property owner willing to accommodate pets, then you need to make this clear in your advertising in order to profit from this market. Initial enquiries suggest that this may well increase out of high season bookings. Too late to change your brochure advertisements; alterations can be made to Internet publicity.

A dog running into a road and causing an accident or biting another guest, could result in legal action. If you do not mention in your literature that you accept pets, or your garden is not enclosed, whilst the pet owner will be liable and should be protected under their own public liability, it could result in claims against you as the property owner. So before you jump on this financial bandwagon, you need to investigate the implications with your respective insurance companies.

As a property owner you now have a wonderful choice of brochure and Internet sites from which to choose. I am aware of thirty-seven new services who have entered the market this year offering Internet advertising to property owners. Brochures that appeared for the first time last year did not appear this year, and others that were canvassing hard for advertisers early on in the year will not be going to print. No doubt in the next twelve months, a countless number of other organisations will appear enticing subscribers to advertise with them. This multiple choice of avenues that one now has to choose from, would on the face of it appear advantageous to advertisers, but is it? Competition will keep prices down; that has to be good for advertisers, but with so much fragmentation, the holiday-maker who is the only real important person in this equation is finding it more and more difficult to source information. Subsequently, established companies who produce brochures are having to turn their attention to this medium and neglecting their core business with what could be serious consequences.

The Where On Earth Group recently carried out a survey with interesting results. It revealed that 58% of people believed that agencies provided a higher standard of accommodation than properties let direct, 84% believed booking through an agency provided greater security. However, only 39% would use an agency; cost being the major factor, although of those people surveyed, who were considering purchasing a holiday home, 62% said they would prefer to handle the bookings themselves. Of the 891 people surveyed, only 31% of holiday-makers said they would rather use a brochure than have to surf the Internet looking for properties. This was a significant decline from the same survey conducted two years ago which was as a result that those people surveyed had a favourite established site that they regularly visited. Others who used the Internet said it was not the cost of being on line that bothered them, but the time and frustration waiting for pictures to download, difficulty finding sites and the lack of ease in navigating them. As these mediums become more numerous, holiday-makers visiting France for the first time are finding it increasingly difficult to access information except those visiting sites that share a common database.

Those people planning a vacation now will be finding it difficult, so property owners with gaps and odd weeks in their season will find it hard to find tenants despite the high numbers of people looking. To really hammer this point home try this little exercise. Using whatever medium you like, whether it is the Internet, brochure or newspaper, try and find a property that matches this description. A house, in the Lot, sleeping 8, two double and two twin bedded rooms, private enclosed swimming pool, dishwasher and washing machine, village location, near a golf course with a maximum budget of £1000.00. This is a typical enquiry for a property that a potential client is looking for. You don't need to worry about whether or not it is available unlike the holiday-maker who will make scores of wasted calls in his or her search. Of course many of you will say that you don't have the time to do this exercise but then neither do holiday-makers, yet this is exactly what they are expected to do. Others need wheelchair access, to be close to the sea, enclosed gardens or pet's accepted making it even harder.

Luckily, more and more Internet sites are now using the centralised availability information service provided by France One Call™. Owners advertising on all these sites only have to update one service and are encouraged to do this regularly as this promotes their property to the top of the search engine.

The Internet will continue to evolve; business done over the world wide web doubles year on year, along with the level of fraudulent activity. The Internet has a major role to play in the future of tourism, but it is not the be all and end all, as many people are already finding out. The Internet's purpose is to help people access information quickly and easily; at present in many instances this is not the case. If someone wants a telephone number, they need only call directory enquiries. The Internet has thousands of search engines, meaning that an Internet site has got to be registered with all of them and then be found in the listings to ensure quality
exposure. If you want to buy a book over the Internet most people will go to amazon.com. The only reason I know this is because Amazon advertise extensively in the press and on the television. Otherwise, I and millions of other people would not have heard of them. You can't afford to dismiss the Internet, but choose carefully as many property owners have found that their property was lost amongst the hundreds of thousands of others all battling for recognition.

Your advertising should be a source of income rather than a drain on your resources. It is imperative that you know and keep stringent records on where your bookings are coming from. If you are advertising on more than one Internet site, this can be difficult as enquirers will often not know where they found you. A spouse will often do the research and pass the contact numbers to his or her partner to telephone and make the booking. If the caller is unaware of where these details were generated, mis-information about there origin will be offered to the property owner. A recent survey conducted by France One Call members with their guests during the summer produced some interesting results. On closer questioning about how they had found about their property, the majority of participating members discovered that at least one and in some cases several bookings had been generated from sources that were different from the original information they had been given. It is also important to remember that many Internet services now provide availability information, so as your season fills up, your enquiries
will diminish except for those weeks you still have available. You can only let a week once, so advertising that generates high volumes of enquiries, but not necessarily high levels of bookings is not as efficient as those that generate low levels of enquiries and higher bookings. When it comes to renewing your advertising it is important to take all this into consideration. It may be a good idea to add a question on how your client found out about you on your booking form.

©www.bonjourmagazine.com. No part of this article may be reproduced without the express and written permission of the owner(s), Bonjourmagazine.