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Gite/Chambre de hote business

Gite/Chambre de hote business

Old Mar 21st 2013, 9:44 pm
  #46  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by wetwang

The tourist trail is Normandy beaches to St Malo, .
Oh good.I'll open my place as a Chambres d'Hote tomorrow (not).
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Old Mar 22nd 2013, 6:40 am
  #47  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Some of my friends have Gites and manage 15-20 weeks a year although they can only count on about 12 weeks.
However because they only need 15-20 bookings their advertising costs are minimal. HolidayLettings .com, VRBO, OwnersAbroad that sort of thing, for about £250 per year per portal. With a B&B you will need over 10 times that amount of bookings with a minimum 2 night stay.
A gite is a different sort of investment though. You still have to live somewhere else unless the gite is attached to your home, the return per square metre is poor. A 5 bedroom Gites might return you £500-£3000 per week depending on the season etc., but a 5 bedroom B&B can, subject to location and marketing spend, earn you €500 euros every night from Easter- November. Plus you get to live in a nice house with great guests coming and going. There is no problem of maison secondaire taxation.
Running a gite is more a hobby and less of an occupation and can only be seen as a top-up to other incomes. A B&B is much harder work with less appeal to semi or retired persons.
By any definition it's work for money but it offers a chance of escaping the rat race. I wish I had done it sooner so I could have retired by now but prior to 2004 when Internet was in its infancy there was no chance of global marketing and it would never have worked.

Last edited by wetwang; Mar 22nd 2013 at 7:03 am. Reason: I missed Arles off the tourist trail.
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Old Mar 22nd 2013, 8:06 am
  #48  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by wetwang
I did say I was surprised. The actual figure is €39727.
However those sorts of figures are meaningless unless you compare them to something.
Compared to bed nights booked it has cost €8.22 per bed night. Not really a big deal but you can see that only having a couple of rooms to let is not viable and only worth doing if you have alternative income.

Had I have used Bookings .com it would have cost up to three times more.
A pal of mine uses them all the time and pays 20% per booking commission.
English and French are often the most miserable of guests and often want to horse trade on the price. East coast Americans are similar. I cant stand it. I would rather have an empty room than dicker over a €10 discount. I can't get 10% off my rates or grocery bill or plumber so I don't know why people try it on when we offer the going market rate for the area and location. I have offered discounts if people are prepared to bring their own towels and sheets but of course that's a non-starter.

The best guests are Ausies or West Coast Americans/Canadians. As soon as they hit the door they ask for a beer and I know we are in for some fun. Brits will ask for a cup of tea on arrival and that's about the most inter-reaction I am going to get.

I am from Yorkshire so advertising world wide was a stab in the dark, except I knew that Paris was full pf them, and of course the dollar has in the past been good value against the Euro .
As I said before its just Google and Tripadvisor. Cheap portals are no good and you cannot count on Tourist Info Offices. You must realize that for B&B the best tourist business is in May and September. It's too hot in summer for the silver foxes and families are not the B&B market anyway.

Good luck, but see it as a business in leisure tourism and not some Mom and Pop homely spare time pin money operation.

The tourist trail is Normandy beaches to St Malo, the Loire Valley especially Amboise, Dordogne, Carcasonne, Biarritz to San Sebastián, Nimes, Avignon, Provence Coast, French Alps. Any where else most tourists have never heard of because they have no international status or profile.

That will be 10 guineas. Thank you.
H--l!!

I will have to re look at the advertising budget!

That is a hefty chunk of money!

However is that strictly speaking advertising alone? or is it a fee based charges when clients make a booking?

Is this figure what you have paid up front to promote the B/B ? or is this essentially commission?

Wetwang, your info is the most helpful I have received anywhere

10 guineas well spent!

Whats the addy? Its on its way!

Well done for tapping into the Aussie/US market too.

I am still hoping that I may attract some business clients as well as tourists, or am I unrealistic?
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Old Mar 22nd 2013, 9:03 am
  #49  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

I don't have any fee based commissions. They are too expensive and send us the wrong kind of people.. It's a gamble really but as it is pay-to-click advertising you can stop it anytime you like.you can stop or start individual countries or even regions. For instance 70% of my Australian guests come from Melbourne for some reason so it is possible to advertise in Oz but specify Melbourne only.

Personally I would not want business guests as they tend to be one nighters and I would have to live in an area where there is that kind of business. I love living in the Dordogne where my town gets 2 million visitors a year allegedly .

I cannot over state the importance of Tripadvisor enough. It is tourists who promote it, it's free but business users would not bother reviewing. It is also impossible to forge any kind of relationship either with one- nighters so it becomes just a job, changing beds and cleaning toilets every day, just no fun.
Our guests bring us gifts, take us out for meals, have courtyard parties, write great reviews and refer friends.

If you are interested in Montpellier check out Tripadvisor, write to one or two and ask if they are for sale as most B&Bs I know have an 8-10 year life as the proprietors get older and hit a boredom wall and are happy to take the money and run. It may be more expensive buying an existing business but you hit the ground running.
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 11:05 am
  #50  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Just as a follow up, our guests over Easter were from
Vienna
Medellin Columbia
Djakarta
Washington DC
Vancouver
Melbourne
We took two French phone calls who wanted big discounts and had two walk -ins who we didn't like the look of so said we were full.

The Internet is so powerful in this business.
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 11:09 am
  #51  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by wetwang
Just as a follow up, our guests over Easter were from
Vienna
Medellin Columbia
Djakarta
Washington DC
Vancouver
Melbourne
We took two French phone calls who wanted big discounts and had two walk -ins who we didn't like the look of so said we were full.

The Internet is so powerful in this business.
Impressed wetwang. Our punters are all 'english'.
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 3:27 pm
  #52  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by wetwang
I did say I was surprised. The actual figure is €39727.
However those sorts of figures are meaningless unless you compare them to something.
Compared to bed nights booked it has cost €8.22 per bed night. Not really a big deal but you can see that only having a couple of rooms to let is not viable and only worth doing if you have alternative income.

Had I have used Bookings .com it would have cost up to three times more.
A pal of mine uses them all the time and pays 20% per booking commission.
English and French are often the most miserable of guests and often want to horse trade on the price. East coast Americans are similar. I cant stand it. I would rather have an empty room than dicker over a €10 discount. I can't get 10% off my rates or grocery bill or plumber so I don't know why people try it on when we offer the going market rate for the area and location. I have offered discounts if people are prepared to bring their own towels and sheets but of course that's a non-starter.

The best guests are Ausies or West Coast Americans/Canadians. As soon as they hit the door they ask for a beer and I know we are in for some fun. Brits will ask for a cup of tea on arrival and that's about the most inter-reaction I am going to get.

I am from Yorkshire so advertising world wide was a stab in the dark, except I knew that Paris was full pf them, and of course the dollar has in the past been good value against the Euro .
As I said before its just Google and Tripadvisor. Cheap portals are no good and you cannot count on Tourist Info Offices. You must realize that for B&B the best tourist business is in May and September. It's too hot in summer for the silver foxes and families are not the B&B market anyway.

Good luck, but see it as a business in leisure tourism and not some Mom and Pop homely spare time pin money operation.

The tourist trail is Normandy beaches to St Malo, the Loire Valley especially Amboise, Dordogne, Carcasonne, Biarritz to San Sebastián, Nimes, Avignon, Provence Coast, French Alps. Any where else most tourists have never heard of because they have no international status or profile.

That will be 10 guineas. Thank you.
That is always always the most agreeable way to start a night in a hotel. 9 times out of 10 the only complaint I can come up with is most hotels don't man their bars well enough. Although my wife got electrocuted in a Crown Plaza once despite the free stay we got I complained because they didn't do the job properly.
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 5:06 pm
  #53  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

That is always always the most agreeable way to start a night in a hotel. 9 times out of 10 the only complaint I can come up with is most hotels don't man their bars well enough. Although my wife got electrocuted in a Crown Plaza once despite the free stay we got I complained because they didn't do the job properly.
Which Crown Plaza was that? The mother-in-law says she'd enjoy the surprise 'shock' of being offered a holiday, so perhaps it's time for that weekend break.......
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 5:28 pm
  #54  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by wetwang
Just as a follow up, our guests over Easter were from
Vienna
Medellin Columbia
Djakarta
Washington DC
Vancouver
Melbourne
We took two French phone calls who wanted big discounts and had two walk -ins who we didn't like the look of so said we were full.

The Internet is so powerful in this business.
That is an impressive "Line Up" Wetwang! Well Done!

What occupancy rate did you have over Easter?
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 5:40 pm
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by Tweedpipe
Which Crown Plaza was that? The mother-in-law says she'd enjoy the surprise 'shock' of being offered a holiday, so perhaps it's time for that weekend break.......
Cambridge Make sure she needs to use a hairdryer
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Old Apr 5th 2013, 8:28 am
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Cambridge it is then. And whilst there I think she'd love to go punting - plus she doesn't swim.....
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Old Apr 5th 2013, 10:14 am
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by DKP
That is an impressive "Line Up" Wetwang! Well Done!

What occupancy rate did you have over Easter?
We only have 4 rooms available at Easter and they were all full over 5 days...

Better than last year though. Both May and Sept are now fully booked 100% but we have little deals around the town with overspill capacity.

Today 2 Brits arrived who have been watching Liitle England and thought that Eymet was near Beynac castle and that our little town might have a mobile fish n chip van. I was pleased to inform them that was not the case.
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Old Apr 7th 2013, 12:29 pm
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by Novocastrian
Hi there! I'm very glad to hear that things are going well.

Please say hello to S. from C. and myself. We'll have to drop by your place unexpectedly one day.

How's the oven?
The oven's fine - needs a little TLC pre-season, which means cooking pizzas for friends & family (and guests if they want them) next weekend. Not joining in the convo, too busy with my 'hobby' of running gites and a campsite!
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Old Apr 7th 2013, 7:53 pm
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by Le Chant
The oven's fine - needs a little TLC pre-season, which means cooking pizzas for friends & family (and guests if they want them) next weekend. Not joining in the convo, too busy with my 'hobby' of running gites and a campsite!
If Collioure_Bee, Val and Andrea post as well I will consider it a sign of the second coming
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Old Apr 7th 2013, 7:57 pm
  #60  
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Default Re: Gite/Chambre de hote business

Originally Posted by Le Chant
The oven's fine - needs a little TLC pre-season, which means cooking pizzas for friends & family (and guests if they want them) next weekend. Not joining in the convo, too busy with my 'hobby' of running gites and a campsite!
Having a chat with you these days is like having a penpal in the late 1950's
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