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News and editorial on life from the south of France, a regular series on how to move here and some random musings too.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'bookings'
The first drive-by of the year!
Not so long ago, drive-by guests made up a substantial proportion of our bookings but with the combination of a rapid rise in the profile of online reservation systems and mobile internet the drive-by is very much a dying breed. Over time this trend ...
Another full weekend thanks to the Spanish resort accommodation
As we move through August the number of people in the place has been steadily increasing and, of course, we’ve had the usual spikes in occupancy at the weekends. Unfortunately those weekend spikes have become even more pronounced this year. Tha...
The expenses of being a “noshow”
In these days when virtually everyone books their accommodation online it’s particularly important to read the small-print regarding cancelling your trip or simply not turning up at all at your accommodation. If you simply don’t turn up a...
Gaps in the summer reservations
Although you’d expect that most holiday accommodation would be completely full over the majority of the peak summer that’s not always the case. For instance, whilst we’re expecting to be close to full capacity over the period, in fa...
Assumptions that people make which aren’t quite right for their holiday accommodation
When they’re booking a place for their holidays people often make assumptions about what that place will be like not so much from the description (which few seem to read) but rather from the place that they’re booking it through. For inst...
Very busy then a sharp drop in holiday trade
What’s very striking is the sharp cut-off in guests at the end of the main European holiday season over here. You can find that you’re completely full one day and then there’s next to nobody for the following week. That’s refl...
Just how late do you book your holiday?
One of the hassles in the hotel trade is that people seem to be booking their holidays later every year so it’s really hard to plan. For example, a week ago we had hardly anyone booked for the coming week yet now we’re virtually full. Not...
The impact of GPS on the hotel trade
As I’m sure you noticed, all kinds of shops were stacked high with various satellite navigation units last year now that the prices have fallen into the “impulse buy” area. The impact of that is now being felt locally in a big way i...
They’ve all gone…
If you cast your mind back to the early part of the year you might remember that we picked up a really big booking from a German family in February. So large that what started off as a couple of rooms for a few days ended up totalling 30 nights worth...
When can we checkin?
That’s an obvious question to ask but, of course, most people know roughly what the answer will be for hotels in general ie after lunch to late evening. In fact, we state that it’s from 3pm to 10pm although there’s usually some flex...
How much do you trust an accommodation listings site?
Running an accommodation listings site is a peculiar type of business. Whilst in most businesses, you’d have contact with your customers be it in person, by phone or via e-mail in this business the guests of your customers are also your custome...
We don’t speak French; why didn’t you speak French to us?
That’s the rather peculiar comment of some Germans who stayed with us. Since German is a distant relative to the English language, English is much easier to speak for them than French and therefore we always start off in English with any German...
