Gite advertising

As the main season for enquiries quickly approaches there are some very nervous mutterings throughout the holiday industry. For the last few months the rate of inquiries has all but dried up, virtually every major site on the net has reported at least a 50% drop in the volume of enquiries and of those who are looking most are just window shopping. Everyone is feeling the pinch as a result of the credit crunch, the doom and gloom portrayed every day on the TV and other media doesn’t help and all in all it leaves one feeling that this will be the worst season ever.
There are of course exceptions, in general the larger the property, the more exclusive, the more facilities on offer, and to a point the more expensive, the better the property seems to be booking. A detached five bedroom gite with a private heated pool and all the luxuries seems to have a greater occupancy rate already. This is probably due to two main factors, firstly they are rarer and therefore visitors who regularly use this size of accommodation know that if they leave it too late to book they will end up with little or no choice. Secondly, although difficult to explain, it seems the higher the price of the property the easier it is to let, it seems that many of the public think that the more they pay the better their experience will be. It is also true to say that 10 people sharing a luxury gite at £2500 per week is better value that 2 people in a £500 per week basic gite, especially when you take the cost of ferries and fuel into consideration.
So where does one go from here? Well one could just say “don’t panic it will all sort it self out in the end”, one could double the advertising budget in an attempt to catch those few visitors that are looking, one could cut back on expenditure making economies to maximize what profit there may be, or one could think positively and upgrade the gite with a pool, a dishwasher, some new furniture or whatever else you think might encourage people to book with you. One could reduce the price or make special offers, why not try a "BOGOFF" buy one get one free, for example, book two weeks in high season and get two weeks free at another time of the year. The problem is there are no certainties only great debating topics. What are you going to do? I hear you say, well I’ll probably try a mixture of all of them, I've never been one for putting all my eggs in one basket.
Of Course I will continue to try and get better rankings for the website. The principal question is what keyword is the most important for me to rank for. The answer? Well that will be the subject of another blog, so if you’re interested in finding out, keep checking in.

Fleas and other things

I have previously talked about the security perimeter that my cats have posted around my gîte complex. It doesn’t matter whether you like cats or not, if you live in rural France, living without them can cause all manner of problems. Besides the obvious advantage of keeping the rodent population, except lerots, under control they also keep other less obvious pests away. My friends and even my farmer neighbour are amazed at my vegetable patch, they all wonder why I have no damage from rabbits, hares which this year did severe damage to the local sunflower crop, and birds. I explained it’s quite simple “I have Cats” not only that but they are” feral cats” which means they are never allowed in the house or Gîtes and I only give them sufficient food to keep them loyal, working on the maxim ”keep them lean and mean”. My theory is that there is a mutual respect between the larger mammals and the cats, and in any event why have your baby rabbits and hares close to a gang of cats when there are much safer locations. This applies to larger species like foxes which are quite common in the area but not around me.




Cats are quite protective of their territory and of course their young. In one instance a very large hunting dog had got detached from the rest of the pack and hearing voices on the patio came around to investigate. At the end of the patio near the bushes a couple of young kittens were playing, the dog suddenly caught sight of the kittens and started to advance quite rapidly. The mother cat who was out of sight behind the dog saw the danger, she took off at lightning speed in a large arc around the dog and behind her kittens, she then flew at the dog stopping only a foot or so away standing on her hind legs with her front paws, claws out, waving furiously at the dog her mouth was open showing her teeth and she was hissing loudly. The dog didn’t wait to check out the situation it obviously felt that discretion was the better part of valour, turned tail and ran off into the distance never to be seen again. Neither my guest nor I had ever witnessed any thing like this before, but I’m sure it’s proof of why there are so few pests around.

You may well be asking what any of this has to do with fleas; the answer is that cats can have a down side. There are guests that don’t like cats or are allergic to them, this is one of the reasons why they are not allowed in the house and being feral cats they are a lot more timid, though if offered food this can quickly change. The other problem is fleas, it is true that feral cats do seem to be less susceptible than domestic cats to fleas, they seem to have an immune system which kills them off, I regularly check my cats and there are rarely any fleas to be found, kittens however are an exception, as they do not seem to get this immune system for several weeks, which in its self is not usually a problem. However mother cats like to have their kittens in quiet dark areas and the back corner of a shed or barn is ideal. After a couple of weeks they move the kittens to a new home, and this is the nub of the problem. The young kittens will have attracted fleas and when they are moved most of the fleas are left behind. With lack of a host the fleas often lie dormant or even multiply, only to come back to life weeks later. Now this is the time that they can become a serious problem, with no cats about they will spread out looking for a new host. They can quickly be picked up on clothing and transported into the house, once inside the house however they run riot trying to feed on anything (and that generally means anyone) that they can find. It is no consolation to know that once they’ve bitten you they drop off and die but it is good to know that inside they are reasonably easy to control. With all the windows and doors closed a simple “Flea Bomb”, which can be purchased from any Pharmacy and even some supermarkets, can be let off. The bomb takes 4 hours to work properly it is supposed to last for 6 months and you need a bomb for every 50 m³. You can also use Flea Smokes but you need to leave the building closed for 24 hours.

Out doors the problem is however more difficult to solve as they can spread themselves around. The most effective treatment I have found is to spray the ground with a strong solution of bleach. Another theory that I have is that Fleas are attracted to cats so if I put the food bowl where the out door infestation is, the fleas will attach themselves to the cats and the cats’ immune systems will do the rest, though I’ve yet to put this theory to the test.

Fleas are never a pleasant subject but I hope one of these remedies will help you if you have the problem.

Gites with pools

Today if you have a gîte, and if you wish to get enough bookings to show a return on your investment, it is almost obligatory to have a pool. This wasn’t always the case, when I first started renting gîtes some 17 years ago a pool was rarity, and anywhere that did have a pool was more likely to be referred to as a Villa, for that more upmarket appeal. Today the trend is towards heated pools and all that it entails. On my complex I have the luxury to have both the original unheated outdoor pool and an indoor heated pool, though I can assure you this was not by design. When I bought La Grange the huge barn was not included in the price, as the farmer Charlie and his brother Dominique wanted to keep it for their farming needs, and nothing I said or did could change their mind.

Nearly thirteen years on and the barn was looking decidedly sad, the roof was missing from one of the side wings and everything else needed attention. Then one day Charlie visited me and we spent some time engaging in pleasantries and discussing life's problems. As Charlie was making a move to leave, he turned to me and said " I've decided to sell the barn" I looked at him quizzically and he went on to say that he had advertised the barn and had an offer from some English people who wanted to turn it into gîtes. I was, for once, lost for words and before I could get my head around the situation he announced here's the price if you want it, it’s yours. To be honest all my money was tied up in the two large farmhouses that make up La Grange so there was nothing left to pay for the barn, their wasn’t even anything to use as a down payment for a mortgage. I knew nothing about mortgages I had never had one, but the situation was desperate. I could not allow someone else to sit within 30 meters of my site and run another gîte complex. With the help of my accountant I somehow managed to secure a 100% mortgage, a situation apparently never heard of before in France or so the Bank claimed, and the barn was mine.

This however was far from the solution, now that I had bought the barn the next problem was what to do with it. Here was this cavernous building that was costing me a fortune in mortgage repayments needing major repairs, and I hadn’t a clue what to use it for. After much soul searching I decided that a bold new venture was required, I would change the barn into a sports and entertainment centre and increase the rents on the gîtes to cover the extra expenditure.

I set about the task with gusto. The first thing that I had to do was to add a new first floor as the barn is 9m high in the central section. Once the main beams were in place it was possible to start construction of the indoor pool that would be the focal point of the entertainment complex. Unfortunately at this point I had a serious accident which lead to several weeks in hospital and a big operation on the double disc hernias that I had suffered. Oops! To be continued....