Tate is Back for 2009

The Return of Tate


This is just a quick note to say that just as Arnie warned “Tate is back” and he’s ready and eager to resume the gastronomic scouring of the Vendee to bring to you a flavour of what is available here. This year because of the shocking mess that the world’s bankers have left us in (I’m so angry that every time I hear the word “Banker” I want to replace the first letter), Trevor and I are going to concentrate on eating at lunchtime and searching for the best value for money that we can find.

Trevor himself is looking as fit as a fiddle, although he’s still complaining about his aches and pains. I think his holiday in New Zealand did him the power of good, he seemed to enjoy it there especially the scenery and the winter warmth, and there’s no doubt a few of the local residents were sad to see him go. There are however some woolly residents who I’m reliably informed now baa with a Bristol accent.

As for me I made a life changing decision over the winter, my mobility has been declining for some years and this has left some places totally inaccessible to me. This winter I bit the bullet, borrowed some money, and bought myself a mobility scooter which in itself is brilliant but required a Van to transport it. I call them Thunderbirds after the 1960’s puppet series of the same name. Those of you old enough to remember will get the inference, with the mechanical nature of everything in the programs, including folding palm trees, of course there will be those others of you (Stephen you know who you are) who will point at the wooden nature of the characters and say that there the real likeness lies . Whichever way you cut it both the scooter and the van are fantastic and have transformed my life. I’m now looking forward to scooting around la Rochelle, seeing the seafront at St. Giles and on Friday Trevor and I are visiting the Grand Parc du Puy du Fou, somewhere I’ve only ever been in the evening to see the spectacular as the walking around the Park has always put it beyond my abilities. Since arriving here a couple of weeks ago I’ve visited Brico Depot and Le Clerc, I’ve managed to look around Trevor’s vast property empire (during the course of which I managed wheel spin for the first time and my first wheelie) and I’ve even shopped at Super U on my own for the first time ever. So LOOK OUT FRANCE.

Since arriving with a couple of friends we have eaten out at restaurants on two occasions, both were outside of the remit stated above, one evening was spent at the creperie at the Chateau La Citardiere, which is the subject of a separate review. The other evening was spent at the Pic Vert in Vouvant, a creperie that we have reviewed before. We had a splendid evening there the atmosphere was, as ever, very good as the restaurant benefits from being in Vouvant where English diners proliferate which generally makes the evening sessions busy. The food was much the same as last year which was very good, and the prices had remained unaltered.

The only thing that has changed is the exchange rate which takes evenings such as these out of the easily affordable category and puts them into the rare treat category. This is of course not the fault of the restaurateurs it is the fault of the *ankers, and I personally will take every available opportunity to remind them that through their greed and complete disregard for decency and honesty, they are responsible.

Tate – 27th May 2009

Advertising your gite and the recession.

Although I have touched upon this topic before I thought that you might be interested in some comments I came across this week. The first is a definition of the financial times that we are in. "Recession is basically the reallocation of resources from the scared to the bold. You just need to decide which you are going to be and then not let anyone (especially the media) tell you otherwise." Of course along with that goes the old cliché "when the going gets tough, the tough get going"
I also found an article on improving your conversions.

"UK market or more?
Still, relying solely on the UK market is surely not the best solution for gite-owners and B&B providers, particularly in the current climate. I'm surprised how many websites advertising, only use English! This is fine if you only want to receive visitors from the UK or perhaps the Netherlands; but it is important to remember that across the board, the French make up the lion's share of the customers for gites. In some regions, they represent 80% of gite customers, according to local tourism statistics. Obviously, this figure is lower in tourist hot-spots, such as along the coast. Incidentally, if your gite is registered as a business in France, it is actually - in theory at least - illegal to advertise your services only in a foreign language.
Visitor stats show clearly that sites which are posted in both English and in French get more visitors than similar sites with a website in just English. And those who have websites in three or four languages do even better.
Of course, there is one way to discourage all but visitors from the UK, and that is to list your prices only in sterling! Most sites list prices in sterling and euros, or indicate that both are accepted, and that is certainly a way to increase your chances of bringing in visitors from France and other parts of Europe too.
Advertising in another language is fine as long as the translation is correct, whatever you do, do not use an online translator the results will not impress anyone especially those you are trying to convince that your property is professionally run. I have seen some catastrophic examples of sites with pages in the most garbled and incomprehensible French! You will not bring in French customers if their first contact with you is in the shape of a very poorly written web-page; After all, look at it the other way round! If you are British, and were looking for a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire dales, would you feel inclined to book a cottage whose website was in mangled and incomprehensible English?" I thank Andrew Rossiter for those last comments.
In hard times thinking outside the box to find a new angle on attracting customers is the way forward. It is interesting to note that in this recession the downturn is likely to be around 10%, yet raising your prices by 4% would increase your bottom line by 15%, and anyone booking your gite would probably still do so if the price was say £468 rather than £450. It is an interesting thought that raising prices during a recession can in fact be profitable and history shows many examples where this has worked. One example is Showerings Ltd, during the 30's depression they sold Peardrax at 3p per pint (that’s old money) and were going out of business, they were bold and decided to change the price to 1shilling and 3p a 5x increase and at the same time reduce the size from 1 pint to less than a quarter of a pint, the increase in profit allowed for aggressive adverting which lead to the multi million pound brand "Babysham". Only for the Brave.

Videos

The Video Collection: click on a title to watch the video.

Gardens and Facilities at La Grange Gites Vendee
Local Attractions.

Le Cedre. 5 Bedroom gite with private pool

Ardoux. 5 Bedroom gite with shared outdoor and heated indoor pool.

Frene 3 Bedroom Gite.

Chene. 4 Bedroom gite.

Sapin. 2 Bedroom gite. Sleeps 6.

Tournesol. 2 Bedrooms gite. Sleeps 4

Vendee Beaches

The Depths of winter is the time of year when most people book their summer holiday. The Christmas festivities are over and the days are dark and dismal so what better tonic than to think of those balmy summer days, hot summer breezes, the French wine and cheeses and of course the crystal blue sea lapping gently on golden sands, you can almost smell the ozone drifting on the breeze. This is of course the picture that travel brochures around the world use to lure you to book their holiday destinations and of course we’re no different.
Luckily for us the Vendee is blessed with some of the finest beaches in France, the blue flag for cleanliness is proudly flown from most of them and the choice is extensive. Our review of all of the beaches in the Vendee is now finished and though there will always be a need to keep them updated you will never the less be able to see exactly what’s on offer. In addition there are also further pages on Surfing, Fishing and Sailing.
Beach holidays may not be everyone’s idea of a great holiday. Some people do not want the hustle and bustle of crowded resorts or sand with everything, but still enjoy the occasional day on the beach. Rural Vendéen gîtes and holiday homes offer those people a tranquil setting, far enough away from the coast to enjoy the peace and quiet of a traditional Vendéen village, yet close enough to the coast for it not to be a chore getting there with the added bonus of passing through pleasant interesting countryside on the way. The other major advantage of a rural gîte holiday in the Vendée is that the cost of renting your holiday home is dramatically reduced, often by a much as 40% for a similarly sized property. There is also much greater choice in the type of properties available, especially for the larger family or group of friends.
Winter is the time for dreaming of golden sands and blue seas. The Vendee is where dreams become reality

Gite bookings get a boost.

As the old saying goes "what a difference a week makes". The weather outside may be freezing but the temperature is sure rising in the holiday industry. According to the news over 200,000 holidays were booked last week and that was only with the big operators and virtually everyone I have spoken to has said that they are not only receiving a ton of enquiries but they are converting to firm bookings at above average rates.
For those of us that still advertise in pounds sterling, especially if you live in France, then the dramatic rise in the value of the pound this week is as good a new year’s tonic as one could wish for. With a rise of nearly 10% from is lowest point it can make the difference between a successful season and a disastrous one, and I am confident that this rise will continue until it gets back to around 1.30 or higher. Of course there will be the bad days so let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the rise goes beyond even my prediction.

On another Front the new look to our sister website www.french-gite-holidays.co.uk is complete and is now live for all to see. I'm sure there will be some tweaking and perhaps the odd link that’s failed, but in general the fresher look and quicker loading has meet with approval by both advertisers and viewers alike. Let me know what you think.

Gites Vendee with swimming pools

I am often asked if having a swimming pool makes any difference to how well my gites rent and does it make any difference if they are heated or not. The answer to the first part is a definite yes, it is not only easier to let your property but also the rate is significantly higher, as to whether its better to be heated, well that’s a much harder question to answer. It would undoubtedly be easier to let a property with a heated pool and as more properties with them come on the market it will be an increasing advantage. It will also depend on the size of the property, for gites with 5 plus bedrooms it is not such a great advantage as there are, in general, fewer of these than the demand so they are usually taken up quickly. The problem with smaller gites is the cost ratio. It is quite expensive to install the heating system and depending on the type of system installed and the size and construction of the pool, the running costs can be quite significant, so returns on investment will need careful consideration.
Why do we need a pool? Well the answer is simply.... conception! Think about it, what do you imagine as your dream destination for a holiday? What elements should your dream holiday have? I bet you will imagine a pool with sunshine in that equation some where, perhaps your only sitting by it drinking that cool beer, but its a powerful image so it becomes a must have. It is strange that the reality is often quite different, on many occasions I have had customers demand that they have a pool, its top of the features list that the property must have, yet when they arrive they checkout the pool first, they may even make it there first must do thing, but then they either never use it again or certainly not enough to have justified the increase in price they have paid.
A few years ago I was approached by a Frenchman who had a nice gite by the beach just south of La Rochelle, he wanted to know why it didn't have as good an occupancy as I did. I asked "do you have a swimming pool?" no he said "I don’t need one I'm only 50 meters from the beach". So I explained about the concept of a holiday and illustrated it by explaining that a friend of mine has a similar property not that far away from him in a reasonably similar location, he has a heated pool, he charges twice what the Frenchman charged and is fully booked often two years in advance for the whole period from Easter to October. The Frenchman scratched his head and walked away without saying another word.
So in conclusion I would say that if you are serious about letting your gite(s) then you should give having a pool very very serious thought.

Gites 2009

With the New Year just a couple of days away it’s time to sort out the advertising for the coming season. With the major advertising having already been commissioned and sorted out it’s time to re-tune the website and tinker with the smaller external sites that we use, which includes PPC (pay per click-adwords) and free websites. On our www.gites-with-pools.co.uk website we are going to try to improve the general first impression and usability, the most important change will be an improvement in the number and the quality of the videos available on the site, to this end we intend to host them all on an external server. One of the problems this year has been that some of the videos have not always run when requested. This has been partly due to our own inability to set the videos up properly and partly because of the different ways that the browsers are set up on customers’ computers. I have just returned from a short break, but while I was away I used a cyber cafe to check my email, and any problems with the website. I tried 8 different computers and virtually every one showed me something slightly different on the screen, sometimes it was the spacing, sometimes it was the fonts, sometimes the videos opened and at other times they didn’t. It would be possible to host the videos on "Youtube" (check out our video http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WXf-I7Wi6pM ) but the quality is often poor and the loading slow) this is especially true if you don’t provide it in a format that is really compatible with their system.
It will take time to re-make my existing videos suitable for the new hosting system but when completed at least they will open every time and in a good quality.
When these improvements are complete I will notify you, in the mean time have a Happy New Year.