Dordogne Gites to rent with beautiful swimming pool

The good times out weigh the bad… honest!

This is our 5th season of running our gites and we are proud to say our best year yet.  The availability calenders for all 3 gites are showing the much sought after ‘booked’ message for the main school holiday weeks with  many ‘shoulder weeks’ also booked.

It isn’t all a bed of roses though, just when you think you’ve cracked it. our healthy bank balance has taken a beating with a few unexpected expenses cropping up as well as the usual stuff…

• £5000 on a new car – had to replace the old banger -  back in November last year we were on our way back from visiting Jeff’s brother in Catalunya in Spain when the engine decided to blow-up on the motorway.  After searching our local garages for a replacement 2nd hand car we gave up as they’re sooooo expensive here in France.  We really would have preferred buying in France but resorted going back to the UK for one and are now the proud owners of a Citroen Picasso… it’s 5 years old but very tidy and with only 4500 miles on the clock was perfect.   9 Months down the line and ‘touch wood’ it’s been fine, not as nifty as the old SAAB (I miss that Turbo kicking in) but much more practical with 5 doors for airport pick-ups and for taking Ruben out.
• 9000 Euros on New Gnashers – Yes, that was a shocker but Jeff had used and abused his so our Dentist was on to a nice little earner there!
• 1400 Euros on New Garden Furniture – Finally got around to replacing the white plastic tables and chairs that have given almost 5 years service.  Well, Tempete Xanthia gave a helping hand back in February but I must admit the new wooden furniture looks a bit classier, just hope the gite guests appreciate it and don’t swing about on it too much.  We originally had our eye on some lovely ‘all weather raffia’ furniture that we’d seen in our local E Leclerc supermarket.  Their summer promo catalogue came out back in February and we hurried along to the store on the first day of the promo only to be told that although they could order the furniture they couldn’t give us a delivery date.  With the customary Gallic shrug the sales assistant told us that it could be 1 month, 2 months maybe even 3 months.  That’s France for you but being ever optimistic I did place an order and here we are 6 months down the line and still no sign… that reminds me, I must cancel that order or we’ll have 2 sets of lovely garden furniture turning up that we can’t now afford.

Nearly £500 wasted on non-performing gite directory listings – Advertising has proved to be a major headache, we still class our selves as ‘beginners’ in this business and rely heavily on web based directories for promoting our gites.  Trying to find the right company that works for us is not an easy task, researching different sites, speaking to other gite owners locally and via forums (a very useful one is Lay My Hat) we’ve tried and tested quite a few over the last 5 years.  What may work for us will not necessarily work for others and vise a versa.  I still do not know the answer to this illusive question although I have come to the conclusion that you cannot be complacent and simply rely on one company/directory year on year.  For some bizarre reason they seem to have a ‘positive return rate’ for the first 2-3 years and then drop off . This last month I’ve reviewed our advertising (again), we’ve spent nearly £2000 in the last 12 months (that includes nearly £1000 on this new website).   I was recommended a oouple of sites to try to encourage more European guests, gites.nl for the Dutch market – this was over 300 euros and we only got 1 booking… arghhh.  The other was ‘pourlesvacance’ for the French market – this was even worse, not a single booking nada, zilch, rien!!!  Fortunately ‘ownersdirect‘ have proved very successful with over 16 bookings in the 12 months I’ve been with them and we have just renewed our subscription for another 12 months listing.  We’re forever receiving unsolicited emails from companies promising to ‘get you lots of bookings’ and you could waste a fortune trying them all.  As well as Owners Direct I thought I’d give ”flipkey‘ (the lettings directory for Trip Advisor) a try, they are currently offering a 60 day free trial, my ads went live today so we’ll see how that goes although I’m not holding my breath…

To address our problem of  not being able to gain bookings from the French (well anything other than 1 or 2 night enquirers) we are going to get classified by our local tourist board (www.dordogne-perigord-tourisme.fr).  unfortunately we will have to wait until after 2nd October 2010 (after our last guests leave) for an inspection visit.  The visit will result in us being rated and awarded stars (up to 5).  We will then be listed on their website and in the local tourist guide book which is distributed throughout the Tourist Information Centre’s in the whole of France.

We’re obviously pleased that we’ve had a successful year with our gite bookings this year and hope to at least match it next year if not improve on the figures.  I’m probably sounding a little pessimistic which isn’t like me at all but I have come to realise that no two years are the same in the gite business.  We have raised our prices slightly for 2011 (the prices are now listed on the rates page) although we are promising to hold this years prices for any bookings confirmed before 1st January 2011.   I would be absolutely delighted if 2011 was as successful and 2010 so lets say ‘bring on the bookings’ and make me a happy bunny!