Choose France have chosen not to advertise French properties any more

Choose France

Way way way back in time (well OK, on 24th September 2005 which is as an awful long time ago in Internet time) I advertised our French holiday home on Choose France.

Well unfortunately since I've had the advert live on their site I've only received three booking enquiries via them, each of which was rapidly followed up by an email from the Choose France administrators warning that the enquirer was probably fraudulent - requesting a holiday for their daughter visiting from the States, asking for a month-long booking, or requesting to book because of company business (but then saying that they wanted to book for 1 adult + 1 child!).

So top marks from Choose France for being on the ball in terms of spotting rogue enquiries, but unfortunately little generated in terms of actual customer leads.

Today I received an email from them saying that from 1st August 2008 the ChooseFrance.com website will become an information only website and will no longer be advertising owner/agent rental properties.

Over the last few years I guess I'd kind of written off their site, and I saw today when I looked at my advert that I'd not even been adding 2008 bookings so it appears as though we're completely vacant in the peak period (which of course we're not, we're full for almost all of this summer holidays).

Choose France did also have a "late availability" section which we used to advertise on occasionally, not sure from their email whether this will be maintained or not.

In the over-competitive rental directory market there'll be a few more casualties like Choose France.