Running a French Holiday Gite in Rural Brittany

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

2010 Holiday dates and prices now available for our Holiday Gite in France

I've spent a bit of time over the last couple of days since getting home from our holiday by busying myself with updating our Gite website with a 2010 booking calendar and prices and availability for next year.

In essence we are keeping the rental price the same as 2009 with peak season (i.e. school holidays in July and August) at £500 per week, and out of season (i.e. November to March) being just £225 per week.

We've simplified the pricing scheme as well and instead of two mid-season price bands there's now one which applies to Christmas/New Year, April to June, September and October - this mid season rate is only £350 per week.

All vacation let prices are for the whole of our holiday home (i.e. up to 6 people plus 2 babies) and we include all utility costs (water, heating, electricity) and also all bed linen in the rate so there's no unexpected additional costs for our guests.

Details of current holiday availability for 2009 and 2010 are now available on our website as are the holiday gite rental prices in both pounds and euros and full booking conditions.

Whilst we were away at the Gite ourselves I wrote about a number of booking enquiries we'd received for 2010 and one of those has already booked. I was thinking that the end of August was about right to launch next years holiday prices but I've received nagging emails from RentalSystems for the last couple of weeks reminding me that I was missing out on next years bookings by not setting our prices for 2010, and looking back on the Blog I see that I launched 2009 holiday prices on August 5th last year so if anything I'm a bit late!

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posted by Geoffrey at 8:22 pm Permalink

3 Comments:

  • We always want a deal that suits ourselves, so forgive me if this is a non-starter. I have thought that if there are any 'unbooked' spaces in a gite calendar then why not a less costly offer for just couples. So often we retired want our hols. out of school holiday periods and we wont use so much water and change of linen that the extra bedrooms and larger families require. Just a thought.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at September 02, 2009  

  • Hi there, thanks for your feedback.

    I've tried to aim for a simple pricing structure which can appeal to every type of customer, hence have gone for a "1 price regardless of occupancy" approach.

    I take your comments about couples using "less" of the property than a family, and it's true that out of peak season most of our bookings are from couples or couples with young children (or grandchildren).

    But what would be a reasonable price differential for just 2 people occupying the Gite? I obviously have certain fixed costs for the Gite (the changeover fee, costs of cutting the grass and gardening, utility standing charges, property insurance, etc) and I'd of course like to make *some* money from the rent (which we plough back into the Gite - e.g. new boiler, septic tank, patio, etc).

    If I look at the other way £225 or £350 for a week's holiday works out at £32 or £50 per night which I personally think is very reasonable when compared to what you'd pay in a hotel. And of course for more than 2 guests the cost per person comes down even more substantially. Given that we don't charge for bed linen or electricity (which some other Gite's do ask their guests to provide or pay for), I think we're pretty reasonably price competitive.

    But what you do you think - should I offer a lower price for just a couple and a higher price for a family group?

    Final thought, we of course want to keep the Gite as occupied as possible so if you see we've still got availability for a particular week then we're of course open to talking about special offers and especially for reduced occupancy.

    Geoffrey

    By Blogger Geoffrey, at September 02, 2009  

  • Thanks for your reasonned answer. BTW as an old and wrinkly I did not want to be 'Anonymous' but did not want to tick the wrong box.
    When we search for gites we often get shunted into the 2/3 bedrooms lists, probably, as there are so few 1 bedroomed properties on offer. You are right that a gite is less than an inexpensive hotel per night, especially if you have to bed four adults and a couple of kids. I was just thinking of times when bookings were a bit, or very, slow.
    Plus I often feel miffed when kids go free and the two of us pay the full whack! Honestly, I'm not really mean!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at September 02, 2009  

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