Running a French Holiday Gite in Rural Brittany

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Bookings starting to pick up for 2010 after a very slow start

Josselin Medieval Chateau; close to our Brittany Vacation Rental Home
Maybe the recession is over and things are looking up?

The cynic in me says that the only reason that the press have started writing about how the recession is over is that they've got bored of writing about how bad the recession is.

But looking at the evidence I reckon things are looking up.

Bookings for our holiday Gite were definitely affected last year and I noticed a slow down in bookings as we moved into 2010. In previous years we've seen most of September, some of October, and Christmas/New Year booked in the cottage. In 2009 though once the peak summer and September season had finished that was it and we had no bookings at all after 25th September and we've been empty since then.

Also in previous years we've seen most of July and August booked in advance well before the end of the preceding year, and I've written for example about receiving holiday bookings up to 360 days in advance.

The bookings have definitely been slower this year and we didn't really start getting any 2010 bookings until January this year.

However things are now starting to look up and I'm seeing an increase in booking enquiries over the weeks so most of August is booked as is June 2010. July 2010 still has some holiday weeks free and we've taken one rental booking for May. I've also just confirmed our first booking for a couple who will be going over house-hunting in Brittany in March, and one week of Easter is now confirmed as well.

All in all 43 nights have now been booked in our holiday home which is great news.

Current available dates in our France holiday cottage are shown on our website.

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1 Comments:

  • Geoffrey

    I've recently started a free gite directory at http://www.BestGitesinBrittany.com and, talking to the owners who have registed there, it is those who have luxury gite with swimming pools who are doing well at the moment (many already booked all year and into 2011!)

    Not really sure how that works in a "Economic Crisis" but...

    Of course, it could be that those Gites owners are paying more for their advertising that owners of small (and lower cost) Gites?

    All the best

    Keith

    By Blogger Unknown, at February 12, 2010  

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