Foreign Perspectives

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If you’re living outside your home country then the answer isn’t an obvious one.

Say you’re living in France and you’re from the UK. In that case, the language you use within the family will be English whilst the language you use outside the home will usually be French, won’t it?

Well, not necessarily. For example, in our case for a variety of reasons this year less than 10% of our guests were French. Thus, in practical terms in 90% of the time we ended up using English with the guests. That’s not because they were British mind you because under 10% were; it’s because of that 90% non-French clientele, almost all of them had a preference to communicate in English rather than French (they were largely German and Dutch).

Which has resulted in a series of odd complaints, mainly from the French guests. We weren’t greeting everyone in French, nobody spoke French, etc. Seeing as we can see where the various cars come from as people arrive we actually greet them in the most appropriate language we can muster whether that be English, French or Spanish. If it’s a German number plate then we kick off in English because we know that 99% of them speak it better than we do.

What we can’t obviously do is insist that all the guests speak French as one French couple seemed to want going by their complaint. In fact, they were the only French couple staying that day and were surrounded by Germans, Dutch and Spanish who all chose to speak English to each other whilst having breakfast.

The peculiar common thread behind these complaints is that the French seemingly assume that in a French hotel all the staff will be French and so will all the guests which seems pretty weird in these days of widespread international travel.

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What’s very striking is the sharp cut-off in guests at the end of the main European holiday season over here.

You can find that you’re completely full one day and then there’s next to nobody for the following week. That’s reflected in the strategies that the various tourist related businesses follow over here with pretty much everything closing down by the second week in September even though there are still quite a reasonable number of tourists still around by that time. Some hotels take the close down even more seriously and don’t reopen until June the following year which, of course, is reflected in the very sharp price increases that you find once you’re in the main holiday season: in some cases hotels double their prices.

We’re still in the completely full stage at the moment and it’s not until well into next week that we get a bit of a rest before the photojournalism festival in Perpignan fills us up again.

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Travel insurance is something of an oddity even in the context of the peculiar insurance market.

Up until quite recently, it’s been tied directly the sale of the holiday itself and in many cases people still think of it that way. However, the tying of travel insurance to the holiday by the travel agents has been illegal for a number of years now and you’re free to get your travel insurance where-ever you wish to these days. Almost always, that will mean somewhere other than the travel agent as the insurance on offer from them is rarely good value.

Things to consider when you’re shopping around are:

1. your own health: if you’ve anything that could be considered a “pre-existing condition” then you need to be upfront with that to the insurance company or you could find that if you need treatment whilst on holiday, they won’t cover it;
2. what your house insurance covers: some of your more expensive items might already be covered for worldwide travel (typically this would be the likes of jewellry);
3. where you’re going: if it’s within Europe it’s going to be a lot cheaper than if you include America as healthcare in the US is seriously expensive;
4. the length of time you’re going: many policies limit you to 30 days max, others to 90 and if you’re going longer you may need to look at gap-year policies; and
5. how often you go on holiday: if it’s more than once a year then you should consider annual policies which cover you for multiple holidays over the course of a year.

Once you’ve all that sorted, it’s a matter of looking at one of the comparison sites such as money.co.uk and finding the best deal.

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