Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Bookings’ Category

One thing that accompanies the high level of bookings at this time in August is the equally high level of cancellations.

People obviously have great difficulty in getting booked in anywhere at the moment so we think that they try to book in a few places simultaneously and then cancel those that aren’t quite where they want to be or are going to take too long to reach with the traffic levels. Whatever the reason, the number of cancellations goes up quite sharply.

One thing that people forget though is that if they want to cancel without charge then they sometimes need to cancel a considerable period in advance. We’re at the more lenient end of the scale by requiring (in most cases) 24 hours notice but I’ve seen as long as 7 days notice being required. Actually, we’re even more laid back than that as we’ll refund any charges taken if we can rebook the room which isn’t the case at most hotels.

The reason for the 24 hour period is simple: it’s to give us a chance to rebook the room. So, for the most part, the 24 hour notice period applies to sites which do “next day” booking ie you can’t book and turn up the same day. Net effect of the next day booking regime is that if you get a cancellation on Monday for a booking on Monday on one of those systems then you won’t get another booking from them for the same room. For most of the year that doesn’t really matter as the room will have remained listed on other sites but during peak periods we need to close down reservations most days ie if we get a cancellation then the room hasn’t remained listed elsewhere and we’re unlikely to book it. That sounds a bit peculiar to a lot of people who just assume that “obviously” we’ll get the room filled and perhaps that’s true for city-centre hotels but, for the most part, we don’t get people just dropping in asking for a room so if it’s not listed, it’s not sold.

The other thing that people forget is that we are charged if they cancel with under 24 hours notice. The sites that we get most bookings from are commission based ones who will charge us for any cancellations received with less than 24 hours notice given and, no, we can’t just tell them that we were notified a few days in advance as they obviously know when we put the cancellation in and they can (and do) check with the guests too.

Arnold

A week ago we thought that the coming week would be relatively quiet as the bookings were quite patchy but we received quite a flood of bookings during the week and are just about completely full now. We had three new bookings this morning before the breakfasts were over!

That seems to be typical over most of France at the moment going by the enquiries flowing through Chambre d’Hote and Our Gites in recent weeks, some of which have the whiff of panic about them. However, there are some regions with accommodation availability at the moment if you look outside the normal places around France. They aren’t dumps either – friends of ours still have availability in their absolutely beautiful chambre d’hote in Burgundy.

As usual, next week will probably be quite different as the French will be finishing off their holidays next Saturday night leaving French accommodation available for everyone else for the first time since around mid-July. Thus, chaos can be expected on the roads up to the end of next weekend. That’s worrying me a bit as I have to catch a plane to Santiago from Barcelona next Friday.

Must head on – yet another night of mainly overnighters has left us with five rooms to makeup for this evening. Thankfully most of the bookings for the coming week are for several days.

Arnold

The August 15th holiday in France produces one of the highest levels of traffic in the country, topped only by the first weekend in August. All across the country today (the closest weekend to the 15th) tempers are getting frayed and cars getting shunted with the time taken to travel from A to B increased massively regardless of whether A or B are 15 kilometres or 1500 kilometres apart. Even turning into our driveway can often take 5 minutes!

To give you an idea of how much traffic this represents, they have a little sign going onto the motorway at Perpignan which lists the traffic conditions under four headings. The top two options are the only ones used on this particular weekend: the photo is what they consider to be “difficult” conditions (ie the traffic is still moving most of the time, but at something like 20km/h) with the next one up being “blocked”.

It’s not just the traffic of course but all the trappings of tourism that experience “difficult” conditions today. Naturally, everyone knows that it will be a nightmare to travel this weekend so they try to get going on the Friday or even the Thursday thus spreading the chaos over an even longer period. As the 15th falls on a Tuesday this year, there’s a fair to middling chance that next weekend will be just as bad. Just this morning the new owner of the hotel in the next village came round to ask if he could borrow some sheets as he’d completely ran out due to the very high number of overnighters that this spreading creates and we’re round to the laundry several times a week now with very full loads of sheets & towels.

This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for French tourism. Not just the French either as a number of countries in Europe have chosen this particular week to have a major public holiday.

Anyway, net effect of that is that just about all accommodation in France is full this week and has been for several weeks if not months. That, of course, doesn’t stop the last minute people trying to get somewhere to stay and, if they’re determined, most people will manage to find somewhere. So, the morning was filled with phone calls from increasingly desperate French who, for a change, rarely quibble about the price or even whether the room is ensuite or not. Usually you get people phoning to ask for particular dates but by now they’re not picky and will take more or less whatever is available: more “what have you got, we’ll take it” than “we want X”.

To top it all, we’re down a few rooms at the moment as we were getting air-conditioning installed in one room today and are upgrading two others. Still, they’ll be in good time for next year.

Unfortunately, the large number of people trying to book “something” leads to some days with a lot of over-nighters. We’ve been quite lucky this week with almost everyone staying a few days and one family just about half-way into a two week stay but tomorrow just about everyone is leaving so it will be all hands on deck.

We’ve three separate rooms booked for people coming from the UK who’ve not cancelled yet but with all the security hassles on today I’m not sure if any of them will manage to make it. As you’ll gather from the above, we’d have no problem rebooking the rooms even at this point but since all three are guaranteed reservations we need to hold them which means a “no-show” charge if they aren’t able to make it here tomorrow as all three have already passed the free cancellation period.

Arnold

Our place is right at the junction of a bridge and a long straight stretch of road. Net effect is that, as people cross the bridge, they put the foot down and overtake anything and everything and in the other direction they’ve picked up quite a bit of speed before they reach the bridge so it’s time for some serious braking.

So, we have been waiting for a crash and were very surprised that we’ve been here over two years and only had the first one last night.

Thanks to the positioning of the crash we were pretty confident of seeing several more before the wreckage was taken away but just managed the one.

No photos as we figured that would end up with us being summoned as witnesses but both cars look like writeoffs.

The only other day we came really close to having a car crash was the day that it snowed. Yes, it snows in the south of France! Actually, I do mean “the” day that it snowed as it has only snowed once since we’ve been here but it did manage around 6 inches of snow that day which, of course, the authorities were relatively unprepared for as it’s so rare in this area. We waited and waited for a crash but nothing doing really and only one car managed to end up in the ditch outside our entrance.

We also managed to have our very first double booking. I was expecting this to happen last Summer but we’ve managed to keep on top of the bookings up to now and only fell down last night as we managed to put two Spanish couples down for three nights starting tonight rather than three nights starting last night.

We ended up having to put them in another auberge for the night but they’re back with us for the next two nights and took it all very well as Spaniards do with these things.

Arnold