Foreign Perspectives

Now and again we get asked that and it’s far from an easy question to answer as we don’t know anything about the people asking it.

For example, we get lots of walkers and cyclists staying with us. They usually don’t need a car but sometimes they do in that they want to walk in a number of number of different types of scenery.

Depending on where you want to go, you can do quite well with public transport or, alternatively, see nothing at all of interest to you.

If you’d like to go to the beach, it’s quite easy from here on the bus for instance. However, if you want to see the castles then you’re going to need a car unless you’re fairly fit and can cycle or walk to them.

So, if you want a sensible answer, don’t just ask us if you need a car: tell us what things you want to see, whether you like walking or cycling, and so on so that we can give you the correct answer.

Usually the guests thin out a little by this time of year but we’re getting something of a return towards full occupancy for the next few weeks this year.

How come? Well, one key aspect of it is a series of upgrades and promotions that we made to the accommodation website over the last year which have together had the effect that we get a great deal more ownsite bookings than we did previously.

Also, some of the sites that we’re listed with have clearly been beavering away with their own promotion activities. One notable groups of sites in this regard is activehotels.com which was bought by booking.com last year resulting in a very substantial jump in the number of reservations from the combined group and they in turn were bought by priceline.com in the last 12 months or so which has resulted in us being listed on an even larger group of sites and thereby bumped up the reservations yet again.

What’s the strategy for the coming year though?

As usual, we’ll be reviewing the website as there’s always something that can be improved or even simply updated. Beyond that, I’ve built up something of a backlog of sites that we could be listed on so I’ll be working through those from October onwards.

On ‘tother side of the fence so to speak, we have a number of developments on the listing sites pencilled in. They too were considerably more successful over the past year than they had been previously again due to a series of site promotion exercises and some site improvements. We’re moving the focus to our new-generation sites this year of which the key development engine will probably be Whole Earth Guide although as that uses the template of the other new-generation sites, all those in that group will be affected.

Quite noticeable already is that Whole Earth already has over 700 incoming links despite only being around for just over a month. Once we start promotion of it properly, that number should jump quite dramatically and so too should the number of site visitors.

Yesterday was the typical September day over here right up until the late afternoon when it became a little cloudy to the west but now it’s the miserable weather that you’d more typically associate with the west of Ireland rather than the south of France.

It’s become quite cool at night too.

Both aspects are unusual for here as ordinarily we’re running around in t-shirts from March to January.

If this is a sign of colder weather coming along this Winter maybe we’ll need to get some more snow chains. No rush yet though as the snow doesn’t arrive at the ski resorts ’til November.

We were a little bit optimistic about how long it would take to do everything this morning but managed to be driving away from the dealership around 3pm which was pretty good going on the whole.

As you might expect, Credit Agricole was the worst. It took almost an entire hour from when we went in the door until we walked out with the bank cheque. That was with only two people in front of us too!

We dropped off the hire car next before heading over to organise the insurance at MAAF. Funnily enough, it turned out to be somewhat easier to do than it was doing the whole lot in English had been for the Alto. We’ve to get a statement from the old insurance company but otherwise that’s it. Well, we have to attempt to get a statement from the old insurance company I should say as they’ve pretty much completely ignored us over the last four months so it might not be quite so simple.

By then it was after 1200 so we had lunch before going on to the car dealership. Since we didn’t have any proof of address with us they seemed to be able to carry on without it which has us wondering why they asked for it in the first place, though we often wonder that in France. Having a leaf through what’s included in the price we’ve paid it looks like the overall price is lower than it was on the Internet as they’ve included a few substantial things that weren’t in the online price and, of course, we’d not to pay for hotels, petrol and tolls between here and Paris either.

Anyway, our little car is doing quite nicely. Between the low price of diesel and the 50+mpg that it gets we’ll likely not even have to top it up ’til well into next week.

Although France has been moving online rapidly in recent years, many existing laws and customs don’t fit in well with the online world.

You can certainly buy books and such online no problem. The purchase “contract” is very clear and, even in France, it doesn’t require a signature to buy a book. Having said that, the way that Amazon constantly runs “sales” is probably illegal in France as sales are limited to specific periods of the year here so perhaps someday a French bookshop will get them banned.

You can’t buy commercial goods so easily though as you generally need to prove to them that you’re a business. So, whilst you can sometimes place an order, you sometimes find that they want documentary proof that you are a registered business. Elsewhere in the world, just because you’re a “wholesale” sales outfit doesn’t mean that you aren’t legally allowed to sell to the public, but here it tend to.

Even buying car insurance online doesn’t seem a runner. We could only find one place that would even provide an estimate online and even with them we still have to go in to the office to provide the documentation and pay for it.

So, yes you can buy online in France but there are significant limitations in what they’re allowed to sell you online which don’t apply elsewhere.