French Life-expat France

Every year the gite business brings new challenges, and staying ahead of the game is not always easy. This becomes especially apparent in a year like this one where some potential holidaymakers are having financial difficulties and the overall level of holidays being booked is down.

I don’t know if there is over-supply of gites, perhaps there is in some areas, but there are always rental properties that get rented out for many weeks each year, and others that barely get the main summer weeks booked. And the well booked gites are usually the nicest…

…but not always though. There are other reasons why a gite may not be well booked, including being new. A well established gite will tend to have people that come back each year or recommend it to their friends and family, so it gets more bookings, but new gites don’t have this benefit.

If you are looking to buy gites take a look at Gites for sale. But if you are looking simply to book a gite holiday this year, keep an eye out for ‘newly available’ type properties - often available at lower prices to encourage first year custom, the fixtures and furnishings will probably also be new, and everything should be dazzlingly fresh.

Unless of course the property looks like a half-finished building site or has been done ‘on the cheap’.

Established gites (like our own) need to compete with these new properties, so it is important to stay ahead of the game. Because of the competitiveness of the market you can’t ignore the condition of your property or furnishings - it is simpler to retain existing customers than find new ones, as we all know, but you can still drive them away if your mattresses are like a piece of sacking laid on gravel.

The problem for us ‘old-timers’ is to escape from the gite mentality of ten or twenty years ago. When we used to stay in gites they were often pretty basic, functional places to pass a week. Now the market is more competitive and people are wealthier, and expect much higher standards.

This does mean that if you are a property owner quite a large part of your income will need to be reinvested in keeping the property up to date and comfortable. The days when rental property owners could sit back, change the occasional light bulb and count the cash are gone, I’m sorry to say! It also means of course that if you are moving to France to buy gites you need to assume that at least 25% probably 30-40% of your annual income will need to be reinvested if you want to stay ahead of the game.

Add in the need to spend more on marketing and websites than ever before, and perhaps renting out gites stops looking quite so tempting.

I think our gites are pretty comfortable and well-furnished now, and thanks to Mrs B the gardens are looking fab, but I wonder if we’ve abandoned the techie side, and whether this should be the big push for 2009. Television we have of course, but French language only, and on a ‘normal’ TV not an LCD flat screen. And not in every bedroom, just in the lounge.

WiFi? I don’t even know if we have that! Our livebox allows remote access but I don’t know if it works over in the gites, and I don’t have a portable PC to test it with. I know of gites with ipod docking stations and surround sound TV, but I don’t know if these things actually improve the number of bookings, or the ‘return rate of visitors’.

One thing I do know. I’ve just spent a week or two moving gravel around to create a new parking area, and it has been hard and heavy work. If next year I can get away with installing a posh television instead I will be very happy.