Your holiday matters
Not many of us are booking next years holidays at the moment, preferring to think about what Christmas presents to buy, and how to pay for them. Apparently everyone in this household (except me) has a pressing need for an ipod shuffle and a new mobile phone.
Let me suggest you cast such thoughts from your mind and think instead of sipping cold champagne on a sunny terrace. Now isn’t that more pleasant! A quick dip in the pool; lying in bed late in the morning as the sunshine beams through the windows…
…but wait, is that the goose farm next door that smells so bad? Why hasn’t the pool been cleaned all week? Did the publicity mention that your apartment was on a building site?
A while ago I was involved in creating a new type of holiday rentals listing site that aimed to tackle these problems. For a property to be listed the owner needs to provide, among other things, references from previous guests. With the idea that if a property is a spider infested cave that hasn’t seen a broom since 1972 it is pretty hard to get references.
But the problem for people booking holidays is that such properties tend to get booked early, often by returning visitors. So if you wait until the end of June next year, when the nasty memory of credit card bills from Christmas has at last been forgotten, to start planning your holidays - you will find that you have missed out on the best places.
The site is run by property owners, for property owners, and has customer-satisfaction, not profit, as a goal. So you should also check it out of you own a holiday rental property, and you should apply to be listed if you have the kind of property that people actually like being in on holiday. It’s free or cheap to join if you are accepted!
So my hot-tip for the day…get over to Your Holiday Matters and choose a great break for next year, or get your rental property added.
(Disclosure - I helped create the ‘YHM’ site and my own gites are listed there but I’m sure you can avoid them if you choose carefully!)
