Gite and Chambre d'hote Owners chat

Guests are getting more and more demanding, and so therefore the competition, but as long as you get ‘smiley’ and satisfactury comments from your guests, that’s the key, and we have repeat customers, which is great…however, some guests (with our B&B) you give everything and more and beyond, and yet it makes you wonder why they do not go and stay in a hotel…I could tell stories, as I am sure lots of B&B and self-catering accommodation owners can…but hey, generally guest are nice and great fun to meet, else I would not be doing this… :wink:

exactly Lis. (it's not ours, we just work here...)

yep. we do the meet and greet and live on the estate so sadly we are always here in the summer!

we have friends around the corner who have a gite where they give the guests nothing - nothing at all. but it's less expensive than the average, it's in a fantastic location and they are full all summer and beyond. i think it's about managing guest expectations - for example if you're providing bikes (as we do) you need to provide sufficient helmets or tell them they're not supplied... you also need to pump up the tyres!

Hi Teresa…that sounds like a serious lot of money, but at the end of the day, if what you rent out what is yours, you do as you like and the reviews will tell the owner if he/She/they are doing the right thing, glad to say we have always had good reviews…I forgot to mention that we of course also have a hair dryer and the kitchen is full of more things than guests possibly could use + a massive information folder as well as a separate restaurant folder, and we’re only a phone away or less than 10min drive away…glad to say we now do the ‘met and greet’ ourselves, than has made a difference for sure… :slight_smile:

Hello Calista,

i agree with lots of things Lis says and while it sounds like a great system it's not how we do it here. we look after a chateau that is let as a 'gite' in the summer. it's big and not cheap. all the beds have on-suites and we give little soaps, nice shower gel (and bath foam too for the ones that have a shower and a bath) 4 towels pp (white face, hand, bath sheet & coloured pool towel) in the rooms we leave tissues, lavender bags, insect spray, cream etc, electric adaptors, hairdryers, water. Additionally we leave flowers, fruit, 2 cases of wine and a welcome pack that includes everything for snacks on arrival and breakfast the next day, plus a fully stocked pool fridge (beer, water, softs, lemons & limes)

and on and on. my point is that it depends entirely on the type of operation you're running.

good luck! x teresa

Thank you very much for your help Lis Steeden! It is always good to know what others are doing...

Hi Calista...apart from running a small B&B we also have an apartment access to pool, golf and lots more near by!

Running a B&B yes you need to have 'everything' for your guests, but gites are self catering, so a very different business.

We make sure the place has been cleaned, which is included in the price, don't make it an extra!

If you have a pool you need to supply a pool towel for each guest, you decide whether you give each guest 1 or 2 towels. We give our guests 1 towels each + a pool towel! The colours of the shower towel(s) and pool towel are different, it will make it easier for you as I assume you'll be doing the laundry after the guests have departed, and also you do not want the two to get mixed up.

Don't give people soaps, ie little ones, for us this is only in the B&B business, and there we never ever give our guests little soaps, we buy a nice shower soap in a nice bottle, it's hygienic, and you do not have wastage and people bring their own shampoo etc!

Make sure the kitchen is well equipped, leave a couple of bottles of water in the fridge and a nice gesture is a bottle of local wine in the fridge too is always nice, but as the guests are 'on your property' you might want to meet and greet them with the local wine too or instead?

Please, for your own sake make sure to have a good booking condition you email people who has said they want to rent your gite. Also very importantly, make sure to ask for say 25% or 30% deposit when they book your gite (again give them x days to do this)! Once they have returned the booking condition to you, then you can give them your bank details to they can transfer the refundable damage deposit! They need to sign this and return to you (give them x amount of days to do this, as you might have other interested customers). Make sure to have a refundable damage deposit in the booking condition too!

Make sure to mention that it is expected that guests leave the gite as they found it, and in particularly that the kitchen has been left clean, all rubbish in the gites has been removed, or there will be an extra charge to cover the cost (say for your cleaner). Glad to say we have never had any problems!

Make it clear which is your change-over day. We have Friday as our change-over day, very much because the roads are crazy on Saturdays here in Provence in the summer season, but also as if you need extra help ie cleaners etc, Saturday, these are often booked, as that is when most people do their change-over! Outside the summer season we offer a minimum stay of 4 nights, and there of course you go along with what the potential guests wants, unless you are already booked!

How do you advertise your business?

Good luck and if you need anything, let me know... :)

Hi, I need your advice! I have been in the B and B business quite a while and know it well, but now have gites to manage. What amenities do you have in gites? In my b and b I have little soaps, shampoos, kleenex, 3 types towels, bottle of water etc. How equipped should a GITE be???

Thanks for any bits of advice for things that are different from handling b and b!

what's up Neil? there are no instructions for our guests to clean up... i'd take pictures but i'm usually too busy crying - we always get one bad lot each year - this year americans who left the kitchen and dining area like a frat party had exploded... we just call in the troops and charge them! (that was a 300 euro extra) xt

Wouldn't trust the guests to do the cleaning up to our standards!

Hi everybody - we have a 2-bed apartment at Pont Royal (near Mallemort in Bouches-du-Rhone) we rent out www.aixpontroyal.com and as of last summer we finally opened up our little B&B www.lepetitfiguier.com in La Roque d'Antheron just 10min away from Pont Royal(5min from the Durance River at Cadenet-25min to Aix)! Have been lucky with all, but one 'renter and family', so we're not complaining! We use Airbnb, Tripadvisor, Alastair Sawday, Homeaway and Holidaylettings and slowly but surely we are getting there... :) PS! If any of you need any help/advise in our area let me know... :)

Same old story, we have spent most of our summer Saturdays for the past decade cleaning up after guests. Now though we state in our info pack that if they wish to leave the gite clean then to let us know 2 days before departure. We also say that leaving the gite “sort of clean” or “half clean” is as good as not cleaning at all, and that if we don’t hear from them we will assume that they will leave without cleaning and we will deduct this from their caution. Whilst this hasn’t made our lives any easier, it has given us a bit of beer and wine money!
BTW, it seems to be mainly the Brits who cant clean very well (and it is always the cookers that get conveniently forgotten about), rarely french or other europeans

New subject.

I have spent all morning from 0900hrs until 1300hrs cleaning 2 barbeques ,2 ovens ,2 hobs .2 grill pans ,2 frying pans,2 oven shelves , two roasting tins , and four hob grids.

This is despite the fact that the guests who left , opted to do their own cleaning .

My OH is still vacuuming and floor mopping at this very moment.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can run gites without the above items !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will be more strict in future ,and lay the law down ,when asking whether the guests are doing their own cleaning or paying us to do it .

We use the local CAT blanchisserie and they charge 1.25€HT per sheet, 2.85€HT per large duvet cover and 1.15€HT per bath towel to wash, tumble dry and iron, just to give you an idea.

I know someone who does this for a collection of gites and chambres d'hotes. She takes all the washing to an Intermarche supermarket, loads everything into the big washers there, then into the dryers and charges the cost plus transport plus something for her time. As for ironing - check out what your local 'pressing' would charge to get an idea of local prices. Or take it there and charge them the cost plus transport plus time.

Perhaps i should rephrased it we have friends who own a gite. They have asked us to wash their bedding to save them time on their very early morning departures also when other family members stay to wash theirs as well plus any paying guests but only iron the paying guests bedding. What to charge is the question per load per sheet we feel the obvious is per washer load

Is that to do on your departure, and was it a booking condition? Owners bedding - did you use it? All sounds a bit "bizarre", we include all bedding and never ask that it is washed and ironed.OH far to fussy, she would worry what sort of detergent was used and if enough soft rinse was added

We have been asked to wash the sheets from a gite and iron only the guest bedding but not the owners, various prices have been banded about thought i would ask here to get an idea if others do the same

I have just started a post in the main forum for holiday rental property owners, you can post your offerings in there, good for your Google SEO ranking!

Here it is http://www.survivefrance.com/forum/topics/are-you-a-gite-owner-this-is-for-you

hello, I wonder if anyone knows if UK hygiene certificates are accepted to handle food commercially in france? I ask because it costs about £80 to do a level 5 certificate in the UK and 349 euro to do a level 1 in france.

There is a forum discussion in progress.