Like most people, I guess, we lost all our bookings until July to the coronavirus - and suspect we might still get July cancellations/postponements; but today - the first day of de-confinement - we received our first new booking - French - for the first 2 weeks of September, and also a message from friends in the UK saying they want to come as soon as possible, and that everybody seems desperate to get away from home now things are looking better.
Bumper late summer - autumn season on the way?
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We had a booking last week for August (a week that had been cancelled by others earlier). Our first 2 weeks in July people are still hoping to come, but are Swiss so depends on the border being open.
We wait to see, and about any guidelines on cleaning.
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So far our clients havenât lost many bookings but itâs only a matter of time, todayâs announcements from the UK gave no indication when travelling out of the country will be allowed so I guess itâs just a waiting game.
I have UK guests who are still hoping to come on June 20th. Since the 14 day quarantine in the UK does not apply to anyone returning from France I am beginning to think they just might make it. This morning I went down the garden to take a look at the cottage and to start cleaning.
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The travel restrictions here remain in place until at least the 15th of June.
and that doesnât give a lot of time for people to make a decision (go or not) during the August vacation period particularly.
Simon Calder - the respected travel guru - was on TV this morning. He was effectively saying that holidaying in 2020 can all but be written off and people who are faced with paying the balance of their holiday funds [from now on] would at best be placed to either not pay (if they are protected, say by CC payment) or negotiate a cancellation fee now. The sooner the better as to leave it later might incur greater cost.
Yes - I guess it does mean that UK people will be looking at France, and Ireland, rather than anywhere else. More reason to think we might all be busy July-October?
Which means they can travel on the 20th. They are returning guests and so Iâm offering them maximum flexibility. They have until Friday 19th June to confirm whether or not they are coming and pay their outstanding 75%. Or they can change to later in the year, or next year, or have a full refund of their deposit.
Iâm sure the airlines and airports will be desperate to get people travelling again ASAP. I think what might put people off is signs of chaos at airports, people checking in 4 hours in advance or reports of not feeling safe on flights or when passing through airports. We shall see.
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Maybe/maybe not, it depends on the lifting of the restrictions in both countries.
And will there be open restaurants, cafés and tourist attractions? If the numbers rise in the next few weeks things will be clamped down again. We have refused a new booking in June as feel too risky for them.
Very sensible Sue - we are adopting similar policies. We would accept a June booking now I think if it was a returning guest or somebody we knew, and felt sure they could manage.
In âgreenâ areas small tourist attractions can open - and today some already are; and in our area all of the cafĂ©s and restaurants opened even before today as takeaways.
Sky News take on the accord between France and the UK:
Because of where we are (countryside/lovely location/swimming pool) I think we get more than our fair share of the âfly and flopâ type of holidaymaker. They have such stressful jobs that they literally do nothing while they are here except lie by the pool during the day, have a barbecue, watch one of our DVDs, go to bed. And do an occasional shop at Lidls to stock up on the barbecue. Their only experience of France is the drive from the airport, our local town supermarket and our valley. So if Ryanair or Easyjet can get them here they will come.
BlimeyâŠwhat a missed opportunity for them! Our market is outdoors active people, who go canyoning, kayaking, swimming, climbing, horse riding, cycling, mountain walking or, my favorite idea of hell, which is zorbing - ie climbing inside a large plastic bouncy ball and being launched down a hill. And we have multi-generational clients so the oldsters just go for little walks (20km up hills!)
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We specialise in families with small children - we have a swimming pool designed for this market, provide all sorts of useful stuff for babies and small children - including pushchairs - have indoor and outdoor play areas and equipment, DVD library, secure gardens, barbecues, etcâŠ
Itâs not uncommon for our guests to spend a lot of time here, nor for outings to be mainly beach or countryside with a picnic. Living here in France, you might be surprised by how many UK parents are reluctant to take babies and small children into restaurants etc anyway - the odd takeaway icecream is generally more important than restaurants, cafĂ©s or big tourist attractions.
We also have the benefit of being near channel ports as well as airports, and being in a green area with no nearby coronavirus cases.
Itâs difficult to see - if the ferries get organised - how coming here would not be far safer than staying in a UK city!
Well Iâm glad they keep UK children out of restaurants! Going out with daughter and granddaughter she is frequently open mouthed at the impeccable behaviour of french children her daughterâs ageâŠwho is slowly learning, but we are still spending too many meals with one of us outside with her.
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Spoke too soon, first July booking has been lost. Iâll be amazed if any go ahead especially if our Prefet doesnât change his mind about keeping gites closed in our area for another two months.
Ours have just cancelled too and Iâm deeply, deeply grateful to them - rebooked for next year delighted to say. I would have coped but am hugely relieved that I donât have to.
Geoff, are you going to provide all of that this year? Iâm proposing to strip everything out to keep it much easier for us and our guests to keep the place clean. Iâm even going to be discussing with them whether they would like me to remove the books (they tend to bring kindle) and DVDs (weâve got Netflix and Amazon Prime.
I think itâs too early to make decisions such as this Sue - weâre still - what? - about 8 weeks from our first booking - and of course these first bookings arenât an issue - itâs the changeovers that may be more time-consuming. The baby and child equipment doesnât add anything anyway, because itâs always meticulously cleaned, for obvious reasons.
By the way, among the equipment we supply are microwave sterilisers!