And what if it’s not just “this year”? Do you advocate the closure of all leisure facilities in permanence - bars, cafés, restaurants, as well as holiday accommodation? None of those things are ‘essential’ either. Tourism contributes about 8% of France’s GDP, which is more than the construction sector. There has to be a balance between the economic health of a country and physical health. And I don’t believe there will be a vaccine anytime soon. The common cold is a coronavirus and haven’t managed to sort that one in decades.
So the faster that a proper system of tracking can be developed the better. But in the meantime we can’t just all stay at home with no income.
I once advised a big plastics recycling social firm - a business that employed people with severe learning disabilities. Going round the shop floor with the manager one day, he saw me glance at a young man I knew to be very severely disabled operating a huge bandsaw (slicing up half-metre wide sections of post-industrial plastic). The manager followed my look, and said: “He’s not allowed to boil a kettle at home!”
I feel that another consideration is how thoroughly has the accommodation been cleaned? Over the years I’ve stayed in many gîtes and have found that the standard of cleanliness has varied dramatically. So, as long as this terrible virus is still around, there’s no way that I would have the confidence that the accommodation had been cleaned to a standard where any threat of the COVID-19 virus had been eliminated. Nobody can guarantee that so I’ll be enjoying my staycations for the foreseeable future.
Is he saying sour cream or salad cream? Sorry, I’m a Yank and it usually takes me a good 15-20 minutes before my brain can unscramble “Britainese”.
Salad cream.
I have trouble with some accents too. If we ever meet up I’ll bring a pen & some paper so we can write to each other across the table.
And it concerns me, so we have got a steam cleaner, and will reduce the crockery, soft furnishings and beddings etc in our gîte so we can rotate between weeks, ie half pillows for one guest, then they go out to be washed/aired and rest for a week. We will be asking guests to stick to the departure time so we have time to clean, and will be providing extra material for them also to clean high touch areas.
Cafes and restaurants in green zones should be able to reopen from June 2… people will be allowed to depart for the summer holidays in July and August.
I saw that earlier Geof, no detail as yet and it does beg the question whether Brits will be allowed to enter France if the French can’t travel abroad.
We have different sets of bedding and towels for each set of guests, but, obviously we will not be able to dry clean the sofa fitted covers each time the gite is used.
We would have to put everything through the dishwasher and I am not sure that we would have enough time to do everything to both our satisfaction and that of our guests.
Also the sun lounger mattresses and cushion covers would have to be unpicked and washed. Impossible.
I don’t think even the most obsessively fastidious guests would think that the fabric on furnishings would harbour coronavirus. Or that coronavirus enters the body through the clothed or unclothed skin. Maybe if guests have a penchant for licking the upholstery or chewing the curtains…
But rabid germophobes are not going on holiday to eat, sleep and relax in alien surroundings, surely? If the place looks and smells clean and fresh, surely that will put the normal guest fully at ease. And your reputation?
I think you are in the red zone too.
The majority of our guests have postponed until next year, so actually we have time between each let to allow the virus to die.
You’ve never run a gîte have you? It is an interesting study of anthropology in that you encounter people with all sorts of fads you would have never thought of. We’ve only had one bad review, and that was because there was a bee in the bedroom (and they weren’t allergic to bees, just didn’t like them).
I talked with several of my neighbours here about this today (we had a hen incident that led to a bit of a gathering) - it’s very important to one of our neighbours who is a chef, and very unfortunately after years in the same restaurant decided in January he needed a change, and also to take a 3-month career break - so was caught out. The general view though was that the schengen area would be open, probably in June, and also open to the UK if the situation in the UK itself continues to improve.
I’ve seen a map of Europe divided up into green and red areas with people only being allowed to travel from one green area to another and no travel from any red area.
No not at all and it is a nightmare if one relies on their business for survival. My point was about travelling unnecessarily for the sake of a holiday to be honest and I really don’t see the benefit of doing that just now. Do we contain it as best we can for now or drag this on? Who knows if this is just for this year or longer?
Wozza
