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?
And my understanding is that even a vaccine may well not end it - development might take anything from a year to many years, and as with the common cold there might never be an effective vaccine anyway, or as for flu not effective for all mutations of the virus.
Because I’m a bit of an environmentalist, I’ve been thinking for some time about indefinite changes to our lifestyles - including holidays. If northern Europeans want a bit of a change in weather and culture but to minimise environmental impact, France is in an excellent position to adapt, especially compared with destinations you can realistically only fly to; similarly, gites like ours are a far better option for social distancing holidays - indeed, I think, far safer than most people’s homes and lives in cities.
We are particularly well placed for the UK and Ireland here in Brittany, because most of our guests - families with babies and small children - come by car (a surprising number now by electric car) and ferry - and just as it’s far easier to adapt ferries environmentally - Brittany Ferries are in fact introducing an electric hybrid ferry this year - so it is relatively easy to adapt them for social distancing.
Confirmation here, I think, that people will now choose gites rather than hotels, etc…
“Who wants to go to a hotel and not be allowed to enjoy the swimming pool or the common spaces? To finally be free, after quarantine, and spend money to go and be confined in a hotel room?”
We have had to have a complete holiday ‘reset’ this year. On Sunday we were due to drive up to Disneyland Paris for a few days but obviously that’s been cancelled and in October we’ve got flights booked to Florida yet wouldn’t now go even if we could. Our final trip this year is scheduled to be a few days in the UK in early November based around seeing Elton John in Manchester but I can also see this being cancelled. To be honest neither of us are bothered about travelling too far again so we will likely stick to Europe from now on, the only long distance holiday we are considering is Guadeloupe to see our daughter.
It’s an easy choice for me as our close family is all in Europe - indeed mainly in France, the UK and Switzerland, so accessible by overland/sea travel.
I’ve worked a lot in Asia and Africa as well as Europe - especially in Eastern Europe, which is full of lovely places undiscovered by many of those who fly halfway round the world to sit on a beach - but I love Europe, and we’ve always holidayed there anyway.
I saw that earlier David but as this hasn’t actually come into effect yet it’s irrelevant, for now. It is though yet another example of how confusing the travel picture is currently and will undoubtedly put people from travelling at all which is maybe what governments are aiming for.
We still have a July and a September booking outstanding, we have heard from the September people but not for July.
We are wondering if they have succumbed.
We have two weeks still in July with people keen to come - but swiss not french so who knows. Then three weeks in August (1 French, 1 Belgian, 1 german) and three weeks in September (German).
And October we’re booked into a gîte down south, so hope that will still happen as over 100km. But english owned gîte, so we’ll take our own cleaning products.
So from a year with 22 weeks booked by end January we could be down to 3…two weeks from before confinement and the one french week left! Not really going to pay the fixed costs this year, let alone our holiday!