To live the French dream running the Brittany holiday cottage with a private pool and Gym during the current economic climate, I decided in the summer of 2008 to increase my advertising to maintain my occupancy.
I seem to hold a trump card over my competitors as La Forge offers the private pool rather than shared and as a holiday cottage it has always been popular. In 2007 I had 17 weeks booked and 2008 16 weeks, Ive been told the average holiday cottage only has 10 weeks per year.
I decided to create a web site in the summer of 2008 and also decided to advertise in Holland. The reasoning behind the dutch advertising was that alot of Dutch holiday in Brittany and with the decline in the value of the pound compared to the Euro, for anyone paid in euro's the cottage would be alot cheaper than previous years. So I placed an ad with Gites.NL
In 2007 I took 8 weeks of bookings for the 2008 season, by the end of 2008 only 2 weeks were booked for the 2009 season, things were looking very slow indeed with the down turn in the UK economy hitting hard. I have worked in a recession before and had confidence that no matter how tight money is, people still want to get away and sure enough just after the Christmas holiday the enquiries began and I'm now very pleased to report that the cottage is booked for 17 weeks with still a few weeks in September still available to rent. How nice it would be to hit 18 plus weeks this year.
In addition to the website, the Dutch advert, I also had 2000 leaflets produced and had them delivered in WGC and Upminster, it all came down to some thing I learnt at work.....its funny how the 'Lucky ones' in sales always seem to work harder, with that in mind I know Ive done alot more than most and now see the rewards.
If you want some thing enough you do what ever it takes to make it work and be successful and for me living in France has always been the dream, the desire and now I'm here I'm never going back.
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