January booking patterns appear to have changed

[oasiscouple]

Throughout the autumn of 2011 I was getting regular enquiries for my house through HL and several bookings for the summer of 2012.

After hardly any enquiries through HL in the autumn of 2012, and in view of the enormous problems with HL, I went with FC earlier this month.

Ironically since early January, I have been getting a flurry of enquiries from both, but no bookings through HL so I will have no hesitation in dropping them when my ad expires next week.

Some of the HL enquiries have been for days rather than weeks due to HL giving a daily rate and “flexible changeover days” and I have had to apologise to enquirers for the misleading information on my HL advert.

I am also getting regular enquiries from potential European guests through Locasun since early January and so far a 2 week booking from Belgium.

http://www.locasun.fr/?a=16058
http://www.frenchconnections.co.uk/en/a ... rty/158469
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rental ... ande/80285
http://www.locasun.fr/?a=81832
http://www.alphaholidaylettings.com/rental/Aude/15119
http://www.naturistholidays.fr

[paolo]

It can get lonely wondering if you have made mistakes.

I have given up trying to discern patterns in the way these things change year to year. Sometimes bookings come early, sometimes they don't, and every year one or two houses don't work at all, but always different ones. At the end of the season, things have balanced out.

[barbersdrove]

that's interesting re facebook. I do believe it does work and have had bookings through it myself but have rather neglected it of late and that is showing in how quiet it has been. it just shows that you do need to put a lot of work into it. i've looked at marsh Frog's page and it really is attractive and draws you in.

[marsh frog]

Thank you very much barbers drove

The best feature of FB business pages is the scheduling facility. If you cant spare time every day, just make a few key posts when you have time and use the scheduling feature to post them and space them out. I sometimes spend about an hour making posts but schedule them to be posted at intervals throughout the day. You can even schedule them to be posted over a longer period of time

[Speyside Steve]

I got lost in the tart and her boozy friend!

[charles cawley]

Thanks Paolo.

That is encouraging. It appears the larger lets have not been booking so readily for a week or so.

Week one was as last year. Week two dropped significantly.

Week 3 is showing signs of recovery. Web site statistics seem to show little consistent correlation between bounce, duration, number of visits and pages per visit to booking numbers.

[booboo]

Enquires are up on last year, we went live in Dec 2011 and did not receive our first enquire till 2nd Feb 2012. April was our busiest time for enquires last year!

[barbersdrove]

having said bookings were slow this compared to other years I've now had 3 enquiries in the last few days. 2 I could not take as they wanted a last minute week in the unit that is already booked out and because they wanted just 2 nights and my minimum is 3. However the third was for Xmas week 2013 and this is now booked and paid for.

Maybe it is picking up. I've certainly started to have more people visiting the website this week

[Sam V]

I must admit a fair few of the enquires clashed with booked dates. If I had the time to go back over all of them again I wonder what percentage are time wasters with booked dates, over occupancy, etc. Maybe HL daily rates calculated from the lowest priced weeks are attracting more enquiries from those unable to actually afford mid-high season rates.

[barbersdrove]

I spoke too soon, the 2 night enquiry people have agreed to do a 3 night booking but will still only stay for 2 so not all HL folk are looking for bargains.

[Nicola Green]

We have only been up and running since September 2012 so have no previous summer to compare but enquiries are coming through including one booking for two weeks in August.

Also would like to say what a great help the forum has been, so thank you.

[Windy]

We are about 30% down in terms of value booking compare to Jan 31 last year.

Looking at my direct competitors' web sites we are all in a similar position regarding volume of weeks booked.

Oddly we are doing quite well for March / April - it is the peak summer weeks which we would normally have sold which are not going yet.

On that basis I'm not panicking yet

[Nemo]

Windy, by comparing your figures to Jan 31, you do yourself a disservice. Every day in January can make a huge difference to bookings and enquiries. I've had four since last night for example.

I look at my calendar and I feel very empty compared to previous years. However, PIMS tells me that as at today, I have only 6 nights less booked than last year, but a 4% rise in revenue, so I guess it's not actually as bad as I think!

March, April, peak summer - you can come when you like to me!

[French Cricket]

This is our first January 'on offer', so to speak - last year, our first, we didn't start advertising until April - but I'm amazed (gobsmacked, even ) to find that the barn is nearly fully booked from mid April to mid October, with just 8 nights at the beginning of May and 14 nights in mid July to go.

Only 4 weeks booked for the chambre d'hôte suite but that's rather more interesting to French guests, who book much later.

[crazyfox]

It is interesting to read the comments made with regard to the change of pattern this year.
We have been advertising for 9 years and have always had quite a few enquiries during December and January, but this year we have only received one enquiry in December and, to date, we have not received only enquiry during January
We advertise with HR, OD & Span Hol and have noticed our property being promoted by OD HR on a weather web site, so it should be being seen by people, so we are at a loss what to do.