The Dutch market

[Emmy]

Hello,
I've read a couple of oldish posts on here discussing ways of advertising to Dutch guests, but there appears to be nothing up-to-date. The discussion I was particularly interested in was gites.nl versus gites.eu..... There seemed to be a feeling that the .nl site was better than the .eu site, but when you go onto the .nl site and choose English as your language you end up on the .eu site.....
When I was researching earlier today, the gites.eu site certainly seemed to have more properties with healthier looking bookings than the other sites I've been looking at (inc. all the well known ones), which show many properties with only one or two weeks booked even in the height of summer.
Are either of these two sites doing well for anyone? Are there any others that I've missed? (I don't want to go with OD and have the European add on). When we were house hunting last year we came across a lot of Dutch couples living here in Charente, so I thought it might be a good idea to advertise to them...
I'd appreciate any thoughts..... (I'm new to this)
Thanks...

[bornintheuk]

Hi, we are also in the Charente and have been renting our property for 19 yrs. so a little experience
We have in the past ( over 3 yrs ago) had success with gites.nl but after a couple of years of no takers we dropped them.
The guests that they did send were delightful and we would love to welcome Dutch visitors again but maybe ours is not the type of property that Gites.nl are now targetting.
Its all very individual this market, what works for some doesn't work for others.
Go figure

[annedab]

We get a lot of bookings via Natuurhuisje.nl - lots of Belgians as well as Dutch. It is a commission site so you need to factor that in to your pricing, but they have been very helpful - especially considering that we don't speak Dutch.

[CSE]

Emmy may I suggest if you want any guests from mainland Europe you change your prices on the website to Euros. Seeing the pound sign will put a lot off booking. Which is a shame as you have a great property.

[bornintheuk]

Emmy may I suggest if you want any guests from mainland Europe you change your prices on the website to Euros. Seeing the pound sign will put a lot off booking. Which is a shame as you have a great property.

Looking at the site, which is very good by the way, you can select your language and currency easily.

[CSE]

Not from what this shows.

http://imgur.com/YMBPzuc
Orange line indicates the pound sign and very poor Dutch
One should not write about a person as per stuk. Your guests are not pieces of anything.

[Emmy]

Thanks so much for the helpful advice and comments - we're very new to this and they're very much appreciated, as are the encouraging comments about our website/property...

I know the automatic translation on the PMP website isn't ideal - having translated it into Italian and Spanish which I can read I'm aware there are some issues. I'm hoping that potential guests (of any nationality) who read it that way will take this into account, as anyone does using Google Translate.

Comments appreciated!

[Wonkeye]

Please Emmy, don't spoil a really good website by using Google Translate! You say you realise there are "some issues". I don't think people who do speak any of the languages you offer will appreciate reading these versions and they'll actually be a source of hilarity. For many years I have spent many a happy hour curled up in stitches at what GT has produced. Obviously, it's totally unable to cope with the intricacies of sentence construction and can be counterproductive. Much fun can be had doing what we translators (sorry, had to slip that in!) refer to as a Back Translation ("a translation of a translated text back into the language of the original text" [Wikipedia]).

Just as a tiny illustration, take how it deals with “Christening Wear” under the Textiles tab. The French translation renders it as "Christening (has it given up, one wonders?) Personnalisable" (= Christening Customizable)", Dutch turns it into "Doop Stropdas (= Christening Tie [as in necktie]") and Spanish "bautizo desgaste" (= Christening wear [as in wear and tear]".

Please do rethink this, Emmy. Such a shame!

[CSE]

Just went through the T&Cs that Natuurhuisje wants the owner to accept. They are quite demanding. So if you do list with them make sure you know what you are signing up for. They may not suite everyone.
This information can be found if you click the link
"Ik ga akkoord met de leveringsvoorwaarden van Natuurhuisje.nl en 12 % (incl. BTW)." on this page: natuurhuisje.nl/verhuren