Lay My Hat

Hi all

My partner and I jumper in the deep end late 2016 and bought a run down cottage complex www.brynmelynfarmcottages.co.uk
6 months of chaos ensued as we completely refurbed the place, and got it open for Easter 2017
Decided from the off we didn’t want to go with any of the big agencies, we live on site and didn’t want to feel like managers for somebody else’s business, so how do you get a 5 cottage complex off the ground that has been shut for 3 years ?
We networked like hell on Facebook, with the area that we are in we targeted all the dog friendly forums and groups on Facebook and it worked, we had an amazing 1st season way beyond expectations
There is a but! with so many doggy guests the wear and tear and cleaning has been an issue, we realised that no Holiday Cottage group for our area existed on Facebook so decide to set one up to attract more no dog guests.
It has been running a week now has over 500 members with lots of traffic, Cottage owners are joining, guests are making booking enquiries and we have had 3 bookings from it already

If you don’t have a Facebook group for your area I would encourage you to set one up

If your in North Wales please join our group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3404245 ... 3/members/

Hi Steve p. Good to hear it's worked so well for you. I'm going to look into it for my area and was looking for other ways to promote the cottage.
Been running it successfully with OD (pain in the neck now!) since end 2012. Have always taken up to two dogs, and charge £20 per dog for extra cleaning, but not had a problem re dogs nor wear and tear.
I do charge a £200 damage deposit. Occasionally I have taken three dogs, not often.
Not had too many issues, but its always with people not the dogs!

I started a Orlando Villa group in January 2017, we now have almost 19,000 members

We check every owner is licenced, we check they've paid their taxes and we check they are the named owners

We generate free bookings for our owners, the guests see the owner FB profile, it makes it much more personal. We don't allow general posts and we are super strict withour onwers on how they cn reply, we do this to keep it an even playing field for everyone.

It's like aprt time job as we are so busy with it

It's a fantastic group (purely Florida villa owners and guests)

Sandra

Just a question about holiday rentals group on Facebook...
Could you suggest some FB groups including holiday rentals ALSO in Italy? (booksholidaydirect doesn't include Italy)
Thanks

This group is for Tuscany... not sure if you wanted a site that covers the whole of Italy.
www.facebook.com/groups/tuscanyitalyvac ... lsbyowners

If anyone knows of a 'European' FB group that would include Croatia, I would be very pleased to hear about it, please. We only 'Sleep 2' so our guests are couples, some who are on their honeymoon, who like walking, cycling, truffles/gourmet/wine/ olive oil, birds/nature, photography (fab views), paragliding over Venetian hilltop towns, history (with the option of strenuous lying by the pool of course) but I can't find anything that fits.

Obviously if anyone has any other ideas for advertising, I would be very grateful. We have had only minor success with RSPB magazine so far. Our OD subscription will expire soon, and although we get hardly anything from them, I imagine at least some people must have found us there first and Googled our name, so I'm a bit anxious.

Hi,
i'm in a facebook group for holiday rentals in uk and europe in general:
Holiday Rentals Overseas & UK
Just avoid FB groups with silly rules as adding 50 friends to be admitted ...

nealh wrote:This group is for Tuscany... not sure if you wanted a site that covers the whole of Italy.
www.facebook.com/groups/tuscanyitalyvac ... lsbyowners

nealh, thanks for publishing the link. I am not able to see or enter the group. How can I join it? Is it still active?

Nice advice. No doubt takes a lot of time and effort, but if it increases bookings...

Holiday Home Rentals accepts listings for UK and overseas rental properties with no silly rules, we just ask that previous posts are deleted or marked as sold before making a new post. The group is very active and has accepted over 2200 new members in the last six months. If you haven't listed your Holiday home rental yet then feel free to join and list it . https://www.facebook.com/groups/812251865631382/

nk wrote:
nealh, thanks for publishing the link. I am not able to see or enter the group. How can I join it? Is it still active?

I think the person who started the group has now closed it as she found it too time consuming with little benefit for her.

Maybe something you would like to have a go at... although being the admin on a Cyprus group I can testify to the amount of time it takes...

For anyone interested in Norfolk holidays, a few of us started one exclusively for Norfolk, UK. We're allowing it grow organically as we all have too much else to do but we have already had bookings from it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1664431267185200/