Lay My Hat

Do you accept bookings from locals? We had a lot of problems with locals so we stoped to accept bookings from them. What about your experiences?

Yes, we would accept them of course. But no local (Greek) has ever booked in 11 years.

Yes, we would accept them of course. But no local (Greek) has ever booked in 11 years.

In the Florida market bookings from locals (and of course there are exceptions) will frequently be for a party venue.

I suppose I’m not sure quite how to define what a “local” is. However, two experiences spring to mind when my cottage has been booked by someone in the village.

One was a booking for a guest from overseas (am I allowed to say he was German???) who chain smoked in my strictly non smoking cottage.
This was a nightmare to sort out as the smell of smoke was on curtains etc. I was very sad as I believe the local who booked the cottage knew he was a smoker and would not risk upsetting her neighbours so deliberately booked my property as I am a remote owner. I learnt a lesson about what questions to ask under similar circumstances.

The other was an overseas family who were booked and paid for by the local church as some sort of outreach arrangement. They were absolutely lovely, even though they had little English and OH had to pop up to show them how to use the cooker.

I also have a family who used to live in the village and now live in Europe who return and regularly stay when visiting family, and occasions when my caretaker and immediate neighbours family have booked to stay, all without problems.

My property is in a tourist village - I would imagine it would be very difficult if you have a city or large town holiday let.

Yes we have had a few. Generally it's for "overflow" accommodation as the booker has no room to accommodate all their family for a big occasion.

They tend to be no trouble as they are out all day and we're not big enough to be the get to together venue.

Probably depends a lot on the property, but I have to say some of my worst experiences have been with locals. We have a very large garden so everyone likes the idea that they can use our place as the social centre. "Hey and they have a hot tub!" And some flagrant disrespect and lying. Stressful for all concerned. As a result I no longer take bookings from locals unless there's a really particular set of circumstances :/ A pity.

We had a 3-4 week booking from a local couple who were having work done on their own house which meant their kitchen was out of order for a few weeks. That was fine. I've also had a local family book for their parents to come and stay so they can visit their newborn grandchild. They've come back a few times and sometimes it's obvious they've had the grandchild over to visit - well used high chair, small grubby hand prints, etc. but nothing that we wouldn't get from any other young family. So our experience has been positive. By the way, our place isn't big enough to be a party venue so that probably helps.

Quite a few bookings .. mainly 'overflow' .. all fine.

Just one problem with someone having building work done, who wanted to extend stay but was slow to make payment.

It's interesting reading through this as there's a definite pattern! It's fine if you are not the place where everyone wants to get together which is very often the reason locals are booking.

Also I've noticed that most don't seem to see that this would be any problem. Someone asked me the other day if they could come round and see it for a family get-together. I said sorry, I'm just not comfortable showing people around on change-over day, the place is a mess and it gets in the way of the cleaners - but you could come on this date? They said, oh that's fine, we just want a quick look to see if we could squeeze in 20 people for dinner!!!

At least they were honest and I had a good excuse to say no.