Every day I open my emails and there are emails from guests who have to cancel, I can tell they are really upset about having to cancel but of course have no choice. Most are already booking for the next year or later on… I really feel for them, you can tell that they were so looking forward to their holidays, many coming from Australia, American etc and having booked last year, they probably keep looking at the pictures, read up on lake Como etc. For long haul guests it is probably their main holiday, the one that they are most excited about, travelling around Europe, seeing the sights in Italy, eating the food!!! I can understand how they feel, i was so looking forward to doing the cross country ski races (not so much the pain) and seeing new places, meeting new people and revisiting places but this virus has put paid to all that this winter, plus all this training gone to waste! Weights and cycling in the summer, starting skiing and the pain of different muscle use…. training when it is cold to prepare for the races, ok we are just amateurs but we take it seriously! Like my guests i am looking forward to next year….
‘Soapbox time.‘
One thing that is annoying me intensely in the emails I receive are those from various agencies (on line agencies) who start the email saying how the sympathise with us, how they know things are hard for small hotels/b&b, they realise we cant pay the bills and are risking going under and then WHAM ….‘give us more discount’ ‘0 hours cancellation’. ‘Pay more to be featured’, ‘pay for click’, ‘no deposit’ …. Talk about vultures… dancing on the grave of tourism (mixed metaphors but i think that it works) all they really think about is the money, it’s not to help start off tourism, to help the small businesses who will suffer. I understand that they are businesses but i mean. I actually replied to 2 saying SHIT TIMING, inbox full of cancellations and you send me a upbeat email saying give me more discount, they know that we are having a bad time and they profit from it. Obviously it is probably just read by a computer programme but i felt better after doing it!
Some (unnamed) agency – (i dont use them but you all know who it is) is all about the % – by all means look at their site because it is always the first one everywhere – but then please always contact the hotel or apartment owners, if they are not daft (some are) they will immediately offer you a better deal. Why give 20% (yes up to 20% some agencies ask for) of your guests money when you can both benefit from a direct booking and direct contact. I personally don’t like online agencies because you dont have any contact with the guest before they arrive, ok often i will send 2 o 3 emails to guests when they are deciding to come and it is a lot more work but that way i know that we are what they are looking for, they know we have dogs and cats, they know we are family run, organic, relaxed atmosphere, we are not super smart 100* but I really hope we are what our guests want from us!
Ok I know that it is easy to book with ….. those agencies but they are destroying ‘slow’ tourism. They push their clients to give more and more discounts, these discounts mean that eventually hotels will have to cut costs elsewhere. Think about it, quality of food, drink, staff wages. The money lost has to come from somewhere. Plus we become ‘click bait’, just capable of opening these sites and click. Have you never noticed when you look at a place suddenly all these various ads on line come up for the place.. I was freaked out when i was talking to my friend about somewhere with the phone on the table and guess what, that afternoon an ad came up telling me about this place…. WTF!! Is Big brother listening to us?? Scary. I’m sure they are not listening to us but ‘hey siri!’
Anyhow ‘steps off soap box now’ I’m glad i have talked about this, it’s something that me and my friends who have small agencies talk about quite a lot. We all struggle against these mega agencies who flood the market. I really hope that now people are going to rediscover direct ‘Slow’ contact – maybe with a site from the area, someone who knows the area, knows what is the best combination for you, the local tourist board or a specialist in that area – not just a computer algorithm or a programme in another country who doesn’t even know where you are and don’t care about you. It’s time to (after lockdown) rediscover personal service, small shops, not the big superstores, maybe the coronavirus is also here to help us be a little less global, think more regionally, locally. Eat more locally, appreciate your own area more. Maybe something good will come out of something really bad.
Have to add this… i also keep getting emails from ‘guends’ (guest-friends) who say ‘ as soon as this is all over we will come for a holiday to see you and help you recover from this crap period’. Can’t say more than that. This is one of the reasons we have villa tres jolie. To get emails like this, to know that it is not just a holiday place but also somewhere special to people. obviously it’s a business and it has to make some money but its more than just a business, we dont just earn money we get friends, or guends.
Villa Tres jolie 