Once you have your gite up and running you will need to keep your French Bank account topped up with euros, to pay your utility bills, taxes and of course any changeover costs, if you are getting somebody else to manage this for you.

As with buying your gite in the first place, where you needed to transfer a large amount of euros, there are a number of options for transferring euros to your account. The options discussed in my previous post on buying euros only really work if you have a reasonably large amount of euros to buy, as in when you are first purchasing your gite, or you have a French mortgage and therefore need to transfer  a reasonable amount of money every month to cover the mortgage. In this case you can setup a regular euro purchase using the providers discussed.

If, however, you only need to transfer a relatively small amount irregularly then you probably need another way of transferring money. There are a few options you could consider.

• Sending a sterling cheque to your French bank account
• Getting a Euro cheque from your UK bank account and sending it to your French Bank Account
• Use an FX dealer to send a large amount of money once a year or even every other year
• Use a monet transfer service to send money to your French Bank Account

If you send a sterling cheque to your French bank account then they will obviously charge you a fee which you need to investigate and find out how much it is and what exchange rate will be used.

If you get your UK bank to issue a euro cheque then they will charge you for that and you may find that your French bank will charge you for receiving a euro cheque from another country, again you would need to investigate the charges but you will probably be hit with charges by both banks.

If you have large amounts of capital you could use the large scale FX dealers to send a larger amount of money. These services are not much use below £1000 and even then some do not compare very well with the alternative methods, so please don’t assume that just because they saved you a lot of money on your house purchase they are the best bet for transferring smaller amounts of money.

The final option is the one we currently use. We use a service from MoneyBookers, which basically allows you to upload money from your UK bank account and then withdraw it to your French bank account for a small fee and a small increase (1.75% at the time of writing this post) on the European Central Bank daily reference rates. This seems to be the most cost effective way of moving small amounts of money that we have found.

There are several ways of moving money to your French bank account, and the list above is not exhaustive, but you must make sure you understand the fees you will be charged and, probably most importantly, the exchange rate they will use. Even when transferring relatively small amounts on a regular basis you can save a considerable amount of money by using the right service for you.

2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

2007 was our first year renting our gite in Brittany out and we started advertising late in that first season, as we didn’t start advertising until April. Reading forums, such as Lay My Hat, it seems that the peak booking time is January, which we obviously missed last year. So 2008 is our first full booking season, so are we getting any bookings, when are we getting them and where are we getting them from.

Well the first thing is to say where are we actually advertising. Our main paid for advertising is on Owners Direct, which is where we started advertising in April 2007 and it gave us all of our bookings for 2007. We also have a website, which I created in March 2007, and is now appearing well in the major search engines (here’s an article on some of the things you can do to start getting listed higher on Google and the other search engines). We are also on a few free sites, but they haven’t given  us any interest really so I won’t go into those any further.

So how have the bookings for the 2008 season gone? Very well really. We actually had most of high season booked by October, which was amazing and now we have all of June, July and August booked, with a couple of weeks in April, May and September as well, along with the Easter bank holiday.

So where did we get our bookings from? As I have said, in our first season Owners Direct gave us every single booking, as our website was new and not being found by search engines. Since January our website has been ranking highly on the search results. So up to November of 2007 all of our bookings were from Owners Direct, with a link to our website providing extra information for people on our gite. Since then though, and through the peak January booking window, our website has generated a lot of bookings and I would say that the website has generated about half of our bookings since November.

So bookings wise we have done very well for the 2008 season, they are arriving, even though there are a lot of gites our there you can still get plenty of bookings with the right property and price. We have found that October was quite a busy month for taking high season bookings, I suppose people who want high season often book early, and then January was really busy, even with only one gite it did seem frantic at times.

As our website improves it’s rankings on the search results we are getting more and more traffic and most importantly bookings through this, although I certainly wouldn’t give up on Owners Direct, or any other paid for listings site. Relying on the whims of a search engine for all of your advertising seems like a sure way to start to lose bookings. Saying that though the website is definitely paying it’s way and although has a longer lead time to start generating bookings and requires much more effort to get up and going, over a paid for listings site, it is well worth it and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to rent out their holiday cottage

So we’ll continue with our paid for listing and our website as well as keeping an eye out for any other opportunities for marketing our Gite without spending a vast sum of money and hope this level of bookings continues. Which paid for listings site you should use is obviously something you need to research. Different types of property do well on different sites as well as different regional areas and different countries, so do lot’s of research and enjoy it.

2 Bedroom Self Catering Cottage near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

Well we’re now starting our second season and so I thought it was time to give an overview of our first season. We made the gite available for booking from the middle of July, as we obviously needed to buy it first (very important) and then go over and make sure everything was ready for our guests before they arrived.

Getting everything ready for our guests was really hard work but we managed it in the end and the gite did look really nice and hopefully we had everything our guests needed. As for our bookings, they had gone very well, especially as we had only advertised on Owners Direct. We also had our own website but that wasn’t being found on it’s own through the search engines, see this post on getting your website found for the story of that.

As we were coming to market quite late in the season we had decided to have relatively low prices for our first High Season, to ensure that we got the bookings and we were full. In the end we were booked through to the 3rd week in September and also a week in October which was great and ensured that although it wasn’t really going to make us rich, it definitely covered any costs.

Of the list of things we wanted to change about the gite our number one priority was some new sofas. The sofas that came with the house were comfortable but did not look great, especially in the photos as the throws looked like dust covers, so in our trip in October at the end of the season we decided that this was something we needed to resolve so we bought some new ones. These were delivered in December and we have just been out in March to get everything ready and open up for the new season and so were able to unpack the new sofas and get some photos of them for the website.

So our first season was a great success, all of our guests had a great time and left some great comments about the gite, nothing went really wrong, with only one call-out to our gite managers about a key stuck in a the back door lock. On the breakages front We had a broken video recorder and one broken mug. The video recorder was tricky to resolve as most people seem to have stopped selling them but we did replace it so all is well.

We are really looking forward to our second season, our first full one, coming up and things have been going very well on the bookings front so we really hope that continues and everyone has a good a time as our guests did last year.

2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

So after an excellent first season we decided to close the gite down for the winter. We decided to combine the close-down with a weeks holiday and we had a fantastic time, here’s the post on the holiday. So apart from having a wonderful holiday what did we do to shut the gite down for winter.

Well the main thing was to give it a really good clean, to try and make sure that there isn’t anything for any mould  to grow on. We decided to leave all of the cupboards and draws open when we left, so that the air would circulate and they wouldn’t get damp and musty over winter. As we have a septic tank we normally have to top-up the bacteria with a weekly solution. As nobody was going to be there for quite a while we bought some that actually lasted six months.

The biggest job was in the garden really. There we trimmed all of the hedges back, cut the trees back and generally gave it a really good tidy, so that hopefully when we come back in spring it won’t need much to get it ready for the new season. We also took down the net for the trampoline and covered the mat, hopefully it will give it some protection from frosts and snow over the winter months.

Finally, on leaving, we drained the water out of the system and shut the gas and electricity off. We have arranged for the gite to be checked every month or so by Alison and Tony, who look after things for us, just to make sure the roof hasn’t blown off or any trees haven’t fallen down and causing a nuisance for our lovely neighbours.

Well that’s it for our first season, I’ll write a little summary of how it went soon. Next trip over will be in March to open the gite up for our second season.

2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

So how was our first ever rental? Well we had spent the last two weeks getting everything ready, cutting back the long grass that the previous owners hadn’t managed to cut, building a wood store, filling in the pond to make it safe, building the trampoline, putting up the shed in the barn to keep all the garden tools out of children’s way and making sure everything was all ready inside and out for all of our guests. Finally we had to leave to catch our ferry, as our first guests were on their ferry to France.

It was quite a nerve wracking week in truth, we obviously thought the place was lovely, otherwise we wouldn’t have bought it, but you never know what other people will think. Our first guests actually lived in the same street as us. They were very good friends with one of Kate’s friends, another mum of twins who Kate met during her twins ante-natal classes and became very good friends with. She had told them about our gite and so we showed them all the photos and they booked. There were going to be the four of them, all adults, so we were very interested to know how they found the gite. We had obviously added a few things to keep the children entertained (trampoline, sandpit and a load of toys) but what about 4 adults?

When they got back we eventually managed to catch up with them over a glass of wine. They had a fantastic time and they all thought the place was lovely and they loved Brittany. It was quite a relief. Being responsible in quite a large part for someones holiday like that was quite daunting. Although the accommodation is only part of a holiday it is a significant part and people only get a small amount of time off so you really don’t want them to be unhappy with anything. Once our next guests returned, a lovely family from Ireland who tested out all of the children’s equipment for us, and they told us what a lovely time they all had we started to relax.

One aspect that I hadn’t thought about when renting out our gite was that you get to know a little bit about peoples holidays which is wonderful, especially when they tell you they had a great time! So all in all our first ever rental was a great success and we started to relax.

2 Bedroom Gite in Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

So you’re first guests are coming in a few weeks, what do they need to know before they get there and what else should you tell them once they are there? Well obviously the first thing to know is where is your gite and how can they find it. Most people will have a large road atlas of France but it probably doesn’t really show the detail they need to find your lovely gite set in a small quiet hamlet, that won’t even get a mention on most road maps. We send our guests a document with various levels of map, gradually getting more detailed, that shows exactly where the gite is. You really don’t want to be getting a phone call from people who are lost and you certainly don’t want your guests starting their holiday by getting flustered and stressed that they can’t find your gite.

Once there they need to know how to get in. We use a key safe which means people can get there at anytime, day or night. So we obviously tell them the combination and some pictures of how to use it. If people have had a long journey even the simplest of things, like opening a key safe, can become tricky if your tired.

The next thing we send them prior to going is a cut down version of the information pack that’s at the gite. As we have a septic tank this warns them about the do’s and don’ts of a septic tank before they get there. This means that hopefully some of the information will stick in their minds once they are there. We also explain where the nearest supermarkets are and what their opening hours are. As we do a Saturday to Saturday rental people may arrive Saturday evening and leave there shopping until Sunday. This is more difficult in France than it is in the UK as the Hypermarkets are generally shut. If your guests know this in advance they may do their shopping on Saturday when they arrive, or at least know that they have to go to a certain supermarket before 1:00pm on Sunday before it shuts.

Finally we tell them the contact numbers they might need of our management company, just in case. It’s obviously a lot more comforting to be travelling to your holiday destination knowing that there is somebody you can call if anything goes wrong. This hopefully puts peoples minds at rest about travelling to the gite and they can get there with no problems.

Once at the gite we have an information pack for the guests that has the same information we have already provided, in case they don’t bring it with them, along with some further practical information. The extra information covers things like: emergency telephone numbers, rubbish and recycling facilities, location of the fuse box in case anything goes pop, where the stop cock is and information on the gas bottle in case it runs out. We also provide the kitchen inventory. This isn’t so that guests think we’re checking up on them, it’s so that they can see a list everything we provide and where it is. Often you don’t realise somewhere has something until you leave and then think “I wish I knew that was there as that would have been really handy”. We then have some more information on places to go, things to do and places to eat nearby, to start to point people in the right direction on what’s around locally.

In a separate folder we have the tourist information leaflets, organised by the type of activity / place it is. This gives a broader picture of what’s around and organising it, rather than just having a large pile of leaflets, means people can actually find things that they might find interesting.

Finally we have the guest book, where our guests have put recommendations on restaurants, places to and things they have done, as well as lovely comments on our gite. This is a great source of information for guests, especially the comments on things people have done outside the core summer months, as it lets people know if things are very busy at certain times of day or shut early or on certain days.

Hopefully this sort of information will provide guests with enough information to enable them to make their own choices about what they would like to do and to have a stress free and enjoyable holiday, as in the end, that’s what it’s all about.

Self Catering Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

Well time for another interlude from our posts on buying and running a gite and time to tell you about our trip to Disneyland in Paris. We have just spent 5 nights at Disneyland Paris and it was fantastic. We went on Monday morning and took the Eurotunnel from Folkstone. We had never been on the Eurotunnel but I must say it is brilliant. We planned to arrive in time for the check-in for the previous train, to give us time in case anything went wrong but it didn’t so we arrived at 7:30am. As we were in time for the previous train and there was space on it the check-in system gave us the option of travelling on this earlier train, which we obviously took and there was no extra charge. We boarded and it set off on time and we were whisked through the tunnel and in 35 minutes we had arrived in France, fantastic.

We then headed down to Disneyland and it took us just under 3 hours to get there. We were staying at the Disney self catering accommodation at Davy Crockett Ranch. We picked up our keys to our “log cabin” and our park tickets and we were soon settled in and having lunch. It was reasonably simple accommodation but very nice and clean and had most things you could want. The kitchen had two rings and there was a microwave but knowing this beforehand meant we brought some frozen meals we had made before that could be cooked on the two rings or microwave. We thought that eating Disney food for lunch and dinner for six days was just too much and we would be craving normal food in the evening!

After lunch we set-off for the park. which is about a 10 minutes drive from the ranch. It was amazing arriving in the bright sunshine to Disneyland and looking at the Disneyland Hotel at the entrance to the park. We headed in and arrived on Main Street which was incredible, with Sleeping Beauties Castle looking stunning in the distance. We went to Fantasyland, which is the main area for young children (the girls still being 3 years old), and went on a few rides and then headed back towards Main Street for the parade at 4:00pm. The parade was great and the girls were just amazed, seeing Buzz and Woody and Cinderella and Snow White, amongst all the others, and they just stood in awe for most of it. We went back for a few more rides and then headed back to the cabin.

The next day we got to the park and saw Mickey Mouse near the entrance, so we decided to queue so the girls could meet him. We ended up queueing for around 20 minutes and then they met Mickey. It was really good. The girls were amazed and turned quite shy but Mickey was very good and we weren’t rushed. The photographer even asked for our camera so he could take a group shot of all of us, and we didn’t need to ask which was really nice. Afterwards the girls kept talking about Mickey so I’m sure they enjoyed it. We then headed back to Fantasyland and went on some more rides. Fantasyland has quite a lot for small children: a Carousel, Dumbo the Flying elephant (which the girls loved), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (another favourite), Pinocchio, Peter Pan (the girls loved “flying” through the stars), the spinning Tea Cups (always a hit), the Alice in Wonderland maze, It’s a small world and a couple of other rides that were closed while we were there. We never had to queue more than a few minutes for anything (Dumbo being the largest queue along with Peter Pan but you can “FastPass” the Peter Pan ride), which is what you get for going during the week in January I suppose.

In the afternoon we headed over to Frontierland to see the Mickey Winter Wonderland show which the girls absolutely loved. We then went to see Woody and Jessie, as the girls love Toy Story and they were the only characters doing a meet and greet in the afternoon. Again the girls loved it and we had lots of time with them and they were so good.

On Wednesday we went to Discoveryland and we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which the girls ended up going on about six times that day as they loved it so much, the Star Wars ride and the car ride, which the girls could drive (even though they couldn’t really see over the steering wheel, Charlotte really is driving the car). I went on Space Mountain and that was brilliant, one of the best roller coasters I have been on. There was a Princess meet and greet at the castle so we met Cinderella and Prince Charming. We had booked the Cinderella restaurant for lunch, which is very expensive but we did have a great time. The girls met the mice from Cinderella (their favourite film at the time) and then met Cinderella, Snow White and her Prince and Ariel, from the Little Mermaid. The food was really good and the deserts were just amazing. Expensive but worth it for the total experience. In the afternoon we went to the Lion King show which was very good and the girls really enjoyed the songs.

Thursday we decided to go to the Studios which were very good but easily done in one day. We saw Minnie on the way in and so went to meet her, which again left the girls speechless. We then went on the children’s rides and then I went on Crushes Coaster, which is the longest thing I queued for and took 15 minutes but great. We then went to the Animagic show which was brilliant, another one the girls really liked.

After lunch I went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror, which had just opened and it was excellent, well worth a visit, and the Aerosmith Rock and Roller Coaster, very very good. The girls had gone on the Cars ride and the Flying Carpets ride and when I got back were meeting Chip and Dale and Clarice (the Chipmunks) and Donald and Daisy Duck. They loved meeting Daisy Duck, especially Daisy for obvious reasons. We all then went to the Stunt Show, which was amazing. The girls loved the stunts but they did get bored in the parts between the stunts but they behaved themselves very well but they were glad when we left.

On Friday we went back to the park to finish off the things we hadn’t yet done, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the Boat Ride. We also got to meet Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts and Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. After going on the girls favourites in Fantasyland again, the Tea Cups, Dumbo, Peter Pan and Snow White we had lunch and headed back to Davy Crockett Ranch for a swim. The swimming pool was brilliant but we spent our entire time in the jacuzzi’s they had, which were three jacuzzis linked together and the girls had a fantastic time and we had a very relaxing time.

Saturday was our final day and we had to leave after lunch to head home. The park opened early for guests staying at the hotels and Davy Crockett’s ranch so we got there before 9:00am. It was a lot busier than we had seen it and we did the girls favourites straight away before the queues built. We then did Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland maze, which was done very well. We then went to see which princess was doing the meet and greet and it was Belle, who the girls hadn’t met so we started queuing. She left though and was replaced by Sleeping Beauty, who again the girls hadn’t met yet so we continued to queue. Just as we were about to see her Cinderella turned up to replace Sleeping Beauty, who the girls had now met twice. We asked if the girls could meet sleeping Beauty before she went as they really wanted to and they were very nice and Sleeping Beauty stayed to meet the girls. The queues were so long for things now, well for us as we hadn’t had to queue for anything, we decided to go for an early lunch and head home. As we were travelling on the Euro Tunnel we could catch an earlier train. We got there two hours early and caught the next train, brilliant.

It really was an amazing holiday, the meet and greets were fantastic for the girls, the park was just stunning, the shows were great and the rides were very good, both for the girls and for me. I would thoroughly recommend it. 

2 Bedroom Self Catering Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

So can you make money from renting out your holiday home? Well that’s a tricky one, it all depends on what you consider to be making money. Having one gite, as we do, and living in the UK and therefore paying a management company to sort everything out for us does mean that, at the moment, we would probably be better off putting the money in a savings account and sitting back relaxing while watching your money grow. We do earn some money but if you look at it as a percentage of the value of the gite it isn’t a massive amount at the moment but we have really only just started out.

This shows you that we’re certainly not experts at this and it is quite a competitive market but hopefully we can build things up over time. So unfortunately we’re never going to make our millions from this but we do have a lovely holiday home that covers it’s costs and makes a little bit of money. Obviously if you have more gites and live on site so that you can manage the changeovers yourself it can certainly give you enough to live off, as there are plenty of people that do that. However this blog is about buying a holiday home and renting that out, rather than a full gite business of which we have no experience, so I’ll stick to that.

So what do you need to consider. Well obviously you have your outgoings:

• Changeover Costs - Cleaning and preparing your gite after each guest
• Taxes - Taxe Fonciere and Taxe d’Habitation
• Utilities - Electricity, Gas and Water
• Insurance - Buildings, Contents and Public Liability
• Mortgage Payments
• Advertising Costs / Web Hosting Costs
• Ware and Tear of Fixture and Fittings
• Building Maintenance / Decoration
• Telephone / Internet Costs
• Banking Costs - Bank Charges / Currency Conversion
• Any extra costs, such as logs for wood burning stoves
• Travel Costs to go out and do Winter Close-down / Spring Opening if you shut your gite down over winter
• Winter Checks - if you close down over winter you will need somebody to make sure things are all okay and your gite hasn’t lost it’s roof

The above costs should give you an annual figure that if you met would mean your gite should cost you nothing, except in real terms the lost revenue from interest payments if you just stuck all the money in the bank. You should also think about your start-up costs, equipping your gite with everything you need at the beginning and also any major projects you would like to undertake in the future, building a new patio, loft extensions etc. You can then add your target profit margin e.g. 5% to the overall costs and that would give you a target revenue figure to aim for.

You then need to think about how many weeks you are likely to be able to realistically rent out your gite and you can then work out, for low / medium / high season (or more sub-divisions if that’s what you like) what your rental rates should be to meet your target revenue figure. You then obviously need to look against the competition and see how realistic your figures are and you may need to lower your profit margin to set realistic weekly rental figures. If you’re very lucky you may be able to increase your weekly rental prices and therefore your profit margin (I wish).

So what can you do to increase your profit? Well there are three things, increase the  number of weeks booked by appealing to people who holiday outside of the core summer months of July and August (in our case), usually those with children under school age, couples or those with children who have left the nest; cut your costs, and / or increase your prices, by adding something unique about your property that will make people want to go there and willing to pay more, or just highlighting what you already have better than your competition so that people can understand why your prices appear higher but actually they are just great value.

You also need to think about when you are starting your marketing in comparison to your high season. As we started in April 2007 and our high season is July and August we started with lower prices as a lot of people would have already booked their holiday and so we had less time to fill our gite. We are now gradually increasing our prices over the next few years as our marketing increases and more people find our gite. For this season, our first full season really, we had high season booked out during October so maybe next year we could increase our prices a little.

When setting our weekly rental prices we have an all inclusive price, as we personally don’t like seeing a price for a holiday and then having to add lots of extras onto it to work out the total price. This is a personal thing though, so you can always separate certain costs out as extras on top of your base weekly rental price but when comparing against the competition, make sure you do compare like with like, e.g. if they include cleaning, linen and towels and you charge extra.

You then obviously need to consider tax. France has a tax agreement in place with the UK and you can therefore offset your French tax payments against your UK payments. I won’t go into the tax regimes here as that is a whole different kettle of fish.

So there are lots of things to think about when setting your prices. The main one really is what is the competition doing, how booked up are they, how much competition is there in your area, how many weeks can you really get and can you increase that number, does your property have anything unique that will mean you can set higher prices than the others and do people want it. Set them too high and nobody will come, too low and it could end up costing you money and if anybody has the answer, please let us know.

2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

Unfortunately not all of us can live in France and manage our own Gite, it certainly doesn’t supply an income I could live off, even if I lived in a caravan at the end of the garden on my own and I’m not sure how happy our guests would be if I did, or my wife. So I have to stay in the UK and work which leaves the problem of managing our Gite from the UK.

Well the simple solution to this problem is to use a management company. With these you can get a variety of different levels of service from just checking your property is okay every now and then to full management of your bookings and changeovers.

We have used a small family company, gite-management, that manages our changeovers for us and most importantly for our guests, provides a point of contact for our guests who are nearby so that any problems can be sorted out quickly.

Using a management company does mean that it costs you more, obviously, but it does mean that you can relax, if you have a good management company, and they can sort any problems out for you, even being there to receive a delivery from Ikea when we bought our new sofas that were going to be delivered 8 weeks after we bought them.

As well as providing the obvious changeover service - changing the bed linen, making sure the guests have left the place clean and cleaning the things guests wouldn’t necessarily clean like the oven, they can check the inventory, prepare your welcome pack and make sure that all of your bulbs and smoke detectors are still working so everything is perfect for your next guests. They can also provide your guest information pack, tourist information leaflets, gardening, key holding service (just in case your guests lose their keys) and property checks during the winter months when your property may be empty.

So how do you find a management company. Well the easiest thing to do, if you don’t know anybody in your area who uses a management company, is search on the Internet and ask on property owners forums. You then have to meet them to get a good idea of what they do and the level of service they provide and for them to understand exactly what you want. They will then be able to give you an exact quote as each property is different. From your point of view there is obviously the price to consider but also you have to be confident that the management company will provide the level of service to your guests that you want.

While using a management company means you may not earn your millions from your rental, it does mean that your property will be looked after, your guests have somebody close at hand to help out in any emergencies and you can hopefully relax in the comfort of your own home and enjoy your holiday home rather than it being a burden to you.

 2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2008

So you’ve bought your gite, done your advertising and now some people are going to stay at your gite, what do you need to do? Well first off, well done, it’s a big milestone getting your first guests.

The first thing to think of is who are you’re guests and what sort of market have you targeted? By our name, Brittany Family Gite, you can tell that we’re targeting the family market. This is more to do with the fact that we are a family and have set up the gite to be a great holiday  home for us and hopefuly if we love it, so will other people. We need certain equipment in the Gite to make our holiday simpler and a little easier for us and therefore we can make the same available to our guests. With small children simple things like blackout curtains can make the difference between a relaxing holiday and children waking up at some silly time in the morning and everyone being tired.

We want to minimise the amount we take on holiday and so we’ve catered to what we would like in a holiday home. As a family on holiday we also cook quite a lot which is also why we bought this gite, as the kitchen and living room are open plan. To that end we have also equipped the kitchen with the things that we think you need to fully self-cater for a family on holiday (like sharp knives!) and not just supplied a few pot’s and pans and basic utensils. We’ve also supplied various items of equipment for families with babies / toddlers. However we have made sure that this equipment isn’t so intrusive that those people without children feel that they’re surrounded by baby paraphernalia!

You need to make your holiday home feels comfortable and so you do need to dress each room in the style that suits your gite. However, you need to make sure that your guests can feel like it is their home for the time that they’re there, so try not to make it too personal or cluttered.

First impressions count, so think about how you’re gite will look when you’re guests first walk in the door. Maybe supply a little welcome pack, with croissants, drinks and a bottle of wine, all laid out on the dining table as a warm welcome. You’re guests have probably had a long journey so let them relax a little before they have to go off to the supermarket.

Then there’s a basic decision on bed linen and towels. We would never want to take this on holiday with us and so we decided to supply it, as other people like us wouldn’t want to take it either. This obviously increases your costs considerably, not just in buying several sets of bed linen and towels in the first place but most of the cost is actually in paying somebody to wash and change them after every guest, if you’re not around to do it yourself.

On a practical note, make sure that all of your bulbs work and supply some spares so that if a bulb goes your guests can change it if they want to, rather than call you or your management representative. Supply spare batteries for any remotes / smoke detectors and obviously supply a fire extinguisher / fire blanket in the kitchen, just in case. If you expect your guests to clean your gite before they leave, make sure you supply cleaning equipment / products for them. If you have any fireplaces make sure that you have them swept yearly and keep the receipt as you may need it for your insurance (check with your insurance company).

The best thing you can do is stay in your gite for a week or two before any of your guests, and at least once every other year after that. That way you’ll find out what’s missing and you can get to the supermarket to supply it. We stayed for two weeks prior to our first guests, to prepare everything and make sure everything was just right and we really needed it.

It’s obvious, but when buying plates, mugs, glasses etc buy more than you need and keep some stored away as spares so that they can replace any breakages that occur, things will break and you don’t want to end up with a mismatch of plates etc or trying to find the ones you have previously bought. A tip is to buy white crockery, as you can match it much easier and find replacements rather than trying to match a pattern which can go out of supply.

You’re guests will also need to know some basic information about the gite / local area before they get there and once they’re there.

Hopefully this gives you a few ideas on what you need to do to get your gite ready, think about your market and what people can reasonably expect to be supplied with for that market, make your gite homely but not too personal and try to create a great first impression with a small welcome pack so that you’re guests can relax a little when they first get to your gite. It’s a great way to start their holiday.

2 Bedroom Gite in Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2007