It’s not normal for our business side to spill over too much on the ‘blog. I prefer instead to keep you all entertained mainly. But, after so many instances of this happening to us, I had to get it off my chest. You see, we are normal people. We’re not some faceless entity on the other end of a telephone, or computer keyboard. We have all the same worries and stresses as you all do, plus a little more obviously with the difficulties of living & working in a foreign land.
So, our hearts soar when we get good news from ‘home’ – babies, weddings, new jobs etc. Equally, our hearts sink when we get bad news too. It’s because we’re human, and have feelings. But, being in the ‘people’ business, we often have to hide our thoughts and feelings so as not to impact on, and potentially ruin someone’s holiday. We have no problems whatsoever with that. It’s what we signed up for.
When we take firm reservations from someone, we usually take a deposit from them to secure their gite, or camping pitch. This is mainly in the spring/summer seasons, and provides a bit of ‘trust’ between us and the guests. The trust element is that because you’ve paid a deposit, you’ll want to turn up, and have a holiday. We trust you to turn up, and in turn we’ll help you have a fantastic stay with us.
In the low season though, we don’t take deposits. Mainly because it’s a hassle for you at that end, writing cheques, printing off, completing and posting over Booking Forms for what could just be a night or two. It’s also hassle for us as we take UK cheques as a convenience for our guests, but we have to pay our bank a charge for this service. But, when we have quite a few cheques to bank, it’s great. They charge us the same amount, and our guests are happy not to have to go through the rigmarole of getting euro cheques, or banker’s drafts etc. It works well.
Except in the low season, when we take bookings via. e-mail, confirm dates, and explain that we’d like to know that they’re definitely going to be arriving on the said date because we need to prepare. Preparing means cleaning out the shower-block. It’s printing off various leaflets full of information. It means sweeping up the leaves from around the place, mowing the lawns, and ensuring that the water heater’s turned on the night before their arrival to be sure of a good supply of free hot water. It usually takes us a good couple of hours of preparation. When we’ve exchanged at least two or three mails to the effect that this is all going ahead, we actually look forward then to meeting people. We give directions if needed, or any other help when asked.
So, how much effort does it take to send an e-mail these days via. a free wifi connection, at a McDonald’s en route, or to call from a mobile just to say that “we’re ever so sorry, but we won’t be arriving as planned – the weather’s awful”, or something like that? To hear absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip and Zilch is simply rude. It means that firstly we’ve gone to a whole load of trouble, when we needn’t have bothered, and secondly, and much more importantly, being human, it means that we worry.
We worry whether there’s been an accident. We worry that guests are lost, perhaps miles from anywhere, without any hope of finding us. We worry that we’ll never, ever get to find out the reasons why our guests didn’t show up. Despite all the e-mails, and sometimes ‘phone calls assuring us to the contrary.
Here’s a point in case. We still, even now, worry about what may have happened to the two bikers who booked in for a couple of nights. The weather wasn’t nice, it was awful in fact and they called just after tea-time to say they’d be late. We assured them it wasn’t a problem and that we’d wait up for them. If we’d have waited, we’d still be sat on the sofa staring at the dot on the TV. It was after 2:30am when we finally said enough is enough, we need to sleep! we never heard from this couple again – despite my sending them e-mails, and even calling their mobile to see if they were indeed ok. That was in 2006. We still remember that night.
This past couple of weeks have seen quite a few campers/caravaners laying over at our place for a night or two before continuing north or south. It’s very conveniently placed for either, and we often hear of how other places may advertise that they’re open all year round, but when you pull up to the gates, you’re faced with CLOSED UNTIL MAY.
So, we’ve taken a couple of bookings. Two were for yesterday. Neither showed up. Syb wanted to take a shower herself, but having Sheila to look after, and the potential for expected guests turning up at any minute meant that she didn’t. We both wanted to do stuff. Together. But we couldn’t as one of us needed to be here to greet guests with the usual smile, chat and the offer of a hot cuppa! We waited until after midnight before calling it a day. Worried again, because we’re normal. But this time, two-fold. Today’s Saturday, and we debated this morning long and hard whether we should brave the icy lanes and go do Christmas Shopping, or stay home in case our errant guests turned up. We went shopping, they didn’t turn up.
We’re beginning to see now that it’s actually not such a good idea to be open all year when we go to these lengths for people that just don’t show up, and we’re beginning to see why so many places that say they’re open, actually aren’t. It’s possibly something to do with the fact that they’re fed up of the ‘no-shows’ too.
We live here, so it’s easy enough for us to be open. It’s hard to make ends meet throughout these winters, waiting for guests to return in the springtime, and while we don’t depend upon the income a few winter travellers may bring (indeed, it’d be foolish), it’s nice to have a few euros to have in the pocket for those little emergencies. So please, if you’re travelling through France (or anywhere else for that matter) and you’re not sure whether you’ll make your destination, CALL the owners. At least that way, we’ll be able to save a little time, effort and cash!
Rant over. Because I’m normal again now….
Until the next time, au revoir!
TBC
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