From Country Holiday Lets and Holiday Lets for Sale
For quality and value holiday cottages
01568 612467 for more. info@countryholidaylets.co.uk. Useful for new cottage owners: http://www.holidayletsforsale.com/advice-cottage-owners-info-pack/
This blog will continue for a few more weeks but will be replaced by our new combined blog now published at www.holidayletsforsale.com/blog Why not take a look?
Visit Britain Star Ratings are doomed. Quality has moved on.
Something radical has been happening to quality in the holiday letting sector and in Bed and Breakfast land. Two decades back you would be lucky to get more than a picture or so and a few details to choose where to stay. Today, in some cases, 30 + pictures are provided. What you see is fast becoming what you get. Why bother with the opinion of one paid inspector based on one visit, most likely, several months ago?
20 years ago, an inspector would call and report back; this was virtually the only quality control system in town. Now, Trip Advisor and other feedback systems have arrived. This has also prompted owners to publish feedback from visitors' books, e-mail requests for information and other sources. These processes not only give the public excellent information but also act as quality control systems for owners to keep on top of market expectations and to constantly monitor how well they are doing. Continuous improvement has arrived in the accommodation sector with a vengeance... no thanks to Visit Britain.
There is a strong argument that over the last 5 years Trip Advisor and the rise of massively better internet web site information allied with owner response has made the Visit Britain Star ratings an anachronism in the holiday letting sector. If it's not careful, similar developments could eventually shunt it into history in the Bed and Breakfast and, even, the hotel sector.
But bed and Breakfast guest still see the star ratings from the road. They are still significant pointers of quality for those wishing to stop off somewhere without planning, in advance, where to stay. This spot business is still important for the Star System and remains a significant chunk of Bed and Breakfast business. Such spot business is virtually unknown in the holiday letting market.
If the B&B market starts to lose the benefit of spot traffic generated by the stars there will be one less major reason for the survival of Visit Britain star ratings in their current form. Things don't look good. With the rise of hand held devices, you can, now, sit in the car and tap in to see all about the quality and reports of a place to stay.
The odds on the Star Rating of Visit Britain surviving in its present form over the next 5 years are very low. Quality systems have moved on and it only survives because many older people, (some not so old), have yet to adjust to modern habits and technology. The VB Stars are in danger of becoming an expensive anachronism to decay and die away along with the fast declining brochure market.
This would be a criminal shame; there is a huge opportunity to update and meet the likes of Trip Advisor and use modern technology, (instead of being its victim), in head-on competition. But which would you think would win in a fight between a brutal, highly competitive, 'take no prisoners' American corporation and a UK state approved and subsidised organisation complete with decades of organisational baggage and vested interest holding it back?
Visit Britain is in a fix. Pre-internet days are long gone. Without the intervention of exceptional leadership and top quality management the old Visit Britain Star system cannot survive.
It looks like is not a matter of 'if' but more a matter of 'how long' it can survive before the market crushes it.
If you like this style or are just curious, why not visit www.countryholidaylets.co.uk and www.holidayletsforsale.com?
From Country Holiday Lets
For quality and value holiday cottages
01568 612467 for more. info@countryholidaylets.co.uk. Useful for new cottage owners: http://www.countryholidaylets.co.uk/about-us/landlords-homeowners-info-pack and
http://www.holidayletsforsale.com/advice-cottage-owners-info-pack/
This blog will continue for a few more weeks but will be replaced by our new combined blog now published at www.holidayletsforsale.com/blog Why not take a look?
A strange thing in the holiday let and vacation rental cottage market.
Something odd has happened over the last 5-6 weeks. It is welcome and it is a sign of changing times. Normally, the vast majority of all business is from people on holidays staying as guests. Sometimes, we have managed to make special arrangements for people temporarily out of a home, for one reason or another, but these always have to be done in mind of holiday letting regulations and the alternative of short term residential tenancies.
In the UK, these are called AST or 'Assured Short Term tenancies'. If one of these is thought to apply, depending on factors like the lack of an alternative primary residence, then the protections and regulations for this type of tenancy automatically apply. In all countries, it is important to check and understand the difference between different types of tenancy or licence to stay in properties or apartments. Get this wrong and things can become fraught and costly.
But the new trend appears to be the rise of commercial custom. Over 25% of all rental income from bookings taken in September has come from commercials. In the main, they have been as groups of white collar staff needing to stay for a few days to perform a one off task. The economics are obvious. Local hotels, which are not that common, may charge about £60 per night.
For a party of 5 over 7 nights the bill will come to £60 x 6 x 7 coming in at £2100. For a high quality occupy 10 holiday let, the bill for this period is closer to £1100. This makes a saving of at least £1000. Take off £100 for groceries to cover what a hotel might provide at breakfast, and you have a net saving of £900.
This assumes that the holiday let only provides double beds with five bedrooms.
Several factors appear to be at work. The quality of new holiday lets in our area has radically improved compared to the tired and, often, very low quality ones still to be seen on many web sites. The rates of the new lets are often realistic and reflect current market demand where legacy lets are either sticking out for high rates that will not come back for some time or are painfully edging down rates in the hope that, at some point, they will hit the magic point were the demand of the good old days will reappear.
I am still going out to see holiday lets which are on some of the large agency web sites and, in many cases they are, simply, appalling. Some owners approach us because they do not want to modernise and blame their failure on the large agency; others approach when new owners take over an existing holiday cottage operation to discover many years of no investment with 1980s interiors, cast off, worn out furniture and other low quality features. I visited one, recently, and the owners were honest enough to admit that the breakfast table had actually been rescued from a municipal rubbish tip.
Commercials will never tolerate such poor quality. If they are to transfer from the organised environment of an hotel, they expect rightly, for sound quality which will show due respect for their occupation and efforts. If this trend continues it will have the pleasing aspect of being counter seasonal so increasing occupancy in the shoulder and low seasons. It might, in due course, even have some impact on rates.
Hotels have become lazy and some, even, still have the cheek to charge for wifi in bedrooms. They could be in for a shock with the arrival of high quality system built holiday lets, free from corn dollies, second rate furniture and 'they can put up with it' attitudes.
September booking index
It is too early to be certain but the September booking value index looks like it will be around 90%, perhaps a little more. Without the commercial bookings, it would have turned out to be a very poor month, closer to July. At least it would not have sunk to the depths of June.
If this trend holds up it could radically improve occupancy and income for modern holiday lets in less busy times of the year.
The full index to date will be reported in early October.
