Pet friendly or not??
Hi Everybody,
I am a new partner to Booking.com and have a holiday home which I have advertised as being Pet Friendly as I know many people like to take their pets with them if they can.
A few weeks in and a handful of four legged friend visitors I am now starting to question this as a 'Free' offering, unfortunately not everybody respects the property by cleaning up after their pets in the garden, along with having to have to purchase specific bedding for guests staying with their pets as trying to wash dog hair from pearly white bed linen is a nightmare...
All in all with the additional cleaning time of removing pet hairs from everywhere and cleaning up in the garden I am not sure whether to continue allowing pets at all and if do continue whether to impose a surcharge for our four legged visitors?
Any advice would be greatfully received and if you have any experience in a simialr situation how do you handle this.
If I do look to have a surcharge for pets do you know how to do implement this as I can only find in 'Policies' that you can change the policy from FoC to 'Charge may apply' but no option to add a fee?
Thank you
Sharne
I definitely would charge a $10 per-day, per-dog fee. The dog urine, animal hair on your beds and furniture, and more are worth charging guests more.
You could simply ask your arriving guests for a cash payment per-dog, instead trying to add the pet fee to your Booking,com reservation account.
Woof-woof!
Thank you Don :)
Most of our properties are dog friendly - we have a couple where pets are not allowed. Guests do not always tell us when they are bringing a dog - they assume there will be extra charges, extra rules etc, so they say nothing in the hope of avoiding any extra fees. If we did charge an extra fee for dogs, even more owners would say nothing. Fortunately, we rarely have problems from having dogs in our properties.
Our pricing takes account of "average" cleaning costs - sometimes, guests will leave properties spotless, sometimes they'll make a big mess. Occasionally, like today, one of them will leave a lot of dog hairs. The cleaners get paid the same for each clean regardless. Sometimes they have a quick and easy clean, sometimes it takes longer, but it balances out - and all cleaners are made aware that they are still paid for say 1.5 hours even if they only need to do 1 hour. They're all happy with the arrangements and the pay. So well-paid cleaners, given plenty of time for cleaning, helps to deal with a lot of problems.
We do also lay out the ground rules for bringing pets - owners must not allow dogs on the beds or the sofas, must clean up after them etc etc. Most guests are pretty good with this.
We do take some precautions like having loads of spare bedding, so if one set gets really messy from dogs, we don't have to stress about trying to clean them "right now", they can wait till a quieter time of the season. We might get "paw print pattern" bedding if more people bring dogs! We also have laminate flooring in the living rooms, but carpets in the bedrooms, so this helps with cleaning - and we have good vacuum cleaners and good procedures for the cleaners so that they always clean every property top to bottom, back to front, finish at the front door etc, which helps ensure cleaning is a high standard every time.
Hi Isle of Wight, this is exactly what I am trying to weigh up, its a good idea on an average price for all and flexible on cleaning (currenltty this is me but will be looking at having help as we build our reputation/bookings) rather than imposing a charge which I am 'fighting' hard not to do... I too am looking for doggy print bedding but at the moment I have just gone with patterned bedding. Thank you :)
Just another point.
Remember that people who regard pets as "dirty" or even have allergies to pet hair etc. will avoid your place. I guess you need to weigh up whether your area attracts more people likely to have to pets or otherwise.
As we are a hotel we must have a no-pets policy, it's the only way for us (despite being dog lovers ourselves!).
Good point on dettering some people by allowing pets, this also is something for my consideration and wieghing up the pros/cons along with ensuring no trace of our 4 legged freinds are not seen by Non Pet visitors :)