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Blue Canary
Landlady for 10 years in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, UK. Been renting out rooms for 5 of those years to contractors. Took the decision to try Booking.com for short term corporate and family lets when I encountered a down turn in the economy slowing down recruitment and impacting on tenant numbers.
Hi David, and anyone who has commented over the last three years. I did end up contacting Booking.com and to their credit I usually get through fairly easily on the phone. They said that I needed to list it as a one room apartment. I do think it puts some people off as they get very confused. And I still get questions from potential guests about the property, so I decided to add a picture with text across it saying they book the entire house to save confusion. Booking.com doesn’t appear to be set up for the sort of properties we let, but I’ve received a far greater number of bookings from them than their largest competitor. As this is a large issue it’s a shame that Booking.com appear to have set up this partner scheme (which effectively is just putting people in a room to discuss things with each other without any real expertise) to avoid offering any real help. It really is the blind leading the blind. The fact that no one from Booking.com actually has oversight of the content on these threads and hasn’t taken the time to provide guidance says a great deal.
I think you can share lots of information without the specific location. I always try to be as prepared as possible when I am a guest, so I understand when I receive lots of enquiries. Myself and my family have specific dietary needs so I need to know that I will be able to get to an eatery relocation that is convenient.
It might seem like a pain but it’s a job after all.
We always have a range of leaflets that have a selection of activities. While we are in South Cumbria and a lot of activities are outdoors, there are plenty of things to do indoors. We try to be as informative as possible with our guests. We generally don’t have cancellations because of the weather.
My guesthouse is self catering so we supply a simple continental breakfast of pastries, bread, spreads, cereals and milk and leave the guests to quiet enjoyment of their stay . They know where to contact us if they need and a lot of them enjoy reducing their expenses further by using our fully equipped kitchen facilities.
I have a wide range of guests at my guesthouse in South Cumbria, from families over the weekend to contractors during the week. I also enjoy having children’s theatre groups staying during the week. I agree with previous comments that the best guests the ones that pay ;) but of course as I go via booking.com I don’t have to worry about that.
I enjoy seeing the reactions of those guests who love their work or are on holiday. My favourite thing is to book in guests in person and see their reaction as they walk into my guesthouse saying ‘wow, it’s amazing!’ :)