Friday Changeovers?

[greenbarncottages]

Simple question for those who've been in the self-catering business rather longer than we have - do you find guests wanting a changeover on a Friday, and if you have, or have tried different days, is any particular day the most popular?
Thanks!

[_grockles]

We have some self catering units which are Friday change over. We find this works very well and during low season we split the week Fri-Mon and Mon -Fri. Guests have now been doing Friday arrival for 5 years and all enjoy having the Saturday at leisure. They also find the traveling is less stressful on a Friday We ask for arrival time so if they are coming late we can make arrangements for key collection with them, often they will come from work to start the holiday as it saves valuable holiday days! We ask them to phone when they are in the unit, that way I know that thay are in and can check they are happy bunnies. It makes the customer feel cared for.

[Puddingchops]

We are hoteliers and we expanded our business last year by buying two holiday bungalows.

These were on Saturday change overs, but short breaks were offered on anydays out of season.

We looked into marketing the bungalows with all the big companies and very nearly signed up with one, but when the agreement came through and we read the small print we decided very much against it. The thing that was very useful was the visit with the area rep. She advised us of changing to a Friday change over so we could offer three nights from Friday and four from Monday. these are charged at 70% of the weekly rate.

We now market the bungalows ourselves, as a differnt company to our guest accommodation business and we did implement the Friday changeover. There was no problem in keeping the regulars and yet we had the flexibility to offer the short breaks without loosing any unsold days.

[Elaine Stubbs]

I have self catering cottages and, during July & August, I will only take full week bookings from Sat - Sat. At any other time of the year I accept bookings for any day of the week for any length of time (minimum 2 nights). I have been in business now for 20 years and am always fully booked for July & August and have a 65% occupancy over the whole year

[hkw100]

I've only been in the business for about 10 months - I have a one-bed S/C cottage in Somerset - but I offer changeover day on any day of the week. I find that people like the flexibility of this, particularly retired couples who do not necessarily need to travel at the end of a working week.

However, this is only my first year, and I understand that once things start to get really busy as I build the business up, then I will probably have to stick to Friday or Saturday changeovers for practical reasons.

I think in the early stages when you haven't necessarily always got back-to-back bookings, it helps to offer the flexibility of mid-week or even start-of-week changeovers if people request them.

Hope that helps!

Harriet

[kendalcottages]

I do Fri-Fri bookings in the season and Mon-Fri and Fri-Mon out of season and feel it works well. I prefer it to Sat-Sat as, all being well, it leaves us free to enjoy our weekends together as a family.

[Windy]

Fri- Mon Mon-Fri Fri-Fri here - guest generally seem to prefer it and it gives us optimal flexibility. I think it's different for us in the UK with our on tap short break market - if I had a gite in france I'd do Saturdays because of travelling time.