I DON’T WANT CRAYON ALL OVER THE WALLS
An article by Jo Price:
From time to time when I talk to holiday cottage owners about niche marketing to families with young children I do get met with negative responses. For example,
“I don’t want the neighbours disturbed by children”,
“I don’t want to have to fill the house with primary coloured plastic”,
“I would worry that they would fall down the stairs/in to the nearby river/off a bike” and although it isn’t usually said I suspect the next part of this concern is, “and I will get sued”.
“I don’t want a mess” of the crayoning on the walls variety or any other.
My next question is, “So do you ban childen from your property”. If the answer is yes, fine, that is their choice but talk about dramatically reducing their potential market. More usually, the answer is “No, but I don’t want them to be my main base of customers”
I would like to challenge all these statements and the beliefs behind them.
Families with young children, generally like their children to go to bed at a reasonable time. There is nothing more likely to ruin a family holiday than tired, grumpy children. Believe me, I’ve been there! This means that there will be very low amounts of outdoor noise in the evenings, probably none. Yes, children laugh and shout and play when they are happy and neighbours will hear this during the day probably. But no guests are silent and I am sure most people prefer this to some of the excess noise adults make. I know my neighbours in our tiny rural French hamlet do. http://www.cahorscountryhouse.com
Kiddy stuff doesn’t have to be ugly and just because adults have young children, it does not mean that they do not still want a luxurious holiday house. The difficulty they have is finding a lovely holiday cottage that is also child friendly. Clever use of appropriate storage furniture and aesthetic child furniture and equipment is easily achieved. I can recommend this link for a few ideas http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/242902/list/Decluttering–Minimalism-With-Children Barriers or stair gates can be removable so that when your holiday home has adults only staying, traces of child friendliness can be removed.
It is not as hard as you may think to make your property child safe, however there will always be some hazards that can not be removed. We have a pond in our hamlet which is public and so not fenced in. We “Parent Point” this and other similar hazards. In other words, we tell parents about it before they arrive so that they can be aware. At the end of the day their child’s safety is their responsibility, not ours. We are just trying to make life as easy as possible for them.
My experience of holiday lettings, and those of the other people I know who particularly aim their holiday cottages and gites at this type of customer is that they are the “least bother” guests. They acknowledge and are very grateful for the efforts that have been made to make the house so family friendly, far and above the travel cot and highchair basics. In return they look after the house with care and respect. My worst experiences as a holiday property owner have all been with adult only parties, and not just young adults.
If you would like some great ideas about how to aim your holiday property at this market then please do go to the following website link to request your copy of the book by Wendy Shand of Tots to Travel, entitled Empty Weeks. http://www.freeholidayhomerentalsbook.co.uk
If you would like a free remote assessment of your property and it’s potential to be marketed in this area please:
email me: Jo.price@totstotravel.co.uk
find me on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HolidayPropertyExpertJoPrice
follow me on twitter: HPEJoPrice
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