Should we charge for extras?

Charging for extra services in your holiday home may prove to have a negative effect on the total annual bookings. It may well be more beneficial to be seen to be adding extras for free. These days most people are asking for 24 hr free internet connection during their stay. It has become the norm and the annual cost to you as the home owner is coming down all the time. For example I discovered that this offer is available: Online Exclusive - Plusnet Fixed Price Unlimited Broadband & line rental £19.99
You may feel that you would like to ask a small fee for this, but perhaps it is better to include it in your overall rental fee, or absorb it. The same could be true of adding Netflix or Sky. This way your guests will see immediately what the holiday will cost instead of having to add all the extras to find out what the actual final cost would be.
You could argue that by not advertising your hidden extras allows you to display lower prices... personally I do not like the 'starting from' prices, which are there to entice you further.

Try also adding "what's included in your stay" to illustrate the extras you are not charging for such as free towel and linen service, free cleaning service, free logs for the fire, free baby high chair, welcome goodies and soaps.

The one extra that we decided to add to the overall price was a flat rate refundable damage deposit. Since guests have no intention of damaging your property they will happily pay this as they know they will get it back at the end of their stay. You can read more about why we decided to have a damage deposit in a previous article: Are there bad holiday guests?

4 simple improvements

Try leaving some personalised postcards for your guests to send to friends and family

There are many improvements you can make to increase customer satisfaction and gain new and repeat bookings, here are 4 simple ones:

• Remember that cleanliness really is the big issue. Keeping your property spotless and well maintained is vital so if you’re unable to do it yourself, make sure you find someone you can trust. A dirty bathroom or fridge makes for bad reviews, which could deter future customers from booking.

• Consider installing a hot-tub if you have space. Adding one to your holiday home is likely to increase its desirability. We did not have the space however we fitted a large wide bath with a luxury overhead rain shower, it gets most of the glowing comments in our guest book.

• Providing a welcome pack including locally sourced fresh products, a bottle of wine and the local paper (with a 'what's on' guide) is a nice touch. We also leave a few postcards. Since the cottage is in Cornwall, guests also receive a Cornish Cream Tea of scones, clotted cream and jam which helps make guests' arrival more welcoming, easier and creates a lasting impression. If you can accommodate guest dietary preferences in this that will also illustrate your willingness to understand their needs. It's amazing how much thoughtful touches like these can increase the likelihood of your guests re-booking or recommending your property to others.

• Most holiday makers expect the same mod cons they'd use at home, so a washing machine, dishwasher, microwave and free Wi-Fi are pretty essential, and a tumble dryer a bonus. You may also want to consider a coffee machine, sandwich toaster, slow cooker and other technology such as a DVD/Bluray player and Xbox.

I bought a Sony Blu-Ray and DVD player which has been perfect, no complaints from the guests, easy to use and takes up little space. I bought it from Amazon and this link takes you to the newer release of the same model. You may find something here more suitable, I just went for the simpler less expensive model.
We don't provide a sandwich toaster but the toaster makes 4 slices at once, we've had it since 2010 and it's still working fine, looks new, just remember to empty the crumb trays every week.
For coffee, we provide two types of coffee percolators rather than a larger machine with capsules. The most popular which works best on gas or induction hobs is this Giannini caffettiera or this one by Bialletti, if you want to know why, you can read another of my blogs at "So you want to live in Italy".