On a Postcard

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Much as I seem to be quite busy these days, somehow or other I don’t have anything terribly visible finished by the end of the day.

How can that be?

The problem is that at the moment I’m effectively running households in two different countries and trying to get the related bits of administration done in both countries. That adds up to an awful lot of work to be done and an awfully large backlog of work that just hasn’t been done.

Popularity: 2% [?]

One of the real pains that we find at peak times is that often we’re only one of a whole series of places that some people make enquiries about accommodation.

On the whole it’s a pretty pointless exercise. We won’t hold a room unless it’s a firm booking so even though the room may well be available at the time of the enquiry, by the time the people enquiring about it get around to confirming, it’s been booked by someone else.

Sadly, this seems to be increasingly the case and I’ve seen people firing off a dozen enquiries for a single date to properties on our listings site. Those properties know that their position in the priority list so probably don’t even bother replying if they’re further down than three or four.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Today is looking to be our first really busy day of the year in the hotel so I’m cheating a bit and writing this ahead of time.

That it is today though is very unusual as every year previously we’ve basically been full from July 15th through to around August 21st. Presumably it’s down to the harsh economic times that we find ourselves in as we see many of the local hotels have had a considerable number of rooms free during a time when they’d normally be full.

Good times for the tourists that do come as the selection of hotel rooms and the prices are both much better than in previous years. However, that could well turn out to be a one year high for them as I see that a number of places local to us are in the process of closing down and seem unlikely to reopen next year.

Popularity: 6% [?]