What to provide in your Holiday Cottage

What to provide in your holiday cottage

Providing additional services and facilities can often be a differentiating factor for your holiday cottage and will certainly help with repeat bookings.  Welcome packs are a very simple way to create a good first impression and some simple facilities like DVD libraries are very popular.  We have set out some of the facilities and items guests are often expecting:

• Linen & Towels – the provision of linen and towels is very much expected by guests and if you do not provide these it could be detrimental to your business
• Cots & Highchairs – again for family sized cottages, guests will often expect the provision of cots and highchairs for younger guests
• Welcome packs – providing milk in the fridge, tea and coffee packs, a local produce basket and flowers will provide a good first impression for your guests after their often long journey to your self catering cottage
• Open fires – open fires or wood burning stoves in your holiday cottage are very popular, however, guests will also expect logs to go with the fire and the ability to purchase further logs
• Broadband – broadband access is becoming a very popular facility and most guests expect this service to be free
• DVD and book library – a very simple but appreciated facility particularly when the great British weather is not at its best
• Visitor books – it is worth while providing visitor books as they can provide helpful feedback on your holiday cottage although tripadvisor is becoming increasingly popular

Pets

Probably one of the easiest ways to differentiate your holiday cottage is to allow pets as the majority of self catering accommodation do not allow pets.  However you will need to consider the extra wear and tear and cleaning costs of allowing pets and the fact that you may put other guests off (if they are allergic to hairs).  Many cottages will charge extra for pets and pet owners will generally be pretty good in abiding by any rules regarding the pets (for example no pets in the bedrooms etc)