Some of you will have heard me ranting about this before and I do apologize. But sometimes it gets so frustrating!
Firstly, many people are not aware that we have to wait until after they leave to get payment for their stay. This caused much aggro in July when Goldtrail Holidays went bust and guests were asked by hotels to pay for their stay. The guests were right in pointing out that they had already paid for their whole package; but the hotels were right too as they had not received any money from Goldtrail.
And when I say we get paid after guests have left, I am being generous. Our contract with one of the big companies says payment will be made thirty days after guests check-out but we are currently owed more than a third of the total money for this season. In order to receive this money, we have to keep pushing the local agent, who will use excuses like they are waiting for money to come from the UK.
Today, they made us mad by ‘billing’ us for their free rooms. These are rooms we agreed to allow them to use, free-of-charge, for a promotion. Having failed to use this opportunity, they are now trying to ‘reclaim’ money for a paying guest – money we haven’t even received yet!
One of the companies usually sends payment in the form of a cheque, post-dated for some time in the new year. This would be bad enough by itself, but they add insult to injury by leaving us to pay the postage on the cheque – an insignificant amount but still a pretty poor gesture.
What is the alternative? Working towards taking only direct bookings as we did in the first two years we had the hotel. We have started to get our website updated and will be looking for cost-effective ways to advertise. I used to put ads in all sorts of UK publications, from the Bolton Evening News to Private Eye magazine. These days, however, with so many people booking their holidays on the internet, I will look for other ways to attract new guests….
