Owner Information - Cornwalls Cottages€¦ · cornwallscottages.co.uk | owner information call us on 01872 264441 cornwallscottages.co.uk is a new type of holiday property letting

cornwallscottages.co.uk

01872 264441

cornwalls cottages.co.uk

Owner Information

cornwallscottages.co.uk is different from existing agencies in that:

• We are less expensive • You have complete flexibility to use your property as you wish • We only charge for the bookings we obtain for you • You receive your funds soon after they are paid by the customer - we don’t hold onto your

money for months • You benefit from our powerful online booking system and database• We do not attempt to lock you in for an unreasonably long period

Introducing cornwallscottages.co.uk

cornwallscottages.co.uk | owner information

call us on 01872 264441

cornwallscottages.co.uk is a new type of holiday property letting agency which is less expensive and much more flexible than others. We are entirely internet based and concentrate on the power of the web to market your property using innovative techniques to give potential customers a real feel for the property before they book their holidays.

Who are we?

Richard and Lucy Beaman and David Mathewson are the Directors and owners of Cornwalls Cottages Limited. They all live in Cornwall and own holiday properties so they know the market intimately and think like property owners. Richard, our Managing Director, is a Chartered Surveyor with many years’ experience in the leisure industry and, whilst specialising in internet marketing, database and new technology development, controls most aspects of CornwallsCottages.co.uk. David, a Chartered Accountant by profession, has overall responsibility for all financial matters and assists Richard with new business development. Lucy, who previously worked in Human Resources, manages property information on our websites, contracts and other client administration.

Our offices are in Truro and where our experienced reservations team who are on hand to deal with web or telephone enquiries. Our marketing team and accounts department work closely with reservations ensuring a seamless experience for both guests and owners. We’re a close knit team, many of us are friends who have known each other for years out of the work environment.

We also employ a number of specialist consultants to the business, whom we feel give us a real edge over the competition. The field of digital marketing and in particular, search engine optimisation, is absolutely crucial to the success of your holiday home and we are confident that we have the experts on our side to help us do this in the very best way.

CornwallsCottages.co.uk started in 2009 with just three properties and now we have hundreds spread over the length and breadth of Cornwall. Our specialist area was originally the Roseland Peninsula where our first website, StMawesHolidays.co.uk, grew to such a size that we decided to expand to include the whole of Cornwall.

We all live in Cornwall so we know the area really well, which helps us to find the most suitable properties for all of our guests. Our reservations team visits the properties over the quieter periods to get a real feel for who they would most suit.

Our beautiful old central Truro Office, which is equipped with the very latest technology, is a really friendly place and we welcome a visit from you but, as we are dog friendly, be prepared for a warm welcome with many wagging tails!

Richard Beaman


email us at [email protected]


How much does it cost?

All the setup on our systems and initial photography, including a virtual tour of your property is absolutely free. Thereafter our charges are 18% (plus VAT) of the value of the any lettings that we book on your behalf for your property. Unlike many other agencies, we do not limit the number of weeks you choose to use the property yourself nor do we levy any charge for those periods.

How does it work?

We use search term technology to specifically target potential customers searching for holiday properties on the internet. Our experience over the last few years is that the vast majority of all holiday bookings are made either on or through the internet and this is only going to increase.

We have first page rankings for many local and Cornwall-wide searches on search engines for the following critically important searches:

• Cornwall Cottages

• Cornwall Holiday Cottages

• Holiday Cottages in Cornwall

• Cottages in Cornwall to rent

• Pet friendly cottage Cornwall

Each property has a complete listing on CornwallsCottages.co.uk. We use a variety of techniques to give customers a real taste of the home. This includes having a large collection of photographs, floor plans, integrated maps, testimonials, satellite photographs, an online video tour as well as full details of the facilities your property provides.

We have thoroughly embraced the modern world of holiday let advertising and have full integration with the biggest worldwide websites to ensure maximum exposure for your property. All properties are advertised with Booking.com, HomeAway, TripAdvisor and Airbnb and as a result of integration with affiliate websites, literally hundreds of websites worldwide.

We do not produce a yearly brochure as, in our view, this is an incredible waste of time, natural resources and of money that is far better spent on internet marketing. We take on a large number of new properties throughout the year and a brochure would be out of date long before it returned from the printers! We value new properties as much as those that have been with us for years.

We produce monthly email newsletters highlighting all of our new properties, as well as featuring some of our old favourites. We also include local information on activities and events around Cornwall in the coming month, keeping guests interested in the county and constantly giving them new reasons to visit.


call us on 01872 264441

Live Availability

Operating with live availability on our website, potential guests can easily search for properties that:

• are pet friendly

• have sea views

• are within walking distance of a beach or pub/restaurant or shops

• include a swimming pool / spa pool

• change over on specific days

There are many more search variables, including by arrival date and region. Prices are as advertised and therefore properties can be booked immediately.

For bookings placed online you, the owner, will receive an automatic booking summary notice via email. Once we have processed the payments for the booking and for all telephone bookings we email you again with full guest details for your records. We manage the balance payments automatically and send out full arrival instructions to the guests so there is no need for you to do anything to manage your bookings.

We provide an Owner’s section on our website so you can view all details of bookings, pricing and availability of your property. You can add your own owner bookings, as well as access financial information at any time.

Housekeepers can also have restricted access to your property via our website, viewing only guests’ arrival and departure information; no financial information is shown in their area. They can therefore manage arrivals and departures without you having to organise it on a weekly basis.

If you are looking to generate more bookings at any stage of the season or year, please do give us a call as we can certainly help. If you would like us to help you market your holiday property, please call us on 01872 264441 or email us at [email protected] for further information.



Everything is about maximising your property’s occupancy and your income.

• We provide online availability and booking for your property with a secure card payment facility.

• We manage all bookings right up to the point of arrival.

• We send out all confirmation correspondence to your customers including detailed arrival instructions.

• We email guests after departure to make sure they enjoyed their stay and if there is anything we can do to improve their experience.

• We ensure that there is always good follow up marketing to encourage bookings for future years.

• Your rental income is held in our client account and whatever we have received on your behalf is paid to you at the beginning of the following month by electronic transfer, less our commission and VAT. We also send you a monthly statement showing your bookings and analysis of your property’s performance – but you can look at this at any time online in the Owner’s section of the website.

Our website also offers a ‘Live Chat’ service, similar to big companies like BT, but of course with a much more personal touch. During office hours our reservations team is available online or via the telephone to answer questions immediately for anyone requiring help with property searches or bookings.

We also monitor all bookings and emails over the weekend when the office isn’t necessarily open. There is an emergency phone always in operation for any guests who need to get hold of someone immediately.

Site Visit

One of our Directors or a senior member of staff will visit your property to perform a full site visit, preferably whilst you are there to help answer questions and to provide as much information for our website as possible. If you wish they will provide you with recommendations to help you to get the most out of your property and make it appeal to the current market.

New properties to our site are initially priced manually, based on our expert knowledge of the market and achievable rates. However, once established, we highly recommend using our dynamic pricing software which optimises prices daily for your property based on a complex algorithm that analyses the market in far greater depth than we are able to manually. This software also provides valuable feedback so we can analyse how your property is performing against the market.

We employ a professional photographer and image specialist to take extensive photos of your property. She makes sure that your property is presented and lit to really show it off to its full potential. In addition, we will produce a full virtual tour of your property which is embedded into our website to provide potential guests with a really immersive experience.

There are certain requirements you need in place to legally rent your property as a holiday let and we will be very happy to advise you of these during our visit.


call us on 01872 264441

If you would like us to

help you market your

holiday property,

please call us on

01872 264441 or

email us at info@


for further information.

Contracts

Our contracts run for a full calendar year and they are automatically renewed for the following year unless you give us notice by the 1st September. That notwithstanding, you can give us four calendar months’ notice at any time, book out all unsold weeks and effectively leave us immediately at no cost whatsoever. The only requirement is that you honour the future bookings already obtained for you by us. During the summer months we perform a full price structure review of your property and email you with our proposed rates. As soon as we have agreed new prices we can open up your property for the following year and start generating bookings for the next season! We often find that people are keen to book their next holiday as soon as they return home from their last.

What about management?

CornwallsCottages.co.uk is purely a marketing and booking service. We are not able to keep keys or organise maintenance etc. However we do have a range of companies with which we work closely and would be happy to recommend the following:

On the Roseland Peninsula we have a close working relationship with Roseland Synergy. Roseland Synergy provides a range of services from key holding to cleaning, changeovers and callouts. For more information please visit their website www.roselandsynergy.co.uk.

Julie Kemp operates on the Roseland and in our Mid Cornwall section. Julie has a great team of cleaners as well as being able to offer property maintenance services. She can be contacted on 01872 864 952.

Knight Cleaning Services have recently taken on some of our properties on the Roseland/South East Cornwall sections and offer an excellent housekeeping and maintenance service. Chris can be contacted on 01726 675 25.

In other areas of Cornwall we may be able to recommend alternative housekeepers or management companies that look after some of our other properties. Please feel free to ask us about them when we come to visit you.






01872 264441

Visit cornwallscottages.co.uk or call 01872 264441

Cornwall’s Cottages Ltd,

The Coach House, Carclew Street, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 2DZ

[email protected]

Documents

Owner Information - Cornwalls Cottages€¦ · cornwallscottages.co.uk | owner information call us on 01872 264441 cornwallscottages.co.uk is a new type of holiday property letting